Ep 097 Fluidra Jandy Lighting, Automation and Robotics

Welcome to the Luxury Outdoor Living Podcast featuring Mike and Trey Farley of Farley Pool Designs. In this episode, they discuss transformational backyard projects, the latest pool lighting innovations, and advanced pool automation systems with industry experts Brian and Kim from Fluidra, a major international pool equipment manufacturer. The conversation covers LED lighting advancements, robotic pool cleaners, the convenience of automation apps, and the personal journeys of the guests within the industry. Learn tips and insights to elevate your backyard and pool experience, enhancing both beauty and functionality.

 

Discover more:

https://www.fluidrausa.com/en

https://www.jandy.com/en

https://www.farleypooldesigns.com/ https://www.instagram.com/farleydesigns/ https://www.instagram.com/luxuryoutdoorlivingpodcast/ https://www.instagram.com/poolzila/

 

00:00 Welcome to Luxury Outdoor Living 01:12 Meet the Experts: Brian Handy and Kim Westbrook 05:53 Innovations in Pool Lighting 18:33 Outdoor Living BBQ Bits: Trash Management 21:06 Creative Lighting Tips for Your Pool 28:00 Automation in Pool Management 31:39 Homeowner Pool Preferences 33:31 Safety and Automation 36:56 Robotic Pool Cleaners 41:11 Choosing the Right Cleaner 43:57 Maintenance and Lifespan 50:18 Skim Bot and Additional Features 56:15 Personal Insights and Contact Information 01:00:55 Conclusion and Show Purpose  

Episode Transcript

Intro (00:02):
Welcome to Luxury Outdoor Living Podcast with Mike and Trey
Farley of Farley Pool Designs.
For over 40 years, we've helpedhomeowners turn their backyards
into personal retreats, spaces ofjoy, relaxation and unforgettable
memories, and whether it's a cozy as.
Scape or a resort style oasis.
We design it all.

(00:24):
We know how overwhelming a projectcan feel, and nothing feels worse than
a homeowner having a bad experience.
And that's why after decades of designingand teaching in this industry, we're
here to share our knowledge, helping you.
The process with confidence.
Every week we break down designtrends and insider tips that
turn your vision into reality.

(00:45):
And since this is about creating somethingamazing together, drop a comment.
If you have any questions, ideas, orjust want to be part of the conversation,
if you find this helpful, a like helpsget this out to more people like you.
And if you want to keep upwith what's next, go ahead
and hit that subscribe button.
We'd love to have you along for the ride.
Let's build your paradise together.

Mike (01:12):
Good afternoon.
This is Mike Farley of Farley PoolDesigns, and again, we're hosting
the Luxury Outdoor living Podcast.
along with my cohost Trey Farley.
And we've got some really greatinformation for you guys to look
at today the most efficient thingsthat you can use around a swimming
pool to have a better environment.
And so we have two ultimate professionalshere today with us from the Flora uh,

(01:36):
or Jandy, what should we call y'all?
Company.

Kim (01:38):
So the, the name of the company is Flora.

Mike (01:41):
Okay.

Kim (01:42):
But we're recognized by the brands Jandy, Polaris probably are
most familiar in the United States.

Mike (01:48):
And Flora, that's a big international company.

Kim (01:52):
So Flora is the largest manufacturer of swimming pool equipment in the world.

Mike (01:56):
That covers a lot.
And they're

Kim (01:57):
based out of Barcelona.

Mike (01:59):
Okay.
can we get a field trip there someday?

Kim (02:02):
You know, You know how many times people ask if we could do that?
So I'd love to.

Mike (02:06):
Anyway, I haven't actually been to the Janie facility in
the United States, so I guess Ishould start going there first.
Huh.
we'd love to have you if you guyscould introduce yourselves and
give us a little bit of background

Brian (02:16):
My name's Brian Handy.
I am the regionalservice manager for Flua.
There's a couple of us thatcover the United States.
I've been in the pool industry 25 years.
I wasn't ever gonna be that guywho like said, oh, I think I can do
something else, and then end up comingback because my whole career I've just
seen guys kinda leave and come back.

(02:37):
I decided not to go down that path.
Started building pools in Arizonaactually doing manmade waterfalls.
And then just worked my way up.
And by 2008 I was running a branch forthe company I worked for in Las Vegas.
And then the housing crash hit prettyhard out west and I had to move back to

(02:58):
the Midwest where I'm from, Kansas City.
And then bounced around a little bitthere, did some on the commercial side,
building the big commercial water parks.
And was working for a local pool company.
And my sales rep for j andd. Ask if I wanted a job.
And I jokingly said, oh, only ifmy right hand man can come with me.
And then later that night I calledhim up and I said, were you serious?

(03:20):
And he is started as a servicemanager and within two years,
moved over to the sales department.
And then I've been at thisposition back on the service side
for about a year and a half now.
So that's kind of my story.

Kim (03:33):
So I'm Kim Westbrook.
I'm the regional sales manager for whatwe call North Texas, which really makes
no sense at all 'cause it's really mostof Texas except Houston and El Paso.
I currently have nine sales repswho work for me that cover the area.
I've been with thecompany almost 20 years.
I came from Consumer Goods whenI've got into this industry.
I actually applied for a sales repposition because it was for Polaris and.

(03:57):
I wanted to get in theconstruction industry.
I was fascinated with construction.
And I saw on good old days, 20 years agowas monster.com is how you found a job.
And on Monster, there was anad for the Polaris sales rep
in the central Texas market.
And we had just movedto Austin from Dallas.
And I asked my husband, I said, isn'tthat what we had in our pool in Dallas?

(04:18):
And he said, yeah.
And I said, how hard could that be?
So I applied and I found out howhard that actually could be to
learn an entire new industry.
But up until that point I hadno idea about the pool industry.
And I'm a person who gets boredreally easily and this job has
been perfect for me for 20 years.
'cause you don't get bored.
It's something different everyday that you can't expect.

(04:41):
I'm a, I always said Iwould've been a good fireman.
I'm really great with, findingan issue and solving it.
so this industry keeps you on your toes.
You're busy all the time, but.
I took a sales position with Polaris.
We continued to grow and merge withmultiple companies, and ended up
moving 10, 11 years ago into themanagement position over the team.

(05:01):
And have been in thatposition, loving it ever since.
So this industry I, I have such apassion for it because I think we do
make a huge difference in people'slives, and we're building a product
that adds experiences for them.
And, it's the coolest thingabout coming from consumer goods.
Before here she had these largecorporations, and this is still

(05:22):
a very oriented industry full of,individuals, growing companies.
And when we do something for youto help you help a homeowner, we
know the story all the way through.
So it keeps you engaged.
It's fun.
So I love it.
I'll be here till they push me out.
I always joke, I'll be the grayhaired old lady with the comfort
shoes and Elastic waistbands, but I'llstill be selling my pull equipment.

Mike (05:45):
It is a great thing that we get to do in people's homes and people's
lives is to create an amazing space.
So you guys have come out with somethings in the last couple years that
have really taken that up another notch.
And one of the things that I thinkthat consumers don't understand
or know about a whole lot isyour new lights that you have.

(06:08):
So if you could explain to people,so some people deal with incandescent
lights still, they're not even usingLED lights, so I guess we should touch
base on what that is in the first place.
And the pros, all the pros of that.
But then your new LED lightingsystem is even another notch

(06:28):
higher than standard LED lights.
so when I first got into the pool industrywe typically have one light in the pool
and it was typically down in the deepend and I called it cyclops 'cause it
was one big shiny thing in the pool.
That was an incandescent light.
It was a 500 watt light.
So today's LED lights are quitea bit different than that.

(06:50):
Could you explain to that and thenalso from the service side of it
how does that a lot better product?

