Polaris Freedom Plus Review: Is It Worth It? (2026)

The Freedom Plus is a strong pick if you want true cordless convenience on a small or mid-sized in-ground pool and you will actually use the remote. If you would just drop the robot in and press start, the standard Freedom does nearly the same cleaning for less.

• What it is: a fully cordless, lithium-ion robotic cleaner that does floors, walls, and the waterline, with app connectivity and a LiFi handheld remote.

• Best for: small to mid-sized in-ground pools where a floating cord is a nuisance and easy lift-out matters.

• Runtime: Polaris rates it to clean a pool in 2.5 hours or less per charge, and most cycles we see land in the 1.5 to 2 hour range. Recharge is under 5 hours on the caddy.

• Is it worth it over the standard Freedom? Only if the underwater remote and charging caddy matter to you. The two cleaners share most core specs.

• The honest catch: a corded premium robot will out-scrub it on raw suction, and every cordless robot's battery fades over the years. See the tradeoffs below.

• Price: $1,399 at the time of this update, $200 more than the standard Freedom and $600 more than the Freedom SC. The live listing below always has the current price and stock.

Most cordless robots cannot be controlled once they are in the water. That is not a design oversight, it is physics. Radio signals, the kind ordinary WiFi and Bluetooth remotes use, do not travel well through water, so a submerged robot simply cannot hear a normal wireless remote.

Polaris gets around this with LiFi, which sends the signal using light instead of radio. That is the "control with light" idea, and it is the reason the Freedom Plus can do something its rivals cannot: while the robot is running on the pool floor, you can pick up the handheld remote, steer it to a spot that needs attention, start or stop it, or send it to the surface for retrieval. Combined with Tap & Lift, where a tap of your pool pole brings the unit to the waterline, getting the robot out of the water is about as easy as it gets.

Be clear-eyed about what this is worth. If you like the idea of spot-cleaning a corner by hand or you dislike fishing a robot off the bottom, the remote is a real quality-of-life upgrade. If you plan to run a full automatic cycle and walk away every time, you may rarely touch it, and that is exactly the case where the cheaper standard Freedom makes more sense.

The Takeaway: the Freedom matches the Freedom Plus on cleaning coverage, canister size, and battery runtime. What you give up stepping down from Plus to Freedom is the LiFi underwater remote, the Remote Easy Lift retrieval, and the charging caddy in favor of a charging station. At the time of this update that step down saves about $200 ($1,199 vs $1,399). If the remote and caddy do not move you, the standard Freedom is the value pick in the family.

The Freedom SC is the budget entry, around $799 at the time of this update. It steps down to a smaller 3L canister, about 2 hours of runtime, a 36 ft pool size rating, and floor or floor-and-wall cleaning rather than full waterline coverage. For a smaller, simpler pool where you mainly need the floor cleaned, it can be plenty. Just know that you are giving up waterline cleaning and some capacity to hit the lower price.

No cleaner is all upside. Here is what to go in knowing.

Cordless suction has a ceiling. As covered above, a corded premium robot will out-scrub any battery unit in a raw power test. That is the price of cutting the cord. Polaris has the Era 820 & Era 842 as two corded options that are great alternatives

Pushback: this doesn't necessarily mean it won't do a good job cleaning your pool. For typical every day debris, this should be more than enough. 

Batteries fade. Every lithium-ion robot loses runtime as it ages. A cleaner that runs two-plus hours new will run less after a few seasons, and eventually the battery needs replacing. Here is the number most reviews skip: the replacement battery block for the Freedom line (Polaris part R0972000) lists for roughly $700 to $900 at pool parts retailers as of this writing, and it is not a user-swappable AA situation, it is a sealed module. That is more than half the price of the cleaner. Register the cleaner so the Polaris warranty covers early failures, but budget for that replacement at some point in the cleaner's life. Corded robots simply do not have this line item.

Pushback: Corded cleaners don't last forever either.  At our retail shop, we typically need to replace a power supply, motor, or cable within 3-5 years.  

You are paying a premium for the remote. The single biggest reason to choose the Plus over the standard Freedom is the LiFi remote and caddy. If you will not use them, that money is better kept in your pocket or spent on a corded cleaner with more suction.

Pushback: Don't really have any.  If you want to save money, get the Freedom. It's the same cleaner without remote and caddy. 

It is a premium-priced cleaner. At $1,399 this sits at the upper end of the cordless range. Weigh it against both the standard Freedom $200 below it and the corded options at a similar number. 

Pushback: Yes, it isn't cheap but neither are the other cordless cleaners in this category.  If you want to get a reliable cordless cleaner around $1,000 the Freedom & Freedom Plus are great options.  If you need to be cheaper, you may want to consider a corded model.