When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Aiper's EcoSurfer 2 is a skimmer on the slow side, but it makes up for speed shortcomings with outstanding longevity. Aiper's EcoSurfer 2 is a skimmer on the slow side, but it makes up for speed shortcomings with outstanding longevity. Roving pool surface skimmers are a surprisingly consistent category in the aquatic robotics space, typically featuring solar-powered, fully autonomous operation that you can drop in the pool and forget about for weeks. With its EcoSurfer S2, Aiper refreshes its skimmer design, boosts battery life, and improves intelligence. And while most pool owners can probably get by without a surface skimmer, it's a strong candidate for purchase if the surface of your pool is prone to collecting a lot of floating debris.

Send the pool guy packing. One of these robotic buddies can maintain your water quality instead. Cleaning swimming pools is not fun. I learned this simple logic as a kid growing up in and around pools--it's the only way to survive summer in Houston, Texas. Four years ago, I became a pool owner myself, and I found that the rule still holds. Jumping into the pool on a hot day remains a rare treat, but if the pool is filled with leaves and dirt, that treat becomes a lot less delightful. And when the thermometer is reading over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, the thought of laboring on the pool deck, scooping out debris with a net, is downright cruel.

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This sub-$200 skimmer looks funny and feels flimsy, but it gets the job done better than most, even without having any smarts to speak of. What makes them potentially more compelling is when they're inexpensive, and the Ultenic S1 Pool Skimmer is as cheap as they come. And much to my surprise, it works as well as (or better than) anything else in its class that I've tried. The Ultenic S1 measures 8 x 15 x 19 inches (HxWxL) once it's assembled, and it weighs just 6 pounds.

Wybot's solar skimmer does a surprisingly good job of grabbing leaves off the surface of the pool, but its loud operation and poor power management knock it down a peg. Solar-powered pool skimmers flit along the surface of your pool operating under the idea that if they can scoop up debris before it sinks, you won't need to clean the bottom of the pool. It sounds logical, but in practice, most pool skimmers don't do the absolute best of jobs--there's only so much surface area a skimmer can cover before leaves get waterlogged and sink to the depths. But robotic skimmers are better than nothing, especially if you don't have a good in-wall skimmer. The Wybot F1 Pool Skimmer was much more effective at capturing floating leaves than any skimmer I've used to date.

Beatbot's smart skimmer comes with a sky-high price tag, but aside from its competently designed app, it doesn't outperform one of its simpler and much less-expensive competitors. While testing the Beatbot iSkim Ultra, it occurred to me that a pool-skimming robot probably just isn't a very good idea. I'm not saying that the Beatbot iSkim Ultra is a bad product per se, just that, for most pool owners, robotic skimmers probably aren't a worthwhile investment. If you have a pool pump with a thru-wall skimmer, you almost certainly don't need a robot for the job--unless perhaps you live in such an extremely tree-laden environment that the wall skimmer can't keep up. Even then, I can't see how you would ever be fully satisfied with your investment in a pool skimmer which, to be frank, isn't cheap. A'rocket' button lets you double the Beatbot iSkim Ultra's speed, which is about as much fun as you can have around the pool without getting in.

Jscrambler, a technology company specializing in client-side security for web and mobile applications is offering its leading Magecart detection technology for free during a limited time. This technology is currently being used by major airlines and retailers to fight off web skimming attacks, which are estimated to have caused over $1 billion in damages to e-commerce businesses. Web skimming attacks are notoriously difficult to detect and tackle – they typically breach companies by infecting their third-party providers, which allows them to fly under the radar of security systems already in place. A new generation of web skimmers is also using bot detection techniques to escape detection, which makes it even more difficult to stop this growing threat. The company has undertaken a significant R&D push to provide a technology capable of detecting web skimmers regardless of their specific attack approach.