5 Technology Upgrades Your Swimming Pool Should Have

—Beauty, comfort, health, convenience, and water and energy savings

Your new or remodeled inground pool may come equipped with some fundamentals such as a variable-speed pump for energy efficiency and automatic pool cleaner for convenience.

But if you have not owned a gunite pool in the last few years, you may be unaware of newer advancements that can make the experience of owning and using it easier and more enjoyable.

And in some cases, pool designers do not advise buyers of all the state-of-the-art options. Or, the pool builder dos not offer a full array of them.

With this in mind, let’s take a look at the kind of high-tech “smart” pool features to ask about including on your brand new backyard resort or update to your aging pool and equipment.

1.  Color-changing LED Lighting

Once upon a time, typical pools were outfitted with a single large white light at the deep end. That pool light had as much charm and beauty as the headlamps from an oncoming freight train.

But no more. The advent of LED pool lighting has absolutely transformed the way backyards are illuminated.

By deploying multiple small LED fixtures, pool builders can more evenly distribute illumination throughout the poolscape.

They can also create detailed lighting effects, such as spotlighting key features such as gunite spas, rock waterfalls, bubbler fountains, tanning ledges, swim-up bars, landscape pocket planters, cascade waterfalls on raised bond beam, and more.

LEDs come in white, but higher-end models boast multiple colors. With color-changing LED pool lights, you can set them to remain static on a single color or cycle through an array of dazzling whites, blues, reds, golds, greens, and magentas.

It’s hard to overstate the level of aesthetic appeal that LED lights produce. Vivid colors illuminating pool features and water in motion will transform the scenery in ways you may not have imagined.

By turning your pool into gorgeous night-time scenery, you have an entire additional way to benefit from your aquatic playground.

You can take the evening drama even higher: Higher-end LED systems also offer something else: Spectacular light shows.

In these pre-programmed “theme” performances, dozens or hundreds of colors transition at varying speeds and sequences.

For example, shades of gold, green, and purple quickly flash and dance in a Mardi Gras theme. Soft blues and whites transition slowly in the “tranquility” setting. A number of other themes are available.

Yet another advantage is energy efficiency. LEDs use significantly less power than traditional incandescent lights. Plus, they often last 10 times longer!

2.  Automation via PC, tablet, phone or voice

Equipment manufacturers have done their part in the evolution of pool function by developing programmable control systems to use from a PC, tablet, or smartphone.

Some swimming pool automation system provide even greater convenience. They integrate with Alexa or Google Home systems to enable voice commands!

As pools & spas have gained more complex functions, these systems provide ultimate convenience for a range of actions.

Among them are daily maintenance functions such as cleaning and filtration on a schedule. In fact, by programming equipment to run during off-peak periods when utility costs are lower, you may cut energy costs.

These systems allow you to command your pool & spa in additional ways as well.

For example, while you’re driving in traffic home from work, you can push an app on your phone to fire up the spa so it’s hot and bubbly when you arrive.

Or, set up a schedule to turn on the pool lights and water features each day at sunset to enjoy viewing the pool and surrounding setting as you sit down to dinner or curl up on the living room couch. Better yet, the lights and features can automatically shut off at a set time as well.

Creating custom programs is also possible. Better pool automation systems allow you to program multiple functions into one setting and even name it how you want it.

So, you can set up “Bob’s weekend” to turn the pool lights to your favorite green color, activate the water on the pool slide, set the spa temperature to 100 degrees, and turn off the roving automatic pool cleaner.

When asking your pool builder about automation systems, be sure that the model you purchase can be upgraded so it stays current as the technology changes.

Some automation systems even “unlock” additional colors on LED lighting systems.

3.  Virtually chlorine-free sanitization

With alternative purification systems, you can significantly reduce the amount of chlorine required to maintain a sparkling, healthy swimming environment.

One option is an ozone generator. Formed from oxygen, ozone is a molecule with three atoms instead of the normal two.

Working 3000 times faster than chlorine, ozone is a safe, powerful sanitizer that delivers healthier water.

It performs most of the job that chlorine does—but without the harsh effects from chemical byproducts that cause red eyes, dry skin and hair, and those awful fumes.

With an ozonator handling the “heavy lifting” sanitizing needs, you can dial way back on chemical levels.

