VIVOHOME Solar Pool Chlorine-Free Sun Shock & Water Purifier Automatic Pool Cleaner Up to 35,000 Gal

I had to replace mine, since a visiting German shepherd dove in and chomped on it like a pool toy.

Chemical use is way down but the surprising result is it desolved the hard water ring in our pebble tech pool. We have no tile so the hard water ring on the pebble tech was an issue and now is barely visible. The only change we made was adding the ionizer.

I've been using floating solar Ionizers for many years now, and I can say from experience that although they seem to be a bit on the expensive side, they are WELL WORTH the cost (particularly when considering the how the price of pool chemicals has skyrocketed in the past few years). The idea is not to completely eliminate the need to use a sanitizer such as chlorine, but to reduce the amount of chemicals that are needed - with (in my experience) a modest reduction in Chlorine and (again - in my experience) a complete elimination of the need to use algicide.The solar ionizers such as this one from VIVOHOME use a copper rod which using solar energy release copper ions into the pool water, which kills algae but is safe for swimmers. It's not completely maintenance-free, as the copper anode needs to be periodically scraped clean of the copper carbonate that forms on its surface as it does its work. It's not that hard to do, though; and Vivohome helps out by including a nice brass bristle brush to facilitate the cleaning. It could be a messy job, but I've found that by doing the cleaning with the rod under water (using a plastic tub to hold the water) the process is much easier and cleaner. With each cleaning, the anode gets more and more pitted, which lets me know that it is indeed working (as if the algae-free water wasn't enough evidence). After cleaning, I dump the dirty water in shrubs alongside the side of my house. The hedges don't seem to mind, as they grow like crazy.Eventually, the rod needs to be replaced, but again: Vivohome has that covered since it includes a spare rod. For me, each of the rods lasts about 1.5 to 2 seasons before I replace them, but I live in Florida which has a longer swimming season than many areas in the country.Anyway, I've gotten to the point where I don't want to go without a solar ionizer. I've gotten far too used to the reduced maintenance and reduced chemical usage. I'm pretty sure I'm saving more money on the chemicals than the price of the ionizer, but even if I was only breaking even cost-wise, I would use this device anyway as the clean, clear, water that we enjoy when we swim is priceless! I think that the Vivohome is a good choice, as I like the inclusion of the extra copper rod and the brass cleaning brush. Additionally Vivohome inlcudes a starter bottle of test strips to monitor the amount of copper in the water.

We usually put a piece of copper in our skimmer basket, and wanted to try this ionizer this pool season. We won’t be opening up our pool till May, so the verdict is still out on the usefulness and will update once we have used for a month. I did put it together which was easy, and only took a couple of minutes.

Seems to be working as best as I can tell