Kim (06:57):
I'll jump in a little bit about the aesthetic.
I just think, Mike, you build suchincredibly gorgeous projects and
you have such an eye for detailand lighting is key for that.
And making sure that you'rehighlighting and getting the proper
coverage in the pool and the placementof the lights, lighting just can
elevate that whole experience.
Yes, back in the day the cyclopswith the one, you know, you had a

(07:20):
projection of light and that's about it.
Where now it's actually highlightingand adding to that gorgeous,
ambiance in the backyard Briantalk to the energy efficiency
side of it and the way that works.
But being able to take, and then, you haveall the sizes, you have the larger lights,
but you have the smaller lights as well.
So then you can actually.

(07:42):
Look at the design of that pool andchoose the correct lighting to enhance
that, and then spread that out.
The beautiful part about thisnew infinite watercolor is
that you can also choose zones.
So prior it was a complicated process.
If you wanted your spa or your waterfeature, or the tanning ledge to maybe

(08:02):
be different colors at a differenttime, it was a whole electrical
issue to wire that correctly.
And now you can actuallydial in those zones.
So if you wanted your poolto have different color.
In different areas of thepool at the same time.
It's a very simple way.
And the homeowner can make those changes.
It's just all on an app on their phonewhere they're just able to dial in

(08:25):
and say, I want my spa this color.
I want the pool to be this colorand maybe my water features
over here to be this color.
So it's given them the flexibilityto customize that light package
once it becomes theirs and they'rerunning it and do it simply.
The other beautiful thing isLED lights can now be dimmable.
So before, if you had an LED light,it was just one strong color.

(08:49):
Now with these new infinite watercolors, if you wanna dial it down a
little bit, you can dial that down.
Have a little softer look oryou can brighten it back up.
Once again in zones andhow you choose to do it.
And then the beautifulpart is in this color dial.
So if you wanted to go to magenta,they're all shades of magenta.

(09:10):
And so you can choose the homeowner.
It's just a color wheel.
It's very simple for them to see, andthey just land on that specific color
of magenta, and boom, it's there.

Mike (09:21):
So I have the standard eight colors on my color wheel.

Kim (09:25):
Oh, there's, I don't know how many colors, Brian.
It's like

Brian (09:27):
16 million different colors, because each color has a different shade.
And you can keep going down on thatshade, which is actually a different
color and named a different color.
I don't know what all the names are, butthat's what you get with that color wheel.

Kim (09:42):
Okay.
But like in the blue categoryyou've got like soft blues and bold
blues, and it's the gradient colors.
And so you just, and you see it onthe color wheel, so you just choose
that shade and it's instantaneous.
I don't know if you know the lightsnow, you go to click as it passes over.

Mike (09:59):
The whole eight doesn't do that now, but there were
only like eight before, right?
Yeah, clicking didn't take too long.
So a million, it would takea long time to click through.
So I'm glad.
So now it's, I'm glad you fixed that.

Kim (10:09):
It's instant.

Mike (10:10):
Okay.
So before, if I wanted to do that,I had to have a bigger computer
to set multiple transformers on.
So do I still have to have abigger computer to do all this
that we just talked about?

Kim (10:23):
No, and I know this translates differently, but yes.
Automation used to be sized based onhow many lights and how many zones.
That's why a lot of zoning wasn't done.
'cause it, it took anothercomponent on the automation.
Right.
It took up a, space,for the programming.
And now you don't have todeal with that anymore.
You can use a more standard sizeautomation system and still have

(10:45):
all these beautiful features

Trey (10:47):
that's great for your customers.
'cause you always to have an extraauxiliary just so he could have the
spa and the pool different color.
But now you can just do itseamlessly, which is awesome.

Kim (10:55):
Exactly.

Mike (10:56):
And add more even stuff.
So Yeah.
Like the tan.
Yeah.
You

Brian (10:59):
never can have too much light in the pool.
That's, I'm always a fan of more lighting.
Yeah.
I don't ever hear complaintsof I have too much light.
I always hear complaints.
I don't have enough.

Mike (11:10):
And with too much now it's dimmable.
So the too much can be toned down.

Brian (11:14):
Correct.
Yeah.

Mike (11:16):
So there was the big cyclops thing.
It was in a can, which we calla niche in the industry, right?
Mm-hmm.
So the newer lights, you can get LEDlights and cans still, or you can
have niche list lights which are smalllights that we don't have to have a can.
No, they

Brian (11:33):
just go into a standard two inch wall fitting super low
profile and fit in a two inch pipe.

Mike (11:40):
do they cover the same amount of space as that big one did or?

Brian (11:45):
No, you need three niches, lights really, to one of the big lights Okay.
Is how the math works.

Mike (11:51):
So that must be more expensive in the long term?

Brian (11:54):
No with bulb replacements on an incandescent bulb.

Mike (11:57):
Yeah.

Brian (11:57):
it'll take a little bit, but you'll end up saving money in the long run.

Mike (12:01):
Okay.
So I can save money by usingthe smaller LED lights.
Plus I get more coverage.
So would that be a correct statement?
So I have more even coverage instead ofa hotspot in one spot and it fades out.
Yes.
Okay.

Brian (12:17):
Yes.
Yep.

Mike (12:18):
We can get more uniform.
About, I, I know there's alldifferent parameters that go into
this, but is as a consumers lookingat a plan that they've been given by
somebody, should these lights be 20feet apart, 10 feet apart, 12 feet?
15? Is there a certain distance youwanna, how far do they, throw the light?

(12:41):
Do they throw it long distance?
So it's, is there a rough rule of thumbto look at with this in the layout?

Trey (12:47):
Like how, if you have not enough lights or too many?
He said

Mike (12:50):
you can't have too many.

Trey (12:51):
Okay.
Okay.

Brian (12:52):
Yeah.
So Mike, back in the day with thebig lights it was one light per 400.
Square feet of surface area on your pool.
Okay.

Mike (13:00):
Yes.

Brian (13:01):
So if it's three lights to one big light, you had an 800
square foot pool, you need at leastsix lights to get that coverage.
But with us here at Flora, we have a team.
You can send your salesperson aplan and they can send it over to
our lighting design department,and they can figure that all out.
Okay.
They'll even ask you what type ofplaster, because that's the other thing.

(13:24):
Yeah.
That's the other factorinvolved with this.
Oh, yeah.
If you have a black pool, it'sgonna absorb so much light,
you're probably gonna need togo double on all your lights.

Mike (13:34):
Okay.
And that is a big trend today.
Yeah.
So, Yes, we have a lot ofreally dark colored pools.
Yep.
As well as this texture of the producthas some influence on that as well,
whether it's a real smooth finishor it's a pebble finish, but Yep.
What you're saying is there's someone thatit can be sent to that lays it out and

(13:54):
comes up with the best suggestions yep.
If a homeowner wants a, goodlayout, they should suggest to
the salesperson to do that, huh?

Kim (14:01):
Yeah.
Yeah.
we have a design team that's expertson, so you send the design in, we'll
send it back to you, usually within24 hours, so that when you show it
to your customer, you know that it'sbeen laid out, matching all the specs.

Mike (14:15):
Okay, cool.

Trey (14:16):
To lighting, I didn't realize that y'all could have dimmers on your lights.
So how low do those get, are youable to like, turn off a light?
Can you completely wipe a zonebecause maybe someone's like,
oh, the lights are shining in.
This direction and it's irritating me.
I don't know, but I'm justseeing what the threshold is.
how dim can they get?
I

Kim (14:34):
think that's a hard one to answer.
The dim is, pretty dim.
I don't know how to put that.
It's kind of like if you thinkabout your lights in your home
and your dimming down your lights,know, you can get it pretty low.
Yeah.
And I don't know if I've ever thoughtabout it, Brian, but I'm thinking that
yes, you could probably turn that zone

Brian (14:48):
off.
Yeah.
You can turn that zone off.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
And the caveat to that is through theapp, you can only dim in 5% increments.

Trey (14:58):
Okay.

Brian (14:59):
5, 10, 15, 20.
If you have Alexa hooked up to yourautomation system, your g and d automation
system, you can do that in 1% increments.
Oh wow.
Like I could tell Alexa, Hey, turn mys spa to 37% and turn it on purple.