Better yet: Once ozone has destroyed contaminants in your pool water, it quickly dissipates with no impact on swimmers.

For this reason, ozone has long been used for treating pools at the Olympics and helping sanitize drinking water in major U.S. cities.

The other option to ask your pool builder about is advanced oxidation process (AOP) and the hydroxyl radicals it produces.

Now, don’t be put off by the technical names here: AOP is even more powerful than ozone. In seconds, it destroys 99.9% of harmful pathogens, including mold, fungus, viruses, bacteria, protozoa, algae, sweat, urine, body oils, pesticides, and other toxic elements.

AOP also wins some battles that chlorine can’t: It tackles E. Coli, Girardi, Listeria, and Salmonella. It can even prevent attacks form Cryptosporidium parvum (aka “Crypto”).

After annihilating contaminants, hydroxyl radicals simply convert back to oxygen. So, that makes AOP completely safe for pool users.

Bar none, AOP delivers better water quality with greater clarity. You will have a swimming environment more thoroughly sanitized than you can achieve with other pool-disinfection options.

4.  Water-energizing systems to inhibit scale, biofilm, and hard water

How would you like pool water that’s softer and clearer?

How about pool surfaces that maintain their appearance better with less maintenance?

Cutting-edge systems use hydraulic harmonics to super-energize pool water. In a nutshell, this technology alters pool water safely at the molecular level to achieve greater viscosity.

In turn, the water actually behaves differently. And in your pool, that new behavior delivers big benefits.

Enhanced water provides a slew of improvements for water quality, pool maintenance and appearance, and your overall swimming experience.

This energized water breaks down cyanuric acid so that the levels are easier to balance.

It also makes tiny suspended particles combine into clumps large enough for suction-type automatic pool cleaners to capture and remove.

For this same reason, pool filter performance improves. The filter can remove even smaller particles of unwanted substances ranging from metals to organic debris.

In turn, your pool achieves amazing water clarity.

Along with the pleasure of seeing glistening water in the sunlight, you will derive even more joy from swimming in it: You will have incredibly soft water for a gentler, silky feeling pool environment.

Another benefit of enhanced water is that it reduces the unsightly accumulation of scale along waterline surfaces, including any rockwork along the pool perimeter.

That means less brushing along tile lines, spa spillways, rock water features, and stone veneer walls.

The water’s viscosity also makes it tougher for swimming pool algae to take hold. Ditto for the formation of sticky, bacteria-laden biofilm along pool surfaces.

In addition, a pool with water-energizing technology is healthier. It cuts swimmers’ exposure to harsh, unhealthy compounds such as cyanogen chloride and trichloramine.

Your pool will also require fewer water softeners and less algaecide.

5.  Cartridge filtration with antimicrobial product protection

Don’t even think about equipping your pool with a labor-intensive, water-wasting sand filter or one with DE (diatomaceous earth).

Sure, DE can technically filter down to particles only 1 – 3 microns in size. But unless you plan on regularly viewing your pool water through a microscope, you really won’t know the difference.

Furthermore, the extra maintenance, water consumption, chemical rebalancing, and hazards of accidentally inhaling the DE just aren’t worth it.

You may or may not know that a cartridge filter also spares thousands of gallons of pool water each year that would otherwise be lost by using a sand filter and the backwashing process it requires for cleaning.

If you have owned a pool before with a cartridge filter, you know that cleaning it is relatively easy.

Now, one thing that does make the cartridge filter cleaning process a bit tougher is the slimy gunk—millions of microbes—that nest in the filtration media.

But today, you can get a pool filter with antimicrobial product protection, such as Microban®*.

Independent laboratory studies prove that Microban® creates a “zone of inhibition” that guards pool filters against unwanted microorganisms. It measurably impedes the growth of microbes that cause stains, odors, and deterioration of filter cartridges.

In addition, this element lasts as long as the cartridge; unlike surface coatings and chemical additives, Microban® will provide enduring, built-in product protection.

You can also have a pool filter with extra storage capacity. The larger the storage tank, the longer time will pass before it will need cleaning.

Depending on where you live, the length of swim season, and your background environment, an oversized pool filter may mean it needs cleaning only once or twice during the entire year!

*MICROBAN is a registered trademark of the Microban Products Company.