Pool Boy III Battery Powered Swimming Pool Solar Blanket Reel System - Works with a Click of a Button - for Inground Pools Up to 20 Feet Wide and 40 Feet Long - Made in The USA - 3 Year Warranty

I contacted the company after purchasing because it had no antenna and we got the wrong remote. We were told it has an internal antenna but we have always had to stand right next to it to make it work. At this point it doesn’t work at all, no manual crank option so we are out a lot of money. Don’t waste your money!

Finally, a battery powered pool reel! My pool is 14 x 38 and this works perfect with a 16 mil solar cover. It took a while to install but it is easy. I needed a way for my wife to uncover/cover the pool when I'm not here. This reel is perfect. The remote is convenient and easy to use. My deck is not level so I had to raise up one side, which was no problem. I ran it on and off about 10 times testing everything so I thought I would plug in the charger to see how much power I used. It only took about 10 min to charge back up so I think once a month is about right- I'll report back. Awesome so far, got the cover last Friday and our pool is already 10 degrees warmer. From 75 to 85.

Battery will not keep a charge

Update 3/12/24 - 6.5 years after purchasestill going . I have gone through a few batteries, they last about 1.5-2 years,Why I bought this:I have a heat pump and chiller added to the pool late this past summer. The area I live in the pool will would heat up to over 90 degrees. It basically tracked the outside weather by 6 degrees or so. I need to be able to put the cover on at night and pull off for the day relatively easily to keep the heat or cold in. This unit looks to fit the bill as you do not need to run AC out to the unit or deal with grounding issuesThe buying process:I received an incomplete kit that had used reel parts. The order came in two shipments several days apart which Amazon did not note. Amazon only listed 1 package and the shipment was complete on the first package received. I had to call the supplier to find out that there is 2 packages. After looking at the first package, I realized I received used product with what I believed was missing parts. The pencil marks on the tube, pre-drilled holes and missing parts was obvious. I had to call the supplier several times to get things straightened out (parts shipped back) before I finally received replacement parts. It took (1.5 weeks to resolve), I will say support picked up the phone every time I called within minutes of being on hold and you got a live body and not call backs(5 stars for that).Assembly:I was finally able to put the unit together in a day. This is a complete new system and I bought a new pool cover and a strap kit. Tp cut to size the pool cover and installing the tethering kit took 2 hours. It is best to have 2 people to install the tethering kit. Drilling the tubes and assembly of the unit in position took 2 hours. You can do the assembly f the rollers and the control unit with 1 person but it is best to have 2 people to move the unit into position. Attaching straps to the cover and roller took appx 1 hour. Total time took all day appx 6 hours(I am a handy person). One person can do it but it is beneficial to have a second person for positioning the unit and the tethering kit.You do not need a 4" drill bit as long as you measure carefully. For drilling the holes, having a nail punch to create a dimple in the metal rollers for the drill bit will make things easier without the slipping of the drill bit. You can drill each end/side separately in the center tube and the holes will line up for the bolts. You can slide the smaller tube in to position and drill the first hile, then slip a bolt in and proceed to drilling the other holes. It is best to drill the metal with a small 1/16 drill bit for a starter hole before drilling the main hole with the 1/4 inch drill bit. It would also help to have a metal file to be able to file the metal burs off the roller from around the drill hole. The screws do not have much tolerance and need to sit flush to pass through and have the lock nut properly threaded. You might also want to use some threadlock glue as the locknut is only plastic on the very end.The Functionality: 3 stars..I am using a 20x40ft 12 Mil blue cover attached with pool cover strap kit from the supplier. The height of the center roller seems too low. It needs to be 2 to 4 inches taller as the pool cover basically rubs the concrete on the last roll up. I am probably going to have to either add rollers to lift the height of the unit or add some concrete bricks to elevate the unit. The later is not aesthetically pleasing. The pool has rounded edges so the initial draw of the pool cover is not clean as the straps are about 2 feet from the edge. I need to make certain the corners roll evenly before having it roll up the entire cover.The nights are getting colder(low 40's) and upper 70's to low 80's during the day. The pool was dropping 6 degrees at night. I will report back on how well the system keeps the heat inUpdate 11/14/17: the aluminum tube is oxydize or staining. About 10% has a brownish copper color. in the shape of the pool cover bubbles. I have noticed that the tether kit slides back and forth and does not clamp real well allowing the cover to bunch up instead of laying really flat. This causes the roll up to go crooked. The end pieces of the unit(controller box and roller end) tips in slightly when the weight of the cover is rolled up. These probably need to be anchored to the concrete. I have not had to re-charge the battery in 4 weeks of install with daily use(note solar charger installed). It takes about 2 to 3 minutes to uncover and cover my pool which is quite nice. The pool drop over night to generally around 81 degrees and is back to 83 by noon.Additional note:I bought this over the AC unit so that I did not have to run electrical to the unit. I am also not a fan of having to re-charge the battery manually once or twice a month. I am from the tech industry from the manufacturing and engineering end and have dealt with charging systems many times. I bought the DC version Pool Boy 3 with a 12V battery and was able to buy a $20 5Watt solar panel with a built in trickle charger for maintaining charge in 12V batteries. I have connected this inline with the battery using some wire taps(cost $1). This should keep the battery charged so that I do not ever need to manually charge the battery. My electric gate also uses a similar setup with a 12V battery and a solar panel trickle charge setup and has ran fine for 3 years. I have 100% confidence this minor modification will work fine. When I spoke with poolboy they indicated that there is a solar option coming out next year for a lot lot lot more than what I spent.If this unit works out reasonably well, I will be looking at a nice bench system to go over the unit.Update 3/11/18 - Leaving at 3 starts but would rate at 2.5 starts.The unit appears to have a built in timer for rewind. Several times when retracting the unit stops with the end of my 40 foot cover still in the water.I have had to hit the rewind button to start it again. Also the unit at times has a hard time pulling the last 2 to 3 feet out of the water. It will sometimes stop lifting it. It might be weight related from the 20x40 12 Mill blanket when it is wet and water has collected at the end rope tie off.My $20 solar charger has worked well as in 5 months I have not had to recharge the battery using the supplied AC charger

