Score
Dolphin Skimmi — Our verdict
A well-built, effective solar skimmer with classic Maytronics quality — undone by one decision. Having to haul the whole dripping unit out of the pool to empty the basket turns a daily 30-second job into a chore, and the Betta SE simply doesn't make you do it.
The good
- Classic Maytronics build quality — thick plastics, tight seams
- Active paddle wheel grabs low-riding, waterlogged debris a passive intake misses
- Solar plus battery keeps it running around the clock
- Covers walls and open water systematically
The not-so-good
- You must haul the entire wet unit out of the pool to empty the basket
- Setup and manual control depend on the smartphone app
- Heavier than the competition, especially loaded with wet leaves
Dolphin Skimmi — key specs
| Power | Solar panel + internal battery; runs day and night |
|---|---|
| Debris pickup | Active front paddle wheel sweeps debris into the basket |
| Basket access | Remove the whole unit from the water, then open it up |
| Controls | Dolphin smartphone app (setup, monitoring, manual steering) |
| Build | Heavy-duty Maytronics housing, noticeably heavier than the Betta SE |
| Best for | Dolphin ecosystem loyalists and lighter-debris pools |
Let me get my bias out of the way up front: I love Dolphin. My Dolphin Premier spent four years cleaning the bottom of my pool without a single major failure, and I still tell anyone who asks that Maytronics makes the most dependable bottom cleaners in the business. So when I decided to hand pool-surface duty over to a robot, buying the Dolphin Skimmi felt like the obvious, safe choice.
But because I'm apparently incapable of owning just one of anything, I also bought its main competitor — the Betta SE — and ran them head-to-head in the same pool, through the same Texas pollen and the same oak leaves.
The short version: the Skimmi lost. Not because it's a bad machine — it's actually a good one, and there are things it does better than the Betta. It lost because of a single design decision that you're forced to live with every single day you own it. Here's the full story.
The Design: Dolphin DNA on the Surface
Pull the Skimmi out of the box and it's immediately recognizable as a Maytronics product. The plastics are thick, the seams are tight, and the whole unit has that same substantial, over-engineered feel my Premier had. Where the Betta SE feels like a light little catamaran, the Skimmi feels like a piece of pool equipment. If build quality were the whole story, this review would end differently.
The top deck is dominated by a solar panel that keeps the internal battery topped up, so like the Betta, this is a drop-it-in-and-leave-it machine rather than something you haul out to a charger. Solar is the right call for a surface skimmer — the thing lives in direct sun all day, and it's the only approach that makes cordless work here. On sunny days mine ran essentially around the clock, and overnight operation off the banked charge was never a problem.
The Paddle Wheel
The Skimmi's signature feature is its front paddle wheel. Instead of passively funneling water into a basket the way the Betta does, the Skimmi's rotating paddle actively sweeps floating debris up and into the filter basket as it drives.
And credit where it's due: the paddle works. Waterlogged leaves sitting low in the water, half-sunk acorns, the stubborn stuff that rides just below the surface film — the paddle grabs debris that a passive intake can glide right past. In a straight-line contest of "which machine picks up this one soggy leaf," the Skimmi wins more often than not.
Skimming Performance: No Complaints
I want to be fair to this machine, because my final verdict is going to sound harsher than the day-to-day experience actually was.
The Skimmi covers the pool well. It patrols the surface in a reasonably systematic way, works its way along the walls where debris tends to collect, and doesn't get hung up on my tanning ledge or steps any more often than the Betta does. During fall leaf drop it filled its basket daily, and during pollen season it pulled an impressive amount of yellow scum off the surface. My wall skimmer basket stayed nearly empty the whole time the Skimmi was on duty — which is the entire point of a machine like this.
If the Skimmi were the only solar skimmer on the market, I'd recommend it without much hesitation. The problem is what happens when the basket is full.
The Dealbreaker: Emptying the Basket
Here's the thing about a surface skimmer: the one interaction you have with it — every day, sometimes twice a day in the fall — is emptying the debris basket. Whatever that routine feels like is what owning the machine feels like.
On the Skimmi, that routine means hauling the entire unit out of the pool. There's no top hatch. You lean over the edge, grab the machine, lift the whole dripping thing onto the deck, open it up, pull the basket, dump it, rinse it, reassemble, and lower it back into the water. The Skimmi's solid build works against it here — it's noticeably heavier than the Betta, and heavier still with a full load of wet leaves, with water running down your arm the entire time.
Compare that to the Betta SE: press the release, the lid pops up, lift the basket out by its handle while the robot stays in the water, dump, rinse, drop it back in. Twenty to thirty seconds, dry sleeves.
If you've read my Premier review, you know my core complaint about cordless bottom cleaners is that the daily haul-out-and-recharge ritual turns "automated" cleaning back into a chore. The Skimmi solved the recharging half of that problem with its solar panel — and then reinvented the haul-out half for the debris basket. It's the same chore wearing a different hat, and after a few weeks of doing it side-by-side with the Betta's top hatch, I started resenting it.
The App
The other friction point is setup and control. The Skimmi leans on Dolphin's smartphone app — that's where configuration and manual steering live. The app itself is fine; Maytronics' software has come a long way, pairing was painless, and being able to check on the unit from the couch is a nice party trick.
But I keep coming back to the question I asked in my Betta review: what does an app actually add to a machine whose job is to float in circles and eat bugs? The Betta ships with a physical remote and a power button, and in two years I've never once wished it had firmware updates or a Wi-Fi connection. The Skimmi's app isn't a dealbreaker the way the basket is — it's just one more account, one more pairing dance, and one more thing that can break, bolted onto a product that didn't need it.
Skimmi vs. Betta SE: The Scorecard
| Feature | Dolphin Skimmi | Betta SE |
|---|---|---|
| Build quality | Excellent — classic Maytronics heft | Lighter, thinner plastics |
| Debris pickup | Active paddle wheel, grabs low-riding debris | Passive intake, occasionally misses soggy stragglers |
| Basket access | Haul the entire unit out of the pool | Top hatch — unit stays in the water |
| Emptying time | A dripping-wet production every time | 20–30 seconds |
| Control | App-dependent | Physical button and simple remote |
| Power | Solar with battery backup | Solar with battery backup |
Look at that table and the pattern is clear: the Skimmi wins the spec-sheet rows, and the Betta wins the rows that describe what you actually do with the machine every day. The paddle wheel is clever engineering. The build quality is better. And none of it matters as much as the thirty-second, stay-in-the-water emptying routine, because that routine is 95% of your relationship with a surface skimmer.
Final Verdict: Good Machine, Wrong Winner
Here's where I land after running both machines in the same pool.
The Dolphin Skimmi is a good product. It's built like a Maytronics machine, the solar-plus-battery power system works as promised, and the paddle wheel probably makes it the more aggressive debris-grabber of the two. If you already live in the Dolphin ecosystem, want the app, and don't mind lifting the unit out to empty it, you will not be mad at this purchase. My pool surface stayed clean the entire time it was on duty.
But I can't recommend it over the Betta SE, and the reason fits in one sentence: the Betta lets you empty the basket without taking the robot out of the water, and the Skimmi doesn't. That single design decision — the top hatch — beats the paddle wheel, the nicer plastics, and the app, because it's the difference between a machine you tend and a machine you forget.
The Skimmi went to a friend with a screened-in pool and a lighter debris load, and it's serving him well. The Betta stayed in my pool, and two years later it's still there. If you're choosing between them, buy the Betta. If the Skimmi is what's available or you're a Dolphin loyalist, buy it knowing your daily routine includes a wet lift — it's a good unit that had the misfortune of competing against a simpler, smarter design.