Trey (15:14):
Yeah.

Brian (15:15):
So you can get granular.
I don't know the reasoning why withAlexa, but that's just how we made it.

Trey (15:21):
So do people talk about like the overall I don't know,
convenience of having Alexa set upwith the I Aqualink the RS system?
Is it beneficial?
I,

Brian (15:29):
I don't get a lot of feedback on it.
Okay.
Either good or bad.
Honestly, guys I think it'smore of a convenience thing than
it is a necessity right now.
Yeah.
But it's out there.

Trey (15:39):
No, that's cool because instead of going to the app, you could just talk to
your phone or something or talk to Alexa.

Mike (15:44):
Yep.
So with the new lights, are there,without getting into the color wheel, are
there standard colors that come with it?
Or is it just you'repicking whatever I mean.

Trey (15:56):
You're scared of too many options.
Oh.
I don't know.
It's just,

Mike (15:59):
when I go to do a photo shoot, can I just hit one thing?
Oh.
With service.
Oh.
Are there light shows with thelights like there used to be as well?

Kim (16:09):
Yes.
I believe that there are stillstandard light shows in the Yes.
So we have all, I don't rememberthe names of them, but Yes.

Brian (16:15):
Yeah, we have all of our standard solid colors, plus I
think it's four different shows.
Okay.
That are standard with the lights.
Your USAs, your discotech.
Yeah.

Mike (16:26):
Marty, slow,

Brian (16:26):
fast splash.
What was that, Mike?
I'm sorry?
Is there

Mike (16:28):
a Mardi Gras one or something like that?
Yeah, there's a Mardi

Brian (16:31):
Gras one.
Yep.

Mike (16:33):
Okay, cool.
Yeah.

Brian (16:34):
And then addition to at least the Jandy line, we
never had red as a solid color.
Yeah.
We have red now as a solid color

Mike (16:42):
and every shade of red that you want

Brian (16:44):
and every shade of red that you want.

Mike (16:47):
Yes.
The Texas Tech fan of me is very happy.
Now
don't want to confuse it with that ou red,

Brian (16:52):
correct.
No, you do not.

Mike (16:54):
Although they're out of the Big 12 now, so we don't have to worry about it.
They're in the SEC with Texas.
Gotta get the right orange.
Oh, not confused withthe Tennessee orange.
Right.
So, Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So,

Trey (17:05):
So does this apply to your obviously the bubbler lights, but
like are there other water featuresthat might be able to be incorporated
in this lighting system now?

Kim (17:13):
We just released the Lanars and it has a product roadmap.
There will be more, but right nowLanars are the next step that we've had.
That's

Brian (17:22):
cool.
You can do brilliant Wonder Waterfallswith a infinite water sink adapter.

Trey (17:28):
So for people that are listening that aren't familiar, that's the one
that is relatively like a shear, right?
Like a Yes.
Okay.

Brian (17:35):
Okay.
Yeah.
Shear descent with the lightstrip on the front of it.

Trey (17:38):
Yeah.
Yeah.

Mike (17:39):
Okay, cool.
So we can coordinate all thesedifferent, or have them all.
It's different.
They don't have to coordinatefrom a color standpoint.
You can create whateverworks best for whatever mood
you're in in whatever season.
So now we can hit all theholidays with your color wheel.
So anyway,

Brian (17:58):
So Mike at and Trey at my house, I've got, my zones are set
up as deep end lights, shallow endlights, my spa, because that light's
always blaring in your face, soI turn it all the way down to 5%.
And I can have a nice evening in my spot.
And then my laminar lights,that's my fourth zone.
And I can work thoseindependent from any other zone.

Trey (18:19):
That's cool.
Yeah.
You have an image on the website.
I love how like they dimthe pool a little bit.
It's the same color as a spa,but they just dim it a little
bit and it's just, yeah.
Such a subtle effect.
And it makes everything else pop.
'cause everything else isdifferent colors as well.

BBQ Intro (18:35):
We are gonna take a break here for a second and get into outdoor living.
So with outdoor living, we like togo to barbecue bits here we're gonna
share some information of everythingthat you may want to consider in
your outdoor living space as far asfeatures, especially for the kitchen.
Hope you enjoy this.

Mike (18:55):
When I talk to some people about an outdoor kitchen, the most
popular thing or there, there's threecomponents that most people think about.
Something to cook on.
I want a refrigerator, but the onething they almost always forget about
until I talk to 'em about it is trash.
Right.
Okay.
Because they think.
Oh, there's gonna be roomunderneath here to put a trash can.
And there really isn't.
There's not, there's differentsetups with trash cans.

(19:15):
Mm-hmm.
So walk me through pros and cons

Bobby (19:18):
of that.
So, the most popular styleis the trash recycle.
You have your dedicated trash in frontand then your recycled bottle in the back.
Or if you have a large pot, uh,party, of course that you've got
dual trash, they make a single trash.
So if you're not that dirty.
Or if you don't have that manyfriends, then it's just one.

(19:38):
They also, some companies will make thetrash can to where, uh, it's called a
narrow, it's turned sideways, and thewidth, um, will allow you to specify in a
smaller, maybe six to eight foot island.
But you're right.
So to touch on this, somepeople think that you can put
the trash in here underneath.
You can.

(19:58):
You can, but that's only for the cook.
Let me show you here.
So if I'm working with chickenor fish, then DCS makes a
small dual trash for the cook.

Mike (20:10):
Gotcha.

Bobby (20:10):
It's not really a bar type trash or volume holding trash unit like this is.
This would be a quick trash solutionfor just the cook only, that's the
personal, uh, attachment or what wecall the waste bask, uh, insert for DCS.
Yeah.

Mike (20:26):
So what I tell people is if you're not doing an outdoor sink, which
costs a lot of money to get sewer andall that, you just want paper towels.
That's right.
And so with paper towels,you want a big trash can.
That's right.
So you can keep clean,keep yourself cleanly.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
So awesome.
Uh, any other tips with trash?
That's it.
Okay.
Well thank you for that

Bobby (20:42):
information.
Okay.

BBQ End (20:52):
So I hope you enjoyed the barbecue bits that we just featured today,
and we'll have more coming up next week.
If there's something in particular thatyou're interested for, let us know and
we'll get back into the episode now.

Mike (21:06):
is there any creative lighting tips that you would have that aren't
typically done on a pool that would helptake homeowners design to the next level?

Brian (21:16):
I think the one tip I have, like I said, you can never have too many lights.
Like just make sure you'regetting proper lighting.
You, the one thing that I regretdoing at my house is I've got
like a 41 foot long pool, right?
And I thought, oh, I'll put two lightson the deep end, two niche less lights
on the deep end, and I'll get that, I'llget that coverage on the tanning ledge.

(21:37):
And I get light down there,but it's not what I wanted.
I should have put two more lightsin my shallow tanning ledge
area to get rid of the shadow.

Trey (21:49):
Yeah.

Brian (21:49):
So that's the one thing I regret is I just didn't do too much light.
I didn't follow my own rule.

Trey (21:54):
We just met with the customer where they they wanted to make
sure that if there's a snake in thepool, they see it wherever it's at.
That's a big thing for her.
And I get that you don't wannabe, swimming with the snake.
So

Brian (22:04):
Mike, the other cool thing, and Trey about these lights is they
don't have to be inside the water.
Mm-hmm.
You can do 'em outside of water.
They have to be within 10feet of the water's edge.
They can't be farther.
They can be closer.
So not only could you add thatambiance in your pool, you can
create it outside of your pool too.

Mike (22:24):
So the Ford residence which just won an international design
award we found out Has a grottoand it's a very modern grotto.
And we put one in the ceiling.

