Pool ownership is a flex until you remember that someone has to clean the thing. Enter the Beatbot Sora 70, a robot pool cleaner that wants to be your chlorine-scented Roomba - minus the existential dread of watching it fall down the stairs.

CNET put the Sora 70 through its paces, testing how well it actually cleans, how painful it is to set up, and whether the price tag is justified or just a fancy way to drain your wallet alongside your pool chemicals.

So what's the deal with this thing?

The Beatbot Sora 70 is an autonomous pool cleaning robot designed to scrub floors, walls, and waterlines without you having to suit up and pretend you enjoy manual labor. It's the kind of gadget that makes you feel like you live in a slightly more utopian future - at least until it gets stuck in a corner and you have to fish it out like a confused Roomba that took a wrong turn at the deep end.

Does it actually clean well?

According to the CNET review, the Sora 70 does a respectable job handling the kind of grime that accumulates in a pool - algae, debris, and whatever mysteries sink to the bottom after a pool party. The wall-climbing capability is particularly notable, since a lot of cheaper bots just bumble around the floor like they're afraid of heights.

Setup reportedly isn't a nightmare either, which is a low bar that plenty of smart home gadgets somehow still manage to trip over.

The elephant in the pool

Here's the part that always stings: price. Robot pool cleaners aren't cheap, and the Sora 70 sits comfortably in the "this better be worth it" tier. Whether it earns that price depends heavily on how big your pool is, how often it gets dirty, and honestly, how much you hate cleaning things yourself.

If you're already paying someone to maintain your pool, this might make you rethink that arrangement. If you're a DIY pool owner who dreads weekend scrubbing sessions, the calculus gets more interesting.

Bottom line

The Beatbot Sora 70 seems like a genuinely capable piece of kit for pool owners who want to automate one of the more annoying chores of backyard luxury living. It's not magic - you'll still need to maintain your water chemistry and empty the filter basket - but as a "set it and forget it" floor and wall scrubber, it appears to hold its own.

Full testing details and verdict are available in the original CNET review via Mashable.