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A Brief History of Pool Cleaners
This chart, designed by Water Tech Graphic Arts Department Director, Robert Myers
shows not the year of invention of each pool cleaner technology, but the approximate
decade when each began to become popular.
Richard K. Cacioppo, Sr., J.D.
Director of Sales & Marketing, Water Tech Corp
Page 1
INTRODUCTION AND A PERSPECTIVE
The known invention of the swimming pool cleaner will celebrate its Centennial Anniversary in
2012, at least in the United States. A recent visit to the European Pool and Spa Expo in Lyon,
France - the largest pool and spa trade show in the world and as much as three times larger than
the annual International Pool & Spa Expo held each year in Las Vegas, Nevada - demonstrated
that pools and spas are anything but an American monopoly. Hundreds, if not thousands of
exhibitors showcased a myriad of pool cleaners of every type and variety. This article concentrates on the history of the pool cleaner in the United States, but the European trade show and
the research conducted for this relatively brief study made it clearly evident that the pool cleaner
owes its evolution to imaginative tinkerers, engineers and designers from all over the world.
This work was inspired after the author, during his 14 years in the industry, had heard and read
rumors, boasts, speculation and outright deceptive claims regarding what individual or company
invented the pool cleaner. It took but two days of intensive research to debunk virtually all of
them and finally publish the true facts. His education, experience and expertise as a trial and
appellate lawyer over the last four decades trained him to publish only factual material that could
be confirmed by reliable, provable evidence. The author includes opinion, speculation, analysis
and conclusions, but never states any of them as confirmed fact.
A word about the use of some of the terms in this study: pool cleaners, swimming pool cleaners,
vacs and vacuums are sometimes used interchangeably. So are the terms power-driven or powerized, which denote the use of an internal, usually electric motor. In most cases no attempt was
made to differentiate between manual and so-called “automatic pool cleaners.” The latter term
is technically inaccurate as there are no external machines known to the author that will clean
a pool or spa without some intervention or manual effort by the user. Electric robotic cleaners
come the closest, as they are usually self-contained machines with onboard motors and debris
collection bags and containers that operate independently of the pool’s main pump and filter
system. Still, even those machines require some manual effort by the user.
This work does not include any mention of central cleaning systems that are built into the most
expensive in-ground swimming pools that automatically attempt to vacuum and clean a pool.
These have their limitations as they operate from some central point in the pool, do not traverse
the pool floors, walls or steps, and do not scrub or brush a pool. It also makes only a passing
mention of the traditional method of manually cleaning a pool by the three step, arduous method
of skimming the surface with a net attached to a long pole, then sweeping dirt and surface debris toward the main drain and finally, returning the filtered water back into the pool. Nor does
it mention large commercial vacuuming systems, often powered by a 12 volt, automobile-like
battery, or extremely large commercial so-called “automatic” pool cleaners that are enhanced
versions of their residential ancestors.
In today’s society, the concept of vertical integration, integrating within one company, individual business, or divisions of a single company working separately is largely a thing of the past.
This will be discussed in the author’s upcoming book, 1962, The Year American’s Shopping
Habits Changed. Forever? Commemorating the Golden Anniversary of the modern discount
department store specifically, and generally a history of mass merchandisers, at the onset of The
Great Depression, the country’s largest retailers controlled their supplies and suppliers through
vertical integration. The first mass merchant, chain store and largest retailer in the world at the
time, The Great American and Pacific Tea Company, better known as A&P, owned or controlled
their own fleet of fishing boats, bakeries and canning plants. A&P was the Walmart of its day,
with about the same percentage of the United States gross national product the Bentonville giant
contributes today.
There are but two or three large manufacturing companies in the pool and spa industry, none
whose annual revenues are more than 1% or 2% of Walmart’s. Of these, their pool and spa divisions are but a small part of a larger conglomerate. All told there are less than ten manufacturers
who sell pool cleaners or vacuums in the United States. Only a few of these have their own
research and development departments where they actually design their own pool cleaners. The
rest have acquired the brands they sell through mergers and acquisitions.
Page 2
INTRODUCTION AND A PERSPECTIVE
(Continued)
Those who design and claim to manufacture their own pool cleaners usually subcontract the
manufacturing of their products to foreign nations where material and labor is far less expensive. It is the way of today’s world. Brand names are bought and sold and often licensed from
one company or individual to another. The manufacturer of the same model General Electric
toaster quite possibly was not the same company that made it last year.