Kim (22:35):
Yeah,

Mike (22:35):
so it would light up the space.
And then there's one in the water aswell, but that way they could control
whatever they wanted, if they wantedto light it up a lot, which the father
has a daughter, so he's, he wanted tomake sure it was a well lit grotto.
the other thing that I've done on anumber of projects over a period of
time is I've put lights on the seat ofthe bench shining up on a water feature

(22:58):
that is coming, like sheer rains comingout of a structure, that type of thing.
And that's always been a cool thing.

Brian (23:04):
Lighting can create a feeling, I believe.
When I first put my pool in untilI got all my lighting done in my
pool and in my landscaping around myyard feel like I'm in a resort now.
I feel like.
I'm at a high end hotel with allthe lighting that's done around my
backyard, and I get that feeling andthat's what lighting brings, right?

(23:27):
It's not just lighting up a pool andfor safety, that's the main reasons.
The side effect is what joydoes that light bring you?
What are you feeling?
Like maybe I want toturn my lights to red.
Maybe I'm being aggressive today.
So well colors present a feeling as well.

Mike (23:43):
I tell people all the time that.
Lighting is something that, people lookat their pool during the day, but a lot
of people work during the day and sothey get to enjoy their pool at night.
And if it's not well lit at night, thenwhen the sun goes down, the party ends.
But if you got good lighting,the party goes on and on.
you know, And it's not just inthe water it is the surrounding

(24:05):
that does create the resort likesetting that you're talking about.
If you can light landscaping andlight trees and things like that.
The big thing too, I thinkthat a lot of people are always
disappointed with is their waterfeatures aren't well lit at night.
And so they hear the waterbut they can't see it.
If there's not good lightingon that, those features, okay.

Trey (24:27):
To that point, lighting is obviously creates motion with
with obviously green rooms andlight therapy and stuff like that.
But what I'm thinking you saying,maybe I wanna be aggressive and use
red, or maybe you wanna be chill anduse blue, or whatever it might be.
Are you able to create different profilesso it's like, okay, I can have this set
up for this night, or I know you usedto be able to do like party mode and,
make all these different modes wherethe spa automatically comes on and the

(24:49):
lights come on and stuff like that.
But are you able to have like actual,like maybe I don't know, profiles,
profile or something like that wherethe color of the lights are assigned a
certain way to the customer's preference?
Go ahead.
Presets, right?

Kim (25:01):
Like a preset.
So yeah.
Yeah,

Trey (25:03):
That.
Customize it a little bit.

Brian (25:05):
I'm not sure if we can at this time, I've never tried like
a one touch on mine and said okay.
This one touch is gonna be angrypool mode, and this one touch
is gonna be cool pool mode.
Right?
I'll have to delve into that and followback up with you guys and see if that's
even a thing that we can do at thistime with infinite watercolor lights.

Trey (25:23):
Okay.
Because like his and herswould be perfect too.
Like for instance, Texas Techred versus OU Red, oh, true.
Because

Mike (25:30):
that's the way it rolls in our house.
Yeah,
very much so.
cool.
Other tips or recommendationsyou guys have with lighting?

Kim (25:38):
I just agree with most of what Brian was saying.
I just think it's, Never undervalue it,if you're looking at choices on where to
spend money, that's not the place to cut.
Being able to look out at that pool,even from the inside of your house
and you're not even out there, it canjust bring such pleasure to your life.
And lighting is, it's a huge part of it.

Mike (25:58):
I do have one question.
If I do want all the lightsto be the same color, is there
a way to do that easily or?
Yes.
Okay.

Brian (26:07):
Yeah.
Okay.
And then even if you're using the colorwheel and you find that one shade out
of all those colors that you like, youcan just simply apply it to all the
other zone with a touch of a button.

Mike (26:18):
Okay.

Brian (26:18):
So you don't have to keep moving that little dot.
Yeah,

Mike (26:21):
that

Brian (26:21):
would, right.
in that exact area.

Mike (26:23):
That would,
Yeah.

Brian (26:24):
Perfect.
The other thing about thedot and the color wheel that,
homeowners need to know is.
I'm the weird guy.
I love Alpine White.
I just love the white light.
That's my favorite.
That gives me the, warm fuzzies, right?
If you put the dot right in thecenter of that color wheel, which
is white, you're going to get amixture of all the lights, right?

(26:45):
And you're gonna see that in the light.
You're not gonna seethat pure white light.
But if you go to the solid alpinewhite color that's on our list,
you're gonna get that pure white,it's just gonna use the white LED.
Okay?
And that's the other thing about whereLED technology has come is back in
the day, we were using all the colorsblended together to get white, right?

(27:08):
Mm-hmm.
And you could see that in your light.
If someone were to swim by it,you could actually see like a
touch of red or a touch of blue.
But now the lights have their owndedicated white LED diodes, so
we can get that pure white light.

Trey (27:22):
Cool.
That's awesome.
To the, all the, previous customers thatare like, man, I wish I had a color wheel.
How easy is it for them to upgrade?
Do they have to switch out their actuallights that they have in the pool already?
Is it easy as, updating their i al link?
How's that process

Brian (27:37):
work?
So they're gonna have toupdate all their lights.
Okay.
And their transformer.
And then yes, they may have to updatetheir I Aqualink system, but guess what?
You get a free upgrade on the revision.
If you're on the newer side ofautomation, we'll upgrade that for free
so you can get all that new technology.

(27:58):
That's

Trey (27:58):
cool.
Okay.
So that was a lot on lights.

Mike (28:00):
So you mentioned one thing which segues into that is your automation.
Today is totally different.
Way, way different than when Igot into the industry in 1992.
We used to have stuff in thehouse that you had to push
buttons and that was really cool.
And then we came out with a, aremote and that was really cool.

(28:22):
And now everything's often of an app.

Brian (28:25):
Yes.
Yeah.
Off your phone.
Yep.
Or your iPad or your computer.
Anywhere you can access the internet.
seeing a decline.
Like in, the little thingsthat we used to sell.
spa side remotes.
The little four button remoteyou could put in your coping
or the eight button remote.

Kim (28:40):
Yeah.
People

Brian (28:40):
aren't getting those anymore.
They have their phone by them.
They're.
Phones are waterproof now, like

Trey (28:46):
So you used to have those buttons.
Why do you need to have a

Brian (28:47):
little button?

Mike (28:48):
Yeah.
So I still have thatniche at, out at our spot.
No,

Trey (28:50):
it's just, it's not even covered.
It's just little four buttons.
I know.
It's not even wired up anymore.
'cause it's crazy looking though.
Just four buttons onthe side of a rock spa

Mike (29:00):
in the boulders.
Glaring out at you.
So

Kim (29:02):
it's okay, Mike, I've got your back.
I remember when they were cool.

Mike (29:05):
Yeah, that's the thing.
So I remember.
Yeah.
I built my pool 20 years agotechnology certainly has changed
a little bit in that time period.

Trey (29:14):
So how's Jandy used automation to benefit the customer?
What is the big things nowadays?

Kim (29:19):
I'll take it from that perspective.
Just I'm really proud ofour I Aqua Inc. Product.
To your point, we were really the firstweb enabled device, so the RS system
is a very robust automation system.
It was, it set the standardin the industry for years
prior to being web enabled.
And then once we added I aqualinkto that and made it web enabled, it

(29:42):
really took it to the next level.
So today we are the number oneautomation system in the country.
If you look at the app itself inthe reviews, we have 87,000 reviews
of homeowners using I Aqualink.
We know that we have over a millionusers across the country using I Aqualink

(30:05):
and it's the most consumer friendly.
App in the marketplace, meaning it'sa very simple app, and we did that
intentionally for the homeowner.
We realized the homeowner is not gonnabe as engaged in that app all week long.
All they want the app for is, like yousaid, they wanna get in their spa, they
wanna change their like color, theywanna, turn on some water features.

(30:29):
And so we've actually been ableto watch how that app is used.
And we know that Friday and Saturdayis when the homeowner's on that
app and they're making thosechanges and then they don't really
look at it the rest of the week.
the pool is set and it's the backdrop tothe home and they're not really engaging
in that app except on the weekends.

