The verdict: Aiper if you are buying for the next four or five years, Dolphin if you are buying for the next ten. Both answers are defensible and the honest comparison depends almost entirely on your time horizon.
Aiper’s case: capability per dollar
The Aiper Obsidian publishes 6,600 GPH, 3-micron filtration, 180 minutes of runtime, floor-to-waterline coverage and a wireless charging dock — at a live price typically below the Dolphin Nautilus CC Plus. Maytronics publishes none of those numbers for the CC Plus and does not offer a dock at any price.
Aiper also covers the bottom of the market. The Scuba SE at $130 is a genuine cordless robot; Maytronics has nothing remotely comparable, and its cheapest machine here is $568.
Dolphin’s case: it does not break, and when it does you fix it
Maytronics has been building these machines for decades and the consequence is an ecosystem rather than a product. Every wear part has a published part number:
- Active front brush, 9983122-R1 — about $23
- Front and rear brush pair, 6101641-R2 — about $30
- Gray track pack of two — about $35
- Ultra-fine filter cartridges, four-pack — about $26
- Power supply assembly, 9995678 — genuine about $210, aftermarket about $130
- Pump motor with impeller, 5500029 — about $110
Every one of those is stocked. That means a Dolphin that stops climbing walls is a $23 brush, and a Dolphin that stops picking up is a $110 motor — not a new machine. Combined with having no battery at all, this is why owner reports routinely describe seven-to-ten-year lives. The parts section has all of it.
Aiper’s parts position is improving — third-party batteries, filters and chargers all exist — but it is a third-party ecosystem for a six-year-old brand, not a manufacturer-published one.
The structural difference: battery versus cable
Every Aiper here is cordless; every Dolphin here is corded. So this comparison is also the cordless-versus-corded comparison, and the same logic applies: Aiper gives you no cable and no sited power supply, Dolphin gives you no runtime limit and no pack to degrade.
Where each one clearly wins
| Your situation | Pick |
|---|
| Pool over 40 ft | Dolphin (CC Supreme, 50 ft) |
| Freeform or multi-level pool | Aiper — no cable to twist |
| Fine silt, pollen or post-algae cloudiness | Either — Aiper 3 micron, or Dolphin with $26 fine cartridges |
| Want the lowest ten-year cost | Dolphin |
| Want the best machine today under $800 | Aiper Obsidian |
| Above-ground pool | Aiper Scuba SE, or Dolphin Nautilus AG for durability |
| Cannot site a power supply | Aiper |
| Pool used daily or shared | Dolphin |
The cheapest fine filtration in the category
Worth calling out, because it is the one place Dolphin beats Aiper on a spec Aiper is supposed to own. A Nautilus CC Plus plus a $26 four-pack of ultra-fine cartridges gives you genuine fine-particle filtration with four cartridges in rotation. Aiper’s 3-micron cloths are $33-60 and you get one or two. For a pool fighting silt on a budget, that combination is hard to beat.