The main source material for this article is the United States Patent and Trademark Office. As
explained later, the person or company obtaining a patent, and generally credited as being its
inventor, is sometimes the person or company that filed the patent application first. Typically,
a patent application must include one or more claims defining the invention which must be
new, non-obvious, and useful or industrially applicable. Many who were issued patents did not
necessarily create an actual machine, but often a prototype of their invention.
Probably the greatest inventor in history was Leonardo DaVinci, who rarely if ever built any
of his thousands of incredible product or system designs. Although a patent was reportedly
granted to a Florentine inventor twenty five years before Leonardo was born in the nearby
Vinci region of Florence, it is not believed that he went to the bother to even try patenting any
of his designs. Among his designs, was what is generally accepted as the first robotic machine,
which he sketched in the late 15th century. On the other hand, America’s greatest inventor,
Thomas Edison, when he passed away in 1931 was credited with 1,093 patents, although
many of them were created by his subordinate scientists in his Menlo Park and West Orange,
New Jersey Invention factories. Many say his greatest invention was inventing the process to
invent.
A DaVinci sketch of what may be the world’s first robotic machine.
Since he never actually built any of his wondrous machines, the question of how many would
actually work remains a mystery, although today several disciples and latter day admirers,
relying on Leonardo’s detailed sketches and notes have done exactly what the master did not
do. They actually built some of the machines. Many worked perfectly, including several that
naysayers contended would not.
Thus, many of the patented pool cleaners included in this work may never have become
commercially feasible or even worked at all. Those that did became industry icons.
Thomas M. Lachocki, Ph.D, (CEO of the National Swimming Pool Foundation in Colorado
Springs, Colorado, which is a 44 year-old non-profit dedicated to improving public health
worldwide by encouraging healthier living), upon reading an earlier draft of this article
poignantly commented, “It is interesting that the cleaner market boomed at the same time
the residential pool market did (50s–60s). This was when racial integration resulted in affluent (largely white) America moving away from public pools and building them in their back
yard. Of course, the strong economic times as the US was supplying world reconstruction
after WWII made pool’s economic feasibility strong.” He was right on. As will be discussed
in 1962, supra, the beginnings and later proliferation of the big box and other mass merchants
simultaneously occurred not coincidentally with the development of the suburbs following
World War II.
Page 3
INTRODUCTION AND A PERSPECTIVE
(Continued)
Up until then, all large department stores and supermarkets were concentrated in or just outside
the inner cities. As the suburbs grew, retailers followed. In the warmer climates those ex-GI’s who
returned from battle raised their families and moved to the less-crowded and more affordable suburbs, into homes with pools. The pool cleaner found its major market, as there were few residential
pools in the cities, and even today they only are found in some of the huge penthouse and other
apartments of the rich and famous who can afford to build a pool forty stories in the sky.
No story of the pool cleaner can be complete, nor can the table for its inventions even be set without a brief summary of the history of swimming and swimming pools. The United States Census
Bureau reports that next to walking and jogging, swimming is the second most popular recreational
exercise among Americans. They estimate that 42% of all citizens swim regularly. Water Tech,
with help from numerous research firms, estimates that as many as one out of every four Americans, over 70 million in all live in a dwelling with some type of a pool or spa, from the iconic kiddie
pool to the largest and most expensive indoor ultra-luxurious creations. Today, there is a cleaner
or vac for every pool, spa and budget, although only one of the manufacturers make products that
will effectively clean more than 20% of all pools and spas.
The First Swimmers
A brief history of the swimming pool cleaner cannot be told without some perspective regarding
the history of swimming and swimming pools. Recreational swimming is almost as old as civilization itself. The earliest civilizations began almost simultaneously over 6500 years ago in what is
today’s China, Iraq, India and Egypt. Drawings from the Stone Age were found in “the cave of
swimmers” in the southwestern part of Egypt near Libya, capturing the technique of the breaststroke and the dog paddle. Other references to swimming were found in Babylonian bas reliefs and
Assyrian wall drawings, depicting a variant of the breaststroke. The most famous drawings were
found in the Kebir desert and are estimated to be from around 4000 B.C. The Nagoda bas-relief
also shows swimmers dating back from 3000 B.C. An Egyptian tomb from 2000 B.C. shows a
variant of the front crawl. Depictions of swimmers were also found from the Hittites, Minoans,
and other Middle Eastern civilizations, the Maya in the Tepantitla House at Teotihuacan, and on
mosaics in Pompeii.