(30:49):
So it's a very simple app.
It's very user-friendly.
And we have really great resultswith it because we've kept it so
user-friendly for the homeowner.
We want them to have.
The comfort of when they do go touse that app, they're not trying
to learn something new or stumbletheir way through a lot of choices.
And so it's a robust app.
it's been there the longestand, it's something that the

(31:13):
homeowner can trust and use easily.

Mike (31:15):
Do most people set the whole equipment set up on the app or is there
options still to do something different?
Or is that just how they're all set up?

Kim (31:25):
it's set up by you when you start up the pool.
Like most of those schedules,all those things are set with the
homeowner being involved in that.
And then how that pool functions properly.
And then they have the choice that theycould go deeper in there and make changes.
But what we find is once the homeownerknows, how they want the pool to run, they
don't usually dive into the way the pumpsare running or the speeds the pumps are

(31:49):
running or when the pumps are running.
But they do want tochange their light color.
They want to turn on their waterfeatures or they wanna turn on their spa.
And those are the threefunctions we see them use.
But they always have the abilityto go in and make adjustments.
There's also ways to set up, spa nightand things like that, that we call one
touches, where they're able to realquickly go in and have a scene that

(32:13):
they like, choose that move forward.
And then.
Not have to start from scratch.
So they have some pre choicesthat are programmed in there the
way they like to use their pool.
So maybe if the kids want it one wayand the wife wants it another, those
are in there really easily choices forthem without starting from scratch.
But it's also able for a pool professionalor a homeowner to go in there and update,

(32:36):
make changes and get really specific.
But we find they usually just usethe app to use the pool in the
way that they enjoy it the most.

Mike (32:44):
So I tell people all the time, you go out to dinner, you want your
spot to be ready, you don't have topre-program it now or anything like that.
You're just like, okay, we knowthat it's gonna take 25 minutes.
We're 25 minutes from the house, just hitit when we get it in the car or whatever.
So that makes it so easy versuswhat we used to have to do

(33:05):
back in the dark ages, when.
We still had dinosaurs roamingthe earth and yeah, when I
got in the pool business it's

Kim (33:12):
go it to go out there.
yep.
No it's right there on theapp and super easy for them.
how many times can you check to see if thekids are in the hot tub too and how long
they've been there while you're on a trip?

Mike (33:23):
That's a good thing to have on the app.
Little timer there.

Kim (33:26):
Who's in the spa

Mike (33:27):
that would've been handy to have a couple of years ago?
When we went outta town.

Brian (33:31):
One of the other nice things about the app too as far as safety and
things go is with our cover pool system.
You can hook that up to theapp, not to open and close it.
That'll never be allowed 'cause.
There's safety issues there, but youcan see on your phone if you're way
out of town, you can see if you're,if someone's opened that cover.
That's cool.

(33:51):
So it'll tell you if it'sopen, partly open or closed.

Mike (33:54):
Okay.
That's good from a safetystandpoint for sure.

Trey (33:57):
Oh yeah.
To the automation.
Are people if they had a PDA which islike the pool remote for people that
don't know what that is and they requestit, is that something y'all still do or
is it just strictly Rs use I aqualink?

Kim (34:10):
No it's still available, is what we call as an accessory.
Okay.
So they can add it as an accessory.
So they just have something onsite that's, in the backyard that
would turn things on and off.
You don't have full function to controlthings like we were talking about,
changing speeds, maybe with yourvariable speed pump, but you are able
to turn things on and off with it.

(34:30):
Okay.
That's cool.

Mike (34:31):
You couldn't use the color wheel with the new lights
with that type of system?

Kim (34:38):
No.
Not with the PDA.
Yeah, no.

Mike (34:40):
But it's amazing how we used to say aren't waterproof, so
you still want one of these, andtoday most phones are waterproof.

Trey (34:48):
A lot of 'em.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There are people out there that whenthe PDA was still pretty stable or
pretty big, there was people thatwere intimidated to switch over
to the app and use that instead.
And there's still people like that.
Probably

Mike (35:01):
Jetro Gibbs still has a flip phone, there's other people out
there probably that do as well.

Kim (35:05):
Yeah.
We still can take care of thosepeople if that's how they feel about
it, but it's changed quite a bit.
There's not as many as there used to be.

Mike (35:13):
Yeah.
Cool.
Any other things about automationthat we should be aware of or think
about when we're setting something up?

Brian (35:20):
we're not really limited to, things that we hook up now to automation
as far as how many pumps we can get.
We can get up to 16 variable speedpumps now on one automation system.
So we're not too worried about that.
A lot of our stuff Jandy stuffhooks up not using an auxiliary.
So we free those up for customers to beable to do add fire features and landscape

(35:46):
lighting, things that they want to turn onand off and get creative with with some of
the updates that have come to I Aqualink.

Trey (35:54):
I feel like nowadays everything has an, like an app.
Like a lot of homes they'll havelike the one touch back in the
day was something on the wall.
People would just have iPads for all thedifferent apps for the home in general.
Is there anything that specificallyworks very well tying into y'all's
app, IAL link and stuff that mightnot for homeowners that are wondering
how to make their home experience,their entire house more accessible

Brian (36:17):
so we can talk to the home automation systems, right?
And we can talk to a lot of the bigmanufacturers out there, Crestron,
control four, things like that'll getthat app down to one app for them so
they can control their whole home.

Trey (36:31):
Yeah.

Brian (36:31):
Things in the future we're looking at, to make it easier for customers.
'Cause like at my house I've got Iwanna say probably 10 different apps
for all my internet of things, right?
My Roomba, my sprinkler system,my washing machine, my tv.
There's things coming to wherewe, hopefully we can simplify
things for customers for sure.
Okay, cool.

Mike (36:52):
So you mentioned a Roomba, so that takes me to my next question.
pool cleaners have changed quitea bit in the last decade, and
there's a lot of robotics that arebeing used for pool cleaning now.
can you talk to people and explain to themwhat a robotic cleaner is and how this is
different than, your Polaris, which hadan umbilical cord tethered to the wall.

(37:18):
So can you kinda walk through thepros and cons of this type of thing?

Kim (37:23):
robotic cleaners have been they're really not that new
except they're new to Texas.
Okay.
If you went to markets up in thenortheast where their swim season
was really small and their pools arecovered and they're shut down during
the winter months robots have beensold there for quite a while because
it was a different swim environment.

(37:44):
Sim swim season was smaller.
So what you've seen is it's a productthat's been there, it's been cleaning
the pools really nicely, but in asmaller window of time, and an obviously
a more I don't know, not as harsha marketplace as our marketplace.
So that was sort of wherethe first robots were.
And then as robots have evolvedover time they've gotten larger,

(38:08):
they've been able to handle moredebris, they're programmed.
So that if you look at the Texas marketin particular, it was a pressure side
market because our swim season solong, our debris is like big leaves and
sticks and, so you had a cleaner thatwas cleaning the pool, three to four
hours a day every day, seven days aweek, and what we call random cleaning.

(38:34):
So it would randomly clean the pool.
So by taking robots and findingout how to make the debris canister
bigger, which was a big part ofbeing able to bring it into the Texas
market as you needed to be able to.
To hold a lot of debris.
but not have so much weight on that robot.
So once you have that, 'causethey're heavier and you gotta

(38:55):
bring 'em out of the pool and yougotta empty that debris basket.
It's not like a, like a cleaner that'sthat you pull out with that umbilical
cord and then take that bag off.
You've gotta pull out something heavythat's got a motor in it, get it up
on the deck and empty that canister.
So some of the things, when it came intoour marketplaces, we had to find out
how to make that a lightweight system.

(39:17):
And then how to get it outta the pool inan easy way for the homeowner to handle.
So a lot of our robots have thosefeatures, the easy lift system that
allows it to come out of the pool andexpress the extra water off of that
cleaner as it's exiting the pool.
So the homeowners only lifting a fewpounds of weight instead of a ton of

(39:38):
weight, and then be able to pack thatdebris in really tightly so it can
get as much of that debris up beforethey pull it out to clean it out.
So robots have evolvedto meet our marketplace.
And so now what you have isyou have a electric cleaner and
there's all kinds of models.
So some are corded, and then we havethe newer one that's not corded.