Piece of junk. Didn't work shortly after purchase.

I purchased this battery powered pool cover reel when I purchased a new, heavy duty cover for my 15x30 in ground pool. I have only had it for a couple of months, but the quality of the components give me hope for its durability. Assembly was quick and easy with great instructions. I cheated and also purchased a small (9x14”) outdoor solar panel wired it to the internal 12v battery and attached to the side of the motor enclosure! Now I don’t have to worry about keeping the battery charged. Much less expensive than their solar powered reel! Highly recommended!

This has been a painful buy. The product is nice though; and once I am able to get my husband's help modifying the straps, I expect it will be a nice item.Our problems have been as follows:The tubes that make up the roller tube (two smaller diameter tubes that telescope from either end of a larger diameter tube) need to be drilled by the buyer. This wouldn't be a huge problem; but the item could have been designed to make it easier for an average homeowner. The holes have to be drilled straight through the large diameter and small diameter tubes, and while I have a fairly impressive arsenal of tools, I do not have a set of extra long drill bits. The manufacturer could have drilled holes through the larger diameter tube at both ends such that the buyer could just match drill the smaller diameter tubes with a regular length drill bit (when the appropriate length for the overall roller tube was determined); but the manufacturer chose to make it more difficult for the buyer... So, you might want to buy a long drill bit (for a 1/4" bolt) before starting the assembly. I'd say that you would want at least 5" of useable drill bit. You can also make yourself a template?Our unit was DOA, and I guess that should have been the first thing we checked, but instead we just followed the enclosed instructions, which jump right into assembly of the roller tube. Our problem turned out to be a fuse problem, but no real troubleshooting details are included in the instructions, so we had to rely on a few annoying calls to the manufacturer that did not help locate the problem. Once we tried everything the guy at Pool Boy was able to suggest (he seemed a little slow?), we had to send something out for repair/replacement.We had two bad options for fixing the problem: we had the option to disassemble the entire thing, find packaging to repackage the entire thing (after the difficulty of getting the tubes drilled appropriately), and return the entire thing to the Amazon seller (at the seller's expense) for a complete replacement (which we would again have to measure and drill out, and which could also be DOA); OR the option to package just the motor and battery end (with the remote), and ship that at our expense to the manufacturer, and potentially get that back in working order. After weighing the options, we chose to pay about $80 to ship the motor to Pool Boy. It is a shame that neither the seller nor the manufacturer could have helped us with that expense, given that it was a product defect, and not mishandling on our part.Pool Boy was able to determine that we had a bad fuse, replaced the fuse, and sent it back. At least they didn't require us to pay the shipping back to us; but if they had someone else better answering phones, maybe we could have tried a new fuse before boxing it up and paying that shipping fee? The motor end returned in working order, but the battery then decided to leak out on our new travertine deck. It looks like I'm going to have to try and find a replacement battery at some point in the near future. Probably won't be cheap either. I'm guessing it is a standard U1, but that isn't the next thing on the agenda right now, so I haven't taken a close look.The next thing is to modify the thing to use straps rather than the strange method that Pool Boy included to attach the solar cover to the reel. I see some merits to their idea, but because of the shape of our cover, I see more drawbacks than merits. The Pool Boy comes with a couple of PVC pieces that are to be put together lengthwise (it comes in two pieces for shipping) and attached to the cover. A rope then goes through the PVC, and is tied off to itself. The end of the rope is then connected to the reel at only one location, and it would evidently pull the PVC much like the handle of a ski rope. The rope would wind up until the PVC piece made it to the reel, I'd assume the operator would hold it straight as the reel continued to wind, and the cover would wind over that. Because of the shape of our cover, several straps will be easier, but even there, it is difficult to find a good solution.So, lessons learned here are: if you buy this, make sure the motor end works before even unpacking the tubes just so you aren't stuck with shipping fees to rectify a product defect, get yourself a long drill bit to assemble the tubes, do not let the battery sit on the ground without something under it in case it leaks (it must be cheap and not well sealed), determine what you want/need to connect the roller tube to the cover, and order that too if necessary.