The Greeks did not include swimming in the ancient Olympic Games, but practiced the sport, often
building swimming pools as part of their baths. One common insult in Greece was to say about
someone that he or she “neither knew how to run nor swim”. The Etruscans at Tarquinia (Italians)
show pictures of swimmers in 600 B.C., and tombs in Greece depict swimmers in 500 B.C. A series
of relics from 850 B.C. in the Nimrud Gallery of the British Museum shows swimmers, mostly in
military context, often using swimming aids.
In Japan, swimming was one of the noble skills of the Samurai. Historic records describe swimming competitions in 36 B.C. organized by emperor Suigui, which are among the first known
swimming races.
Swimming was initially one of the seven agilities of knights during the Middle Ages, including
swimming with armor. However, as swimming was done in a state of undress, it became less
popular as society became more conservative and it was opposed by the church at the end of the
Middle Ages. For example, in the 16th century, a German court document in the Vechta prohibited
the naked public swimming of children.
In 1538 Nicolas Wynman, a German professor of languages, wrote the first swimming book,
Colymbetes. Around the same time, E. Digby in England also wrote a swimming book, claiming
that humans can swim better than fish.
In 1696, the French author Melchisédech Thévenot wrote The Art of Swimming, describing a
breaststroke very similar to the modern breaststroke. This book was translated into English and
became the standard reference of swimming for many years to come, and was read by Benjamin
Franklin.
Predating actual swimming pools, early European-Americans were inspired by the rituals of many
Native Americans who would dig holes in the ground, fill them with water that they heated. Then
use as a form of hot water therapy.
The first German swimming club was founded in 1837, while in Britain a major swimming competition was held in 1884 in London that included some Native Americans.
Page 4
The Earliest Swimming Pools
History may have lost the date of the first swimming pool, but what is known is that the Indian
palace Mohenjo Daro from 2800 B.C contains a swimming pool sized 30m by 60m. The Minoan
palace Minos of Knossos in Crete also featured baths. The first heated swimming pool was built
by Gaius Maecenas of Rome in the first century BC. Gaius Maecenas was a rich Roman lord and
considered one of the first patrons of the arts. He supported the famous poets Horace, Virgil, and
Propertius, making it possible for them to live and write without fear of poverty.
The first indoor swimming pool was built in England in 1862. An Amateur Swimming Association
of Great Britain was organized in 1880 with more than 300 members.
In 1879 King Ludwig II of Bavaria built a swimming pool in castle Linderhof. This is believed to
be the first artificial wave pool and also featured electrically heated water and light.
However, swimming pools did not become popular until the middle of the 19th century. By 1837,
six indoor pools with diving boards were built in London, England. After the modern Olympic
Games began in 1896 and swimming races were among the original events, the popularity of
swimming pools began to spread.
The author in 2007 at one of the world’s oldest and most famous pools in Pompeii, Italy. After a tough hike up the
eerily, still-smoking Mount Vesuvius that devastated the town in 79 A.D, a refreshing swim would have been nice, but
apparently the ancients did not have a pool vac, and had to empty the water to clean it.
World-Famous promoter Tex Rickard, the P.T. Barnum of his day, took a page from Barnum who had used the first
of four Madison Square Gardens, then called “The Great Roman Hippodrome” for various promotions. Rickard better known as a boxing promoter played a part in 1922 when Madison Square Garden II built the world’s largest pool.
Famous aquatic acts of the day were performed there, but the public was also allowed to use it. Six thousand people
showed up the day it opened. Unfortunately, photos of the actual pool could not be easily located, nor of the reported
system of vacuums used to clean the walls.
Page 5
The Earliest Swimming Pools
(Continued)
Also lost is the date and location of the first American residential swimming pool. Most probably
early residents first dug watering holes outside their property, then on their property, and eventually strengthened the floors and sides with either wood, brick or some early form of concrete.
The first known commercial swimming pool is believed to have been built in Brookline, Massachusetts in 1887. Within a few years as the manufacturing of steel was refined and made far more
readily available than ever before, contractors began to combine it with concrete and cement to
form the early versions of today’s Gunite swimming pools.
It is no wonder that a member of the so-called “Building” Vanderbilt’s, had one of the first significant residential swimming pools. Built in what still, 110 years later is the largest American
residence, the Biltmore is located in rural Asheville, North Carolina. George Vanderbilt, youngest
grandson of the legendary Commodore Vanderbilt, at the ripe old age of 26, out did his older siblings and cousins and their famous Newport cottages. The Biltmore boasts 4 acres of floor space,
the 250 room mansion featured 34 master bedrooms, 43 bathrooms, 65 fireplaces, 3 kitchens, and
an indoor swimming pool. Priceless art works and furnishings adorned its interiors. The surrounding grounds were equally impressive, encompassing 125,000 acres of forest, park, and gardens.
