Dolphin Wave 80

The Dolphin Wave 80 is a mains-powered commercial pool cleaner from Maytronics, sold for apartment complexes, condominiums and small hotel pools up to 20 metres (66 feet). Like the rest of the American commercial range it never had a launch announcement, so the catalogue brackets its year from the maker's own site: a January 2021 snapshot of the commercial list carried only the Wave 100, 150, 200 XL and 300 XL, and by April 2021 the 60, 80, 120 and 140 had been added. 2021 is therefore recorded as the earliest documented year, not an announced premiere. The robot weighs 11.17 kg and runs on 24 metres of swivel cable from a caddy power supply, moving 17 cubic metres of water an hour. It carries three brushes, one of them actively driven, cleans the floor, the walls and the waterline, and loads a fine filter kit from the top with a full-filter indicator; an ultra-fine kit is included in the box. A handheld remote is supplied, delayed start is supported, and there is no mobile app, weekly timer or automation mode. Warranty is three years. The interesting part is what this ranking of numbers hides. The Wave 80 sits below the Wave 100 in the range, yet it is the better-specified machine: the 100 has two brushes and none of them active, a filter bag loaded from underneath, no full-filter indicator and a six-hour default cycle, where the 80 finishes in two and a half hours and tells the operator when the filter is full. What the larger number buys is reach — 25 metres of pool and 30 metres of cable instead of 20 and 24 — and nothing else. This is the third machine in the commercial Wave line where the model number tracks pool length rather than capability, after the same pattern was found between the Wave 120 and the Wave 140. Maytronics does not publish a price on the product card; United States dealer listings put the machine at roughly 1,999 dollars, which the catalogue records as a dealer figure rather than a manufacturer price.

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