(39:58):
But it's strategically cleaning your pool.
So I always say it's like the linesin the carpet when you used to vacuum
in your home and you could see the,where you had vacuumed back and forth.
That's the robot today in the pool.
It's strategic cleaning.
covering all the areas and it'staking a timeframe and it's cleaning
that entire pool versus, pressureside cleaner that was randomly

(40:21):
cleaning over a few hours every day.
So you always said you could takea dirty pool and get it clean with
a Polaris pressure side cleaner,but it would maybe take over days.
Whereas with a robot, youcan clean a dirty pool.
Usually in one cleaning cycle.

Brian (40:38):
Okay.
The other thing, Mike, with that too,is your pressure side cleaner was
specifically for the pool, right?
What do I do about my hot tub?

Mike (40:45):
had to drain it or vacuum it out with a hose.
Yeah.
Use a

Brian (40:48):
spa wand.
A manual spa wand, right?
Yeah.
Now we have a robot that's designedspecifically for your hot tub or
your spa above ground or in ground.
It doesn't matter.
It will clean it.

Mike (40:59):
It's an itty bitty robot.

Brian (41:01):
Yes.
Small, tiny little robot thatwill clean that up for you.
Very cute.

Mike (41:06):
What's it called?

Brian (41:07):
Spa bot.

Mike (41:08):
Spa Bot, of course.
Okay.
Why wasn't I thinking?
Okay.
So I looked on y'all's literatureand there's an alpha and an epic
and a free form and a sport.
So you just mentioned a lot ofdifferent things, canister, size,
weight, getting it out, corded.
is there one that's more, better suitedfor the Texas market than the other?

(41:32):
That has those type of things, oris it based on, how it's controlled
or the pool size or, how do youdecide to pick one of those?

Kim (41:40):
it's really, matching the consumer to the right product.
Okay.
And, the Alpha IQ plus when you havean automation system that's, they can
schedule the cleaning cycle has been avery helpful thing for the Texas consumer.
So having that, it's got a programand so you could actually be gone
all week long and your robot be inyour pool and it would clean based

(42:03):
on the fact that you want your poolcleaned on Monday, Wednesday, and
Friday from this time to this time.
And that's what the consumer inTexas has been used to with the
Polaris pressure site cleaner.
It was leave it, forget it becauseit was programmed through, the
timer or the automation right?
That cleaner was gonna clean acertain amount of time each day.

(42:24):
having that control system, a plugand play, 'cause it is plugged in
allows that homeowner to have alittle more flexibility and not
be having to make the choice.
To go out and clean the pool.
So for travel being gone from the pool,that person maybe being a little more
absent that would make sense for them.

(42:44):
you kind of have to look and say, doesbeing able to schedule the cleaning
make sense for this homeowner?
Or is this kind of a drop in clean?
They're the type, they're gonna havea lot of time and they're gonna wanna
go out, put the cleaner in, cleanthe pool, pull the cleaner back out,
put it on the charging station andwalk away until they do it again.
And that's a perfect thingfor our cordless cleaner.

(43:06):
Or maybe that pool has, whichone was that bar stools in it?
The freedom plus.

Mike (43:11):
Okay.

Kim (43:11):
The freedom allows you if you have bar stools, you have some
things that you don't wanna cord.
So it's our cordless robot.
It's like a Zumba.
And what you're ableto do is go ahead and.
Clean that pool and not have those cords.
But it does have to be charged andput back on its stocking station.
So you can't just put it out there andknow that it's gonna clean every day.

(43:33):
It's gonna clean once and then it'sgonna need to be pulled out and charged.

Trey (43:37):
So with it being charged, can it be soaking wet and you
just put it on the charger?
How does that work?

Kim (43:43):
So they do recommend that you dry it off and make sure the
contacts are clean and stuff.
Okay.
It's, the one thing I always sayabout any robotic, no matter which
one it is, the better you treatit and the more time you take care
of it, the longer it's gonna last.
Yeah.

Mike (43:57):
that generates a question.
What's the life expectancy of a welltaken care of robot versus a robot abuse?

Brian (44:05):
I've been abusing mine for two years.
Mine
Don't tell Siri that.
No, I'm kidding.
I mean, let's talk to that.
I had an Alpha IQ Plus and I'mlike I know a person, so I'm gonna
run this thing as hard as I can,as hard as I can every single day.

(44:27):
Maximum settings.
I've got a pebble pool, so notthe smoothest surface out there.
I got a year out of it.
I really did.
I got a year out of the cleanerbefore I had to replace gears and
tires and motor blocks and cords.
I said, okay, I'm gonna replace that stuffand then I'm gonna back my schedule off.
I'm gonna run it every other day.

(44:49):
Okay.
it's been two years sinceI replaced all that stuff.
I have.
To replace anything else.
Okay.
Running it every other day.
And I think I run it more on the weekends.
Like I started up on Friday,cleans Friday, Saturday, Sunday,
and then it has Monday off andthen Tuesday and Wednesday off.
And then Sounds like a great,a little bit on Thursday.
Yeah.
So I didn't even back it off every otherday and I've still gotten a lot of life.

Trey (45:13):
Is that the cordless one, or which one was it?
No,

Brian (45:15):
that's the corded one.
That's the corded one.

Trey (45:17):
The

Mike (45:18):
alpha.

Trey (45:18):
Yeah.
So with the cordless one, how does itbecause I can imagine if it dies, like
how are you able to get that out ofthe water without jumping in the pool?
You just reach down and it like,crawls up the wall specifically
when you're trying to get it outor I've never had a robotic one.
So, so

Brian (45:32):
there's a couple ways that you can retrieve that cleaner.
There's actually three waysyou can retrieve that cleaner.
One, it's gonna sendyou alert on your phone.
Okay.
If you've got it hooked up to wifiK and it's gonna say, you got 10
minutes to come, get me and I'm gonnago to different parts of the pool
and climb up the wall and be readyfor you to come grab me and save me.

(45:52):
If you don't get it withinthat 10 minutes, it's just
gonna sink down to the wall.
It was just that, andit's gonna sit there.
Now you've got two ways to get it out.
You can either take your pool poleand just tap it on the top of the
cleaner three times and it willjust, it saves enough battery.
It'll climb up the wallso you can retrieve it.
That's cool.
All right.
Or we give you a hook In the box,and you can hook it to your pool

(46:16):
pole and drag it out that way.
Okay.
those are the three different ways.

Mike (46:20):
Gaffing a fish.

Brian (46:21):
Yeah, exactly.
That's exactly it.

Mike (46:23):
Okay what do these things weigh?
I mean, is it, you said that they havedifferent weights, so is there, you
get a motor in it now, alpha or thefreedom, are they similar weight and
this is an epic and a sports, so Idon't know what they do different, but

Kim (46:39):
we.
I can't remember the exact weights,but I do know that it was, when
we first released the the biggestone I would say is the Alpha IQ
Plus, which is the one Brian Hands.
And I wanted to say wewere around 14 pounds.
it was still considerably less thanour competition to have the amount of
debris that it would hold and the factthat it had multiple motors in it.

(47:00):
It's reasonable and like I said,it has this easy lift assist,
which makes it really easy topull it onto the, to the deck.
So it was just one of theproblems you had to solve before
it worked in this marketplace.
And we did solve it with that.
So weight's not too bad on 'em.
Now there's ways to take care of that.
And then I doubt freedomweighs that much at all.

(47:20):
Really.
Brian,

Brian (47:21):
what do you think?
No, it doesn't.
Even with the battery guys itweighs less than the alpha IQ plus.
Yeah.

Trey (47:28):
So what's the lift to assist?
Like how are they reducing the weight?
to pull it up?
How's that mechanic And it's,I don't want you to give away
any secret sauce, so if that's

Kim (47:36):
Oh,
it's seriously like a jet of waterthat's being pushed out the back.