This was a most fitting place to start the American residential swimming pool industry. By the
early 1920’s about twenty pools a year were being built in Southern California. Today, according
to P.K. data, the Georgia company commissioned by the former NSPI and now APSP estimates
that there are conservatively more than 13 million pools, spas and hot tubs standing, not including
several million portable and an estimated 20-25 million kiddie or wading pools.
And Then Came The Pool Cleaner
It is amazing that today with the millions of pools, spas and hot tubs in place, that perhaps the
majority of pool owners still clean their pools, the old fashioned way … skimming the surface with
a net, brushing and vacuuming by connecting a long hose to the main pool filtering system. Yet
slowly, but surely, powered swimming pool cleaners are getting more and more popular. A recent
survey by Water Tech, inventor of the Pool Buster battery-powered pool cleaner came up with no
less than 150 different brands and models.
Like pools themselves, there almost certainly was not a single inventor or a single powered pool
cleaner that has been recorded in history as the first such machine. Many of today’s manufacturers of pool cleaners have over-zealously, and often irresponsibly attempted to rewrite history,
claiming that a company they acquired, invented the first automatic pool cleaner. The industry
abounds with rumors and inaccurate recollections. Most of these claims are pure fiction, including
a recent article in Wikipedia that contends the first automatic pool cleaner, the Kreepy Krauly was
invented in 1974. Hogwash! This is akin to claiming the 1974 Chevrolet was the first automobile.
The true story readily available lies within the database of the United States Patent and Trademark
Office (USPTO), at least in regards to the pool cleaner in America. In today’s era of cut throat
competition, any new invention, if it is to have any commercial value must be patented. The
USPTO was established by George Washington who issued the Patent Act in 1790 and the first
patent, signed by President Washington was issued to Samuel Hopkins for an improvement “in the
making of Pot ash and Pearl ash by a new Apparatus and Process.”
Many Americans tend to believe that we invented everything, and the rest of the world is always
far behind. Of course, that is not true. In 500 BC, in the Greek city of Sybaris (located in what is
now southern Italy), “encouragement was held out to all who should discover any new refinement
in luxury, the profits arising from which were secured to the inventor by patent for the space of a
year.”
The Florentine architect Filippo Brunelleschi received a three-year patent for a barge with hoisting
gear, that carried marble along the Arno River in 1421. In 1449, King Henry VI granted the first
patent with a license of 20 years to John of Utynam for introducing the making of colored glass
to England.
Patents in the modern sense originated in 1474, when the Republic of Venice enacted a decree
that new and inventive devices, once put into practice, had to be communicated to the Republic to
obtain the right to prevent others from using them.
Page 6
And Then Came The Pool Cleaner
(Continued)
While this article is not intended to be a history of intellectual property, the foregoing is mentioned
to debunk the great amount of false information that abounds as to the history of the pool cleaner.
Many great innovators who invented some of the world’s great products, the telephone being a
great example were never given the credit deserved because someone beat them to the Patent
office. But, on the other hand, the existence of a patent dispels false information that someone
invented the pool cleaner years after the first patent was filed.
A search of the United States Patent and Trademark Office disclosed that today’s powerized
swimming pool cleaners evolved slowly from the combinations of a variety of other machines …
pumps, motors, rotating brush devices, and particularly cisterns. The forerunner of today’s pool
cleaners were cistern cleaners. A cistern (Middle English cisterne, from the Latin cisterna, from
cista, box, from Greek kistê, basket) is a waterproof receptacle for holding liquids, usually water.
Often cisterns are and were built to catch and store rain-water. The great palaces of antiquity had
both lavish pools and cisterns. They were prevalent in early America as well. The USPTO makes
reference to a cistern cleaner patent being filed, although never issued as early as 1798. Before
swimming pools were affordable and fashionable, many swam in their larger cisterns.
In 1883 John E. Pattison of New Orleans filed an application for a “Cistern and Tank Cleaner,”
and the first discovered patent was issued the following year. It swept and scraped the bottom of
a cistern or tank and through a combination of suction and manipulation of the water pressure
was able to separate and remove sediment without removing the water. Over the next 20 years his
invention was improved on numerous occasions. Many pool cleaner patents issued in the modern
era refer to some of the cistern cleaners as antecedent to their invention.
