A publicly accessible urban beach entertainment complex is disclosed, with a man-made tropical, pristine-clear lagoon as the centerpiece of the complex, with surrounding entertainment, educational, sports, and commercial facilities, the complex having controlled public access and providing the look and feel of a tropical beach with clear waters and sandy beaches. In addition a method for efficiently utilizing facilities and land that are vacant, underutilized, have limited uses, or that are contiguous to or nearby recreational, educational, sports, or commercial venues is disclosed. The method providing a publicly accessible urban beach entertainment complex with a centerpiece man-made tropical-style pristine-clear lagoon. The method allows for generating revenue and increasing efficiency by pairing vacant sites, underutilized sites, limited use land, or sites that are contiguous to entertainment, educational, sports, and/or commercial venues with urban beach entertainment complexes. The complex preferably has a controlled public access, thereby allowing entrance upon payment of a fee.

Communications capabilities are supplied to components of pool water recirculation systems, even if the components lack electrical power or supply wires. Capabilities may be furnished by wireless RF devices that connect to existing fittings or ports of the components, for example. The devices are configured to obtain desired information relating to the components (or the water within them) and transmit the information remotely for processing or consideration.

Skimming devices may use pressurized water from, for example, a return line of a swimming pool or spa. The devices may be adjustable vertically and levelled relative to an upper water surface (waterline) of a pool. They additionally may create “blades” of debris-laden pool water entering their floating heads so as to move debris smoothly and efficiently over wings or foils into associated filters.

A mobile device reads a test strip to determine a chemical condition of a liquid or a user inputs a treatment plan into the mobile device. The mobile device transmits the determined chemical condition or the input treatment plan to a liquid treatment system which treats the fluid in response to the determined chemical condition or the input treatment plan.

Disclosed herein are fluid chemistry systems comprising fluid chemistry manifolds. The fluid chemistry manifolds can comprise an inlet, two flow paths in fluid communication with the inlet, one or more probe apertures, and an outlet in fluid communication with the two flow paths. The one or more probe apertures can be configured to receive at least a portion of a corresponding fluid chemistry probe. The probe can be configured to detachably attach to the one or more probe apertures and fluidly communicate with the flow path. The probe can include one or more of a pH sensor, an oxidation reduction potential (ORP) sensor, and a total dissolved solids (TDS) sensor. The systems can also comprise an adjustable valve configured to selectively permit a predetermined amount of fluid flow through the at least one of the two flow paths.

A sensor system for swimming pools and spas is detailed herein. The sensor system can include one or more sensors positioned in a sensor housing located within a cavity of a pipe and in-line with an inlet and an outlet of the pipe. The sensor housing can divert a portion of water flowing through the cavity to an interior of the sensor housing and to an area around the sensors and maintain at least some of the diverted water in the area around the sensors even if the water is not flowing through or is drained from the pipe.

Apparatuses for dispensing household fluids including a handheld device or wand including a pump for dispensing one or more household fluids at a rate and for a time sufficient to dispense a pre-determined or variable amount of the fluids into an appliance, and to methods for making and using same. Apparatuses for dispensing pool chemicals including pool chemical containers, pool chemical sensors, and pumps for introducing pool chemical into pool water on a periodically basis.

A pool filter system includes a filter housing with an open interior. A pleated filter container in the open interior of the filter housing has a pleated filter side wall and divides the interior of the filter housing into an pleated filter compartment and an particulate filter compartment surrounding the pleated filter side wall. The pleated filter side wall has a plurality of pleated filter container openings. A particulate filter medium is within the particulate filter compartment, and a pleated filter is within the open interior of the pleated filter compartment. A water inlet communicates with the particulate filter compartment, and a water outlet communicates with the pleated filter compartment. The pleated filter container openings in the pleated filter container side wall have a dimension that is less than the diameter of the particulate filter medium. A backwash assembly and a method of filtering pool water is also disclosed.

The present invention provides a method for comprehensive monitoring, analysis and maintenance of water and equipment in swimming pools, said method implemented by one or more processors operatively coupled to a non-transitory computer readable storage device, on which are stored modules of instruction code that when executed cause the one or more processors to perform: accumulating and monitoring data from elements including at least one of: sensors, actuators, and breakers in and around the vicinity of the swimming pools; accumulating non-sensory data from a plurality of sources at a local processing unit; propagating the data to an online remote server, applying machine learning or rule based algorithms at the online remote server configured to incorporate all the acquired data and obtain an optimal policy for pool maintenance by providing recommendations, control parameters, and providing an online interface to access said recommendation/control parameters for at least one of pool owners, pool servicemen, pool maintenance companies, pool vendors and pool retail dealers.

A pool skimmer guard assembly for keeping a pool skimmer free from obstructions includes a rod that is comprised of a resiliently bendable material. In this way the rod can be bent into a U-shape. Thus, the rod can be positioned in an intake of a pool skimmer having the rod curving outwardly from the intake. A pair of grips is each coupled to the rod such that each of the grips is positioned in the intake of the pool skimmer when the rod is bent into the U-shape. Each of the grips has a gripping edge that is perpendicularly oriented with the rod. In this way the gripping edge of each of the grips can engage a respective edge of the intake thereby inhibiting the rod from being dislodged from the intake.