Trey (47:40):
Oh, okay.

Kim (47:41):
So it comes to the wall.
We had a service guythat used to describe it.
It was like, it crawls up the walland it bobs like a little dolphin
at the side of the pool and thewater is just jetting out the back.
So it's on the control system.
You choose easy lift.
It starts to spin to where you're gonnarelease the button where you want it
to stop and start heading your way.

(48:03):
So then the cleanerstarts to hedge your way.
It climbs up the wall and this jet ofwater on the back is propelling that.
And so as it as you break the water,you help, you can read over and
just pull the handle and it's gotwheels and you pull it onto the deck,
that water's shooting out the back.
It's taking that excess water offof that debris canister and it's
making that easier to handle.

(48:24):
And then once it's on thedeck, that water jet stops.
That's cool.
So it doesn't run away, it just to,

Brian (48:29):
it goes a little bit, just to make sure it gets all the water out.
Water

Kim (48:32):
out.

Brian (48:33):
and you can do that from the app as well if Oh yeah.
You can hook it up to the app.
You can use the easylist system on the app.
You can also, the ones that areconnected to the app, it has a
remote control on your phone,so you can do spot cleaning too.
before you take it out, if you see apile of debris you want to get, you
can just use the little remote onyour phone and the control the cleaner

(48:54):
right over to it and pick it up.

Mike (48:55):
So it handles Oak leaves and stuff like that.
It's not just a dirt cleaner.
It will handle debris as well assand and sil and that type thing.
Correct.
Okay.
So are the Epic and sports are thoseones that don't, aren't, is tough to
handle the market in Texas commonly?
Is that 'cause you

Kim (49:16):
Yeah they're really good as well.
Like I said, it's the featuresand the things you want on them.

Mike (49:20):
Y'all have a sheet that has the different features
that people can look at.
That, okay, I didn't find that.
So that would've been, yeah, thatwould've probably, you can always

Kim (49:28):
go on our website too and go to cleaners and there's a
whole comparison that you can do.

Mike (49:32):
Oh, there you go.
Okay.
Gotta go to the right placeto get the right information.
So thank you very much, Kim.

Trey (49:39):
You're welcome.
And Brian, you were saying that youcould go to the app and control, is
that, separate than OC link, right?
It's its own robotics.

Brian (49:46):
No.
So on the I aqualink app, I have my poollisted, and then I've got my robot listed.
Oh.
So I just pick either or, andthen it goes into the, it goes
into the robot page, if you will.

Trey (49:58):
Oh, that's cool.
Okay.

Brian (49:58):
Yeah.
again, I'm not having 10different apps on my phone.
Yeah.
That's the other thing is it'sall controlled by one location.

Trey (50:05):
Can you have two robotic cleaners and a pool at the same time?

Brian (50:09):
Yeah.

Trey (50:10):
Okay.
They're not gonna, absolutely.
Okay, cool.

Brian (50:12):
Okay, cool.
Yeah, I've got three I runthree robots in my pool.
I've got my Alpha IQ thatcleans the bottom in the wall.
I've got my spa bot that cleansthe spa, and I've got my skim bot
that cleans the top of the water.

Mike (50:24):
Oh, what's a skim bot?
That wasn't on my list.

Brian (50:27):
So you're, yeah.
It's brand new.
It's your solar powered skim bot.
It just runs and cleansthe top of the water.
And if you have a pool that's in.
Sunlight for most of the day.
It won't stop.
It'll keep going and clean and has alittle tray that collects all the debris.

Mike (50:43):
So is this something that works well when, so certain things like pollen
drop in the spring, when the Texas Oaksare dropping off its pollen, this is
something that'll run around and pickall that debris up before it sinks.
Yep.
In the bottom of the pool,

Brian (50:59):
all the cottonwood.
So we got a lot of cottonwoodup here in Oklahoma.
And when that dropped,it clogs my filters.
I just cleaned my filters.
And I have to tell you guys, therewasn't a lot of cottonwood in there.
It all got trapped in that skimbo tray.

Mike (51:13):
So the people that are like, I hate Crate Myrtles.
Because they're dropping.
Cattles got those two.
Yeah.

Brian (51:19):
Pool.
Yeah.
Yes.

Mike (51:20):
Okay.
Gotcha.
So my

Brian (51:22):
wife she said that our pool's never been cleaner until we got the skim bot.
And I'm like, are you serious?
I built this, I mean, I put myskimmers in the right place, but
hey, you look at it more than I do.

Trey (51:34):
Does a skim bot, I don't know if this might be an idea for the
future, but does it have a capabilityto take water chemistry tests?
Because I've seen ours does not.

Brian (51:43):
No.
Okay.
I've seen stuff

Trey (51:45):
like that before where it, some device just floats on top
of the water and it does that.
But that'd be really cool.
Later down the line maybe.
Yeah.

Brian (51:52):
It, it would be cool, Trey, but what happens when
one of those sensors fail?

Trey (51:56):
Oh,

Brian (51:57):
that's true.
That's the thing about water chemistryis you gotta have good probes.
If you don't have good probes, then.
Toast.
Yeah.
You're gonna be replacingthose all the time.

Mike (52:05):
Okay.
So you have a skim bot, a spa bot,and an alpha all dancing together.
Yes.
Instead of a Polaris pool cleaner.
And a spa wand.
Okay.
Yes.

Brian (52:19):
And a booster pump.

Mike (52:21):
So your wife probably likes that since you travel a lot, that she doesn't
have to deal with all those things.

Brian (52:27):
Correct.
Okay.
She loves it.
It makes it so much easier for her.
And then I'm OCDI, don'tlike any debris in my pool.
I'll swim in the lake all day.
and I can't even see thebottom, but if there's, yeah.
A leaf in my pool.
Oh yeah.
Those lights are turning red that night.

Mike (52:43):
Oh dear.
The skim bots, do they havea life expectancy with dogs?
Is this something that, they've becauseI know a lot of dogs that have killed
Polaris and that takes a lot of work.
But if a skim bot, so

Brian (52:56):
my golden retriever, and I know you guys both have golden retriever, my golden
retriever's in the pool all the time.
She could care less, but that's my dog.
She could care less about it.

Mike (53:05):
Yeah.

Brian (53:06):
She doesn't bark at it.
She pays it no attention.
She just swims and does her thing.

Mike (53:10):
Yeah.
So sugar would've a problem.

Trey (53:13):
Yeah.
But the dog carried itself,hasn't caused any issues with like
clogging or anything like that?
No,

Brian (53:17):
No.
That was the other thing I noticed too.
Clean out my filter.
I mean, I had dog hair in there.
But most of it was every timeI empty the tray on the skimbo,
there's dog hair in there.
It really did help minimizehow much my filters were.
Trapping and cleaning it, it was catchingit before my filters, which means I can
go a lot longer between filter cleans.

(53:40):
Yeah.

Mike (53:40):
So we ought to call it a dog bot

Brian (53:42):
Yeah,

Mike (53:43):
because currently we have
16 dogs at the house, cause wehave a litter of puppies, we just
took a picture yesterday with ninepuppies on the Lay's pillow for ledge
lounger floating around in the pool.
That was an adventure, but love that.
they'll like that picture too.
So Okay.
Any other things we shouldknow about robotics?

Brian (54:05):
I don't think so.

Mike (54:06):
What's upcoming new things that you could talk about for
Jandy or Flora or Polaris?

Kim (54:14):
Just look at me.
I'm scratching.
I don't like to pre-sale.

Mike (54:17):
Fair enough.

Kim (54:18):
I like to sell the book we have, but we're always innovating.
We're always listening to the consumerand we're always looking for a way to
make the experience for the homeownerbetter so that you can sell more pools.
'cause we know that the easier thatpool is to maintain and the more
that homeowner enjoys it, the morelikely that more pools will be built.
And we're always innovating andlooking at new ways to do that.