The first cistern and water tank cleaner (l.) invented by Pattison in 1883, and two other designs of the 1890’s.
In 1912 while the air was black with the smoke of the great steel mills in Pittsburgh, local citizen
John M. Davison submitted an application of a “Cleaning Apparatus For Swimming Pools And
The Like.” It read: “My invention relates to the art of dredging and is particularly designed for
cleaning the bottoms of swimming tanks, and the like, where sediment collects, and it is desirable to remove without emptying the water in the tank”. As stated above, Americans did not
invent everything, and there are a variety of references in many patents issued by the USPTO to
foreign antecedent patents although most appear to be various parts that were incorporated in the
applicant’s invention. But it is safe to say if Mr. Davison did not invent the first pool cleaner, he
certainly was issued the first patent in the United States for it.
Page 7
And Then Came The Pool Cleaner
(Continued)
Dawson’s 1912 “Cleaning Apparatus For Swimming Pools and the like,” the first U.S. Patent issued for a pool cleaner.
There is no readily available evidence the Davison Pool Cleaner was ever commercially produced,
or even if he ever manufactured one.
The next attempt to perfect a pool cleaner tool was about ten years later when Texan Jordie J. Johnston applied for a patent that looked more like one of today’s liquor or serving carts in a restaurant
than something that presumably would roam around the bottom of a swimming pool filled with
water. The examiners at the USPTO must have also scratched their heads as it took them eight
long years before they issued him a patent.
Imagine seeing a pallet of Johnston’s pool cleaners stocked on the floor or shelves in a Leslie’s Poolmart.
Page 8
And Then Came The Pool Cleaner
(Continued)
Another fifteen years went by when in 1937 Roy B. Everson of Chicago filed the first patent for a
machine that actually looks akin to some of today’s pool cleaners, brushes et al. Everson should
be credited with inventing the first modern pool cleaner!
In 1937, Everson filed a patent for perhaps the first machine that had some likeness to a later century pool vacuum.
Ferdinand Chauvier a native of the Belgian Congo, who emigrated to South Africa in 1951 and
then to the United States, allegedly began to tinker with an idea he had just after World War II
in 1947. It took him twenty seven years before his device was finalized. The first Kreepy Krauly
made of wood was “invented.” It does not appear to have been patented until 1977, two years
earlier in South Africa. The Kreepy Krauly may have earned the claim of its current owners, Pentair, that it is the best selling pool cleaner in history, purportedly over 1.5 million sold (although
Polaris may truly earn that distinction, and the explosively growing Water Tech Pool Blaster line
is expected to topple everyone else within the next few years). However, it missed being the first
pool cleaner by at least sixty one years.
Chauvier’s first recorded U.S. Patent was not issued until 1977, making one wonder why the
makers of the Kreepy Krauly contend it was the first automatic pool cleaner.
Page 9
And Then Came The Pool Cleaner
(Continued)
The true era in pool cleaner design really caught hold in the 1950’s and 1960’s, probably because
Florida, Arizona and California began to mushroom in population, and who from Chicago or Detroit would move to a sun-shine state and not have a swimming pool?
In 1953 northern California’s Oliver M. Lombardi filed a patent application for a device that resembled a typical stick home vacuum cleaner. He claimed it was “light in weight, easy to handle
and inexpensive to manufacture,” and required no outside electrical power, its power source being
a garden hose.
In 1953 Lombardi filed an application for a patent, which was issued in 1956 looked
like a home vacuum cleaner, perhaps the first that was powered by a garden hose.
Upstate New York’s Hugh H. Babcock’s 1955 “Submarine Suction Cleaner,” might be the most
referenced antecedent device in later patents, and arguably the first truly automatic pool cleaner. It
may also be the first electric robotic pool cleaner. Babcock claimed it traversed the floor and even
had its own self contained suction motor. In reality, this innovation was really a pump with a filter
that discharged water and sediment out of the pool. “Conveniently used to water grass or plants,”
he claimed (although one wonders how one’s petunias would deal with harsh pool chemicals).
While not included in the application, it did state that “where filtering equipment is available, the
water from the discharge hose is filtered and returned to the pool.”
Babcock filed for a patent in 1955. He appears to have invented the first electric-powered
pool vacuum, the forerunner of today’s electric robotics?
Page 10
And Then Came The Pool Cleaner
(Continued)
The next year, another northern Californian, Joseph Eistrup invented a “Pool Cleaner” and applied
for a patent for a device that could easily be confused with one of today’s commercial leaf vacuums. Not coincidentally, removing them from the pool was his primary claim.
Eistrup’s 1956 idea that he claimed was great to scoop up leaves.
Two years later Andrew L. Pansini, founder of Jandy, made an indelible mark in the pool industry
by inventing what the author originally mistakenly believed was the first automatic pool cleaner.
And why not? Jandy, which was later acquired by the huge Teledyne corporation claimed that
it was. What this may have been was the first pool cleaner patent to claim the title, “Automatic
Swimming Pool Cleaner.” This was not a simple machine. It required use of the house water supply, presumably a faucet, attached to a hose and the main pump and filter system of the pool. It
took the patent office four years before deciding to issue Pansini his patent.
Jandy founder Andrew L. Pansini’s novel idea was mistakenly credited
by the author in an earlier version of this article as the
first automatic pool cleaner. Closer in time to the real first one than the
Kreepy Krauly claim, but still more than five decades off.
.
Page 11
And Then Came The Pool Cleaner
(Continued)
In 1960 Ronald E. Bowles applied for and received a patent three years later for this design
that looks like a hand-held floor polisher.
What followed was a rash of other suction side cleaners, none of which appeared to have any
immediate commercial impact. Perhaps the most successful early pool manufacturing company
was AquaVac Systems of West Palm Beach, Florida, recently sold to Hayward Pool Products
of Elizabeth, New Jersey. According to The Complete Story published on the Hayward website,
the company began selling residential and commercial pool cleaners in 1962. This was a pivotal
year in American retailing (see the upcoming book 1962: The Year America’s Shopping Habit
Changed. Forever, by the author) as Walmart, Target, Kmart and virtually every major surviving
discount department store chain all were founded that year.
The Aqua Queen was truly revolutionary. Reputed to weigh over 40 lbs. and according to those
who remember it, the big lug bumped around from wall-to-wall. Surprisingly the USPTO has
no record of any patents being issued for the owner of AquaVac Systems in the early 1960’s, the
company or any robotic pool cleaner that can be confirmed clearly as an Aqua Queen. Two prime
candidates might be the 1963 “Pool Cleaning Device” invented by Benjamin H. Watson or that
year’s “Swimming Pool Cleaner” by Ralph J. Gelinas. However, neither was independent of the
main pool pump and filter, which seems to disqualify both patents. Since few of today’s manufacturers have their own sophisticated research and development departments or divisions, even a
close inspection of issued patents can be tied to them to most of the best selling pool icons.
In the early 1960’s Gelinas and Watson patented what originally were candidates for the Aqua Queen,
but since they were not self-powered they could not have been.
Watson’s design however may have influenced the Queen’s design.
Page 12
And Then Came The Pool Cleaner
(Continued)
The original patent for the Aqua Queen remains a mystery, still to be solved by the author. Regardless, the true era of the robotic pool cleaner was developing thousands of miles away and not
realized until a decade and a half later. This will be explained a little later.
Many old-timers point to the famous Arneson Pool Sweep as being what they think was the
first automatic pool cleaner. It was a site to behold, a central unit with tentacle like extrusions
roaming all over the pool. Howard M. Arneson distinguished himself as more than the inventor
of a pool industry icon. He also made a major impact in power boat racing, both as a driver and
inventor. But, his Pool Sweep was probably the forerunner of today’s pressure-side cleaners, for
years afterwards literally dominated by the Polaris and its large variety of models, starting with
the 180 (apparently models 1-179 were early experiments). The first patent discovered and filed
by Arneson was issued in 1965. As complex as it seemed to be, the fact that it not only worked,
but became an industry icon is clearly a tribute to the engineering skill of its designer.
If a vote was taken among industry veterans as to which was the first automatic pool cleaner, the Arrneson Pool Sweep
might have been the top vote getter. A memorable and iconic product, but alas, not the first by far.
Over the course of several years beginning in 1967 Florida’s Robert R. Myers submitted numerous applications that led to a 1971 patent for a very complex machine that used electricity. Myers’
invention had numerous sensors, levers and shafts and collected the debris in an onboard bag.
Although not contained inside the body it may qualify as the first present day electric robotic
cleaner. Its outward appearance was much more similar to a Polaris.
Water Tech Graphic Arts Department Director (see cover graph) insists that this 1967 design is not it. Regardless,
it has some of the visual characteristics of the Polaris and other later machines, but is the top candidate as the first
relatively modern version of an electric robotic cleaners.