(54:40):
But when it comes out, we'lldefinitely let you know.

Brian (54:43):
Okay, cool.
We want to be back onwhen they do too, by the

Kim (54:47):
way.
Yeah.

Mike (54:47):
Oh, well

Kim (54:47):
bring us back.

Mike (54:48):
Fair enough.
That sounds like fun, Mm-hmm.
if you need anybody to test thosethings, just let us know and we'll gladly

Kim (54:55):
do that.
Think you would be open to that for sure.

Trey (54:57):
anything else in the last two years of y'all's products
that maybe you're proud of?
That I don't know, is just convenientor innovation to whatever it might be
that you just wanna talk on briefly?
Anything that comes to mind.

Brian (55:10):
I think the lights like me personally and my personal pool, it's
those infinite watercolor lights.
The functionality and the availability.
Again, just to dim my spa light guys.
'cause we watch movies in our hot tub andhaving that light blind you in the face.
I was trying the little covers on there.
I mean, I did the cover that onlyhad the barely the little slit

(55:31):
and it was still too much light.
So I'd have to say for me, inmy experience, it's the lights.

Mike (55:36):
Cool.
The, they certainly, yeah, have,and I don't think many of the
homeowners have seen the new systemsyet and what all they can do.
And in fact, come to think of it,we haven't photographed a job.
Nope.
That we've done all those fun thingson, so we'll have to do that too.
So

Trey (55:56):
also for the lights themselves, they're only customizable with the
color wheel from auto mode, right?
From the app.
You can't do it in service mode.
Correct.
Okay.

Mike (56:05):
That would be my problem.

Trey (56:06):
So just steal the homeowner's phone, you know, gotta

Mike (56:08):
steal the homeowner's phone.
So anyway.
Correct.
Anyway, they're home.
Usually they'll be okay with that.
some fun things to try out.
'cause we have quite a few photoshoots still to do this summer so
Trey has some questions so thatpeople can get to know you better.
We both do.
Yeah.
Okay, so I have some questions too.
So

Trey (56:26):
I'll start us off though.
For both of y'all, I'm just wonderingwhat your favorite food would be?
Favorite movie and let's go book.

Brian (56:33):
Oh, wow.

Trey (56:35):
Yeah.
Just small questions, you know.

Mike (56:37):
Well, and while you're thinking about it, my question's
gonna be, where's your favoriteplace to travel for inspiration?
Okay.

Brian (56:44):
My favorite place to travel.
That's an easy one.
I like to go down to North Padre Island.
That's where I go to chill out.
It's where I get my inspiration.
Right.
Is that where

Trey (56:51):
all the sandcastles are at?

Brian (56:53):
Yeah, that's the sandcastle building contest.
Yeah.
It's awesome.
If you've never been, get down there.
It's a site.
Favorite food.
I'm just gonna go with sushi.
love a good sushi, I think I thinksushi also is like lighting in a way.
It can bring you an experience.
It can tell a story.

Kim (57:10):
Yeah.

Brian (57:10):
All right.
And I like taking people who'venever had sushi and give them
an experience and watch themexperience it for the first time.
Yeah.
Because I think people are putoff by sushi, in the beginning,
but I think if they open up tothe experience, it's awesome.
Book I don't read books.
My favorite video game is theBorderland series and the new
one's coming out here next month.

(57:31):
So I will be taking aday off to play that.
I'm gonna go that route.
Okay.
And then favorite movie, there'sa lot of 'em out there, but I got
reminded of one the other day.
So as I was scrolling through Facebook,Braveheart, I love Braveheart.

Trey (57:45):
I think that's the third time we've had that movie on here.
Yeah, it's a very good movie.

Mike (57:49):
yeah, probably leading the pack.
So he did a great job on that.
What do you got, Kim?

Kim (57:54):
books I read all the time I can knock out three books a week.
Like I'm a terrible, like justdevour them kind of person.
So I'm more about genre to be honestwith you, which would be, I love
historical fiction 'cause I need alittle bit of meat, but I don't want
too much meat that I don't enjoy it.
So throw a little fictionin there and serve it up.

(58:15):
But I could read historicalfiction all the time and it
doesn't even matter what timeframe.
I just love it.
Sometimes I have to pull awayfrom the really rough stuff.
The heartbreaking World War II stuffis a little hard for me sometimes, so I
can only sparse that out occasionally.
But that's my thing.
I'm always reading.
Saving Private Ryan probablymy favorite movie of all time.
There's just some lines in there thatI'll never forget and some understanding

(58:39):
what young men, those men were.
What they were going through is just,I'll never forget Tom Hanks saying
I was a school teacher, so there'ssome lines in there you don't forget.
Yeah.
So it's one of those life changersfavorite food, I would tell
you that unfortunately for me,there's very little food I don't
like, I wanna experience food.

(59:00):
I love food.
I think it's my favorite food ishonestly if I get to cook and have
my family here around a table and,just comfort food kind of stuff.
But

Trey (59:10):
there a

Kim (59:10):
food's an experience, is

Trey (59:11):
there a least favorite?
Ooh, I do not like this.
I probably never eat

Kim (59:13):
anything gross like liver.
Like organ meats, you know?
Yeah, yeah,

Mike (59:17):
yeah.
Every Wednesday night as a child,liver and onions, God, I hated that.
Yeah.

Kim (59:22):
Yeah.
Thank God.
Nobody does that stuff anymore, so.
I'm not gonna a venture out.
I was watching some carnivorewoman last week and the, ugh,
she was recommending tongue.
I'm not gonna eat tongue.
So nothing gross.
But I love food.
I love the food experience.

Mike (59:37):
Awesome.
Again we greatly appreciatey'all coming on and sharing.
Thank y'all.
If we have people that havequestions, we will direct them to you.
Mm-hmm.
in fact what is thebest way to reach y'all?
Is it through an email or if someonehad a question about something

Kim (59:54):
you.
You're always able to email me.
It's just k [e-mail].
It's always easy.
Brian handy.
Be [e-mail].
But you can call me too,I'll give you my number.
It's, do you want it?

Mike (01:00:07):
If you wanna post it here, you feel free.

Kim (01:00:09):
2 1 0 3 3 6 9 2 4 9.

Mike (01:00:12):
Okay.
So

Kim (01:00:13):
text me, call me.
We're always here to help.
It's one thing, like I said,we really enjoy the industry
and we love being of service.

Mike (01:00:19):
And we appreciate all of you've done over the years, although, I started
before you, so way back when not.
Yeah, not much.
1990. So anyway, back then, we

Kim (01:00:30):
appreciate you and all the support you give us and love
the gorgeous pools you build.
Wow.
They're gorgeous.

Mike (01:00:36):
we're blessed to get to serve a lot of great people.
We will look forward totalking to y'all soon.
If I don't see you before we'll see youin Vegas, or will y'all be in Vegas?

Kim (01:00:45):
I don't know who's going this year, but maybe if not, we'll always see you
at the good old Southwest Bull Spa show.

Mike (01:00:50):
Yes.

Kim (01:00:51):
Yep.
Okay,

Mike (01:00:52):
y'all take care.
Okay.

Kim (01:00:53):
Thanks guys.
Guys.

Brian (01:00:54):
Thank you.

Outro (01:00:56):
This show is all about helping you become a better buyer, a better pool
owner, and hopefully you're gonna findsome insights into how to enjoy your pool
even more so how to help your friends,your family, anybody looking to buy a
pool in the future or that want to remodeltheir backyard, add an outdoor fireplace,
fire pit, add an outdoor kitchen area, addsome shade cells, or whatever else it is.

(01:01:19):
We wanna be that resource for you, andthat's the end goal here, and we promise.
That there's gonna bea ton of information.
We'll try to go through it, youknow, as relatively quickly, but
also slow so people can understand.
But the intent of the show, thereason Mike and I are doing this
is because we just got a lot inour heads and we wanna share it.
So we hope to see youhere every single week.
Thanks for listening.