Page 13
And Then Came The Pool Cleaner
(Continued)
While the privately-held Polaris Pool Systems closely guarded virtually everything about its products, it almost undoubtedly did more to popularize the so-called automatic pool cleaner than any
other company in the last third of the 20th century. The Kreepy Krauly, early versions of the Baracuda and one of the most famous of all, the Jandy Ray-Vac all helped build the industry.
The progenitor for the patent for the Polaris line is probably a 1972 application in which a patent
was issued in 1974 to Melvyn L. Henkin, a resident of Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley. Now
that Zodiac is involved, it has expanded its Polaris brand name into other products, the most notable being an electric robotic unit with all the bells and whistles and then some. However, it is
also not for the average pool owner.
Suction side cleaners remain the mainstay of the automatic swimming pool industry. Today they
are being churned out in China for a song and offered to anyone that wants to undersell the competition. But it is almost universally agreed, except in China that these are not worthy of the great
innovation and creativity of many of those discussed above. Baracuda, Hayward’s almost threedecade old Ultra Vac and even Chauvier’s Kreepy Krauly, and a bevy of other makes and models
are still the choice of the majority of the pool owners who opt for an automatic cleaner. Even
though none of them are really automatic. They are closer to being a vacuum head extended from
the pool’s suction valves by a long, bulky hose than an independent machine.
Henkin’s 1972 application and subsequent Patent has “Polaris” written all over it.
In 1983, Aqua Products entered the market with more technological advancements. The company
launched its Aquabot residential micro-filter (allegedly 2 micron filtering ability) cleaner and the
Aqua Max series of commercial pool cleaners after considering the market and limitations of the
competition. It followed with other innovations, remote controlled cleaners and huge commercial
monstrosities costing upwards of $6,000. One of their inventive ideas that never quite took hold
was the Aquabot Bravo Lumina, which featured a neon light in the handle. It would not shock
anyone who knows the designer and president of Aqua Products, Giora (“Jerry”) Erlich, if a talking unit is on the drawing board. The company was recently sold along with its international sister
company Aquatron, to Fluida, a Spanish conglomerate that includes the European industry giant
Astral. Aqua Products has long competed with two main rivals in the robotic swimming pool
industry, AquaVac Systems, mentioned above, and Maytronics. Maytronics was founded in Israel
and entered the American market with Erlich as its American representative. Before he partnered
in forming Aqua Products with one of Maytronics’ principals, Aquatron’s former top executive and
still co-owner, Joseph Porat.
Although the author spent seven years working with Erlich and Porat, including working with their
outside legal counsel, both have always been tight lipped as to how Maytronics’ Dolphin seemed
to evolve into Aqua Products’ Aquabot. The usual explanation was that “We have a licensing
agreement.” The two companies have done battle in both foreign and American courts over time,
but there is no dispute that the Aquabot is a later version of the original Dolphin.
Page 14
And Then Came The Pool Cleaner
(Continued)
It was not until 1979 that a patent was issued on a 1977 application for what became the Dolphin and Aquabot lines. Wilhelm Rasch of the Federal Republic of Germany who was by then
deceased was credited with being the inventor, along with Gertrud Rasch, heiress, Bleicherwalkstrasse 12, Ulm-Donaus, also then West Germany.
No, the “heiress” credited in the 1977 application and 1979 U.S. Patent (1974 in South Africa) was not named
Gloria Vanderbilt, Doris Dukes or even Paris Hilton, but Germany’s Gertrude Rash. Maytronic’s Dolphins and
Aqua Products Aquabots all trace their lineage to this one.
The progeny of this invention was a growing line of Dolphins, Aquabots and a horde of residential and commercial products that dominated the American robotic pool cleaner market for
the last three decades. Comparing the first Aqua Queen to any of these machines would be like
comparing a 21’, 7,000 lb. early 1930’s Bugatti Royale with a seek new electric Tesla sports car.
They were faster, far more efficient and climbed the walls of the pool. These electric robotics
were and are the most technologically-advanced pool cleaner designs in the world. More than
thirty five years after the first patent was issued in South Africa, neither company, their smaller
competitor AquaVac or any other company in the world has patented a significantly-improved
robotic machine. Many changes, bells and whistles, like the Aquabot Turbo Remote Control
model have occurred and been patented, but nothing really revolutionary, at least for the socalled automatic pool cleaners.
Until the 21st century began, there were three basic pool cleaner technologies, suction-side (i.e.
the Kreepy Krauly), pressure side (i.e. the Polaris) and electric robotic (i.e. the Aquabot). Although designed more for spas, hot tubs and kiddie pools, it would be a stretch to characterize
the wide variety of garden hose attachments and hand-powered wands to even be considered a
technology, at least worthy of the other three. To clean these small applications, companies like
G.A.M.E., Rainbow, Polaris and Grit Gitter have introduced hand-operated wands to go along
with the myriad of garden hose attachments. The Spa and Hot Tub category had been the industry’s fastest growing segment until The Great Recession of the 2009. With as many as seven
million spas and hot tubs standing, no one seemed to have invented or patented a power-driven
vacuum specifically designed for spa, hot tubs or even kiddie and wading pools.
However, the new century and millennium produced the first new pool cleaner technology since
the third quarter of the 20th century. The line also developed into one that extended to powerdriven machines to clean even the smallest pools of water.
Page 15
And Then Came The Pool Cleaner
(Continued)
Guy R. Erlich who literally grew up in the pool industry as Aqua Products’ Vice President of Sales
and Marketing, helped lead his father Giora’s company into the 21st century as the top dog in
robotic cleaners had an idea of his own. He formed his own company in a tiny studio apartment
on the upper west side of Manhattan, a strange place to form a pool cleaner company, Water Tech,
L.L.C.
Many in the industry, including the author, believed that his brainchild of developing a handoperated pool (and spa) cleaner was taking a big technological step backwards, akin to inventing a
new standard transmission for an automobile. Erlich proved us all wrong. His concept was not just
another non-automatic pool cleaner, but a battery-powered one. Easier said than done. For years
others had tried and failed. In the 1990’s a feeble attempt was an inefficient unit called the Concord.
The Pool Buster, with its high quality, nickel metal hydride battery was an instant success when it
hit the market in 2003. By the end of the decade the renamed Pool Blaster line was arguably the
best selling line of pool cleaners and sold in more venues than any other pool cleaner or vacuum
in history. Every company from the neighborhood ma and pa pool store in Timbuktu to the world’s
largest retailers carry one or more models of the Pool Blaster line, which includes everything from
an under $20 (power-driven) model for kiddie pools, to a powerful commercial model for industrial
use.
Although Erlich takes credit for designing the classic Pool Buster, rechristened the Pool Blaster Max (latest model,
upper r.), photographic evidence ( upper l.) has been uncovered that he had a little help from another pretty smart guy
who spent the last 22 years of his life in Princeton, New Jersey, only a short drive away from Water Tech’s headquarters.
With Erlich’s 2002 patent applicable, (issued two years later) the Pool Buster became an exclusive
new category, which it has all to itself; a powerized, totally independent manually-operated one.
Running on a rechargeable, onboard battery, the Pool Buster is the only powerized pool cleaner
that works without hoses, power cords or booster pumps. To add functionality every Pool Blaster
attaches easily to any telescopic pool pole, although some models now include their own pole. The
patent explained that the body houses a filter and an impeller attached to an electric motor. It also
includes a handle for ease of carrying and for manipulating the nozzle over the surface of a pool to
clean it. The company recently announced plans to accept the next challenge of cleaning not only
the floors, steps and walls of a pool or spa, but the water’s surface as well. Here is where leaves
and other debris gather until they are sufficiently saturated and sink to the bottom where they are
vacuumed.
The 2012 Pool Blaster Solar Skim will be powered by the sun and is expected to be soon accepted
as the next technological breakthrough in the ancient pool industry, a great way to celebrate the
100th anniversary of the first pool cleaner.
Page 16
And Then Came The Pool Cleaner
Postscript
Special thanks to the author’s research assistant Hiren Solanki, M.S., who with the author
laboriously searched for and carefully studied thousands of patents.
The swimming pool industry is a very fractionalized, highly competitive and often
a cutthroat one. Most companies are privately owned and the larger public ones are part
of a conglomerate where individual product histories and information, other than what is
cooked up by their marketing departments are almost impossible to obtain. The information
contained in this article was largely obtained from the author’s 14 years in the industry and
the good old USPTO.
This work is not meant to be an all-inclusive definitive study of the history of the pool
cleaner. Not even all iconic brands were mentioned, but only those which can be traced to a
patent after an exhaustive search of the USPTO and some foreign, traceable patent offices.
Given this, the author apologizes for any inadvertent, erroneous information and speculation which might turn out to be less than 100% accurate. However, this is still the most
definitive, accurate history of the pool cleaner published to date.
Page 15
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