Intex28451EP PureSpa Greystone Deluxe Spa Set: Includes Energy Efficient Spa Cover and Wireless Control Panel – Spa Control App – Built-in FastFill Inflation System – 6 Person Capacity – 77" x 28"

First, this review is based on the square, energy-efficiency, salt water, 4 person Intex Purespa version but some comments could apply to similar versions. This was 714$ when I purchased but I noticed when I came back to leave this review they were not as common.TL/DR (Too Long/Didn't Read)- Great hottub certainly worth the price.Setting up:Read the instructions! I am normally one to skip the instructions but if you follow them you will setup in the correct order and it will save you so much time and headaches. It will first have you inflate the bladder. It is much harder to inflate this in a later step. Everything inflates either passively or by the machine so there is no need to blow up anything with your mouth or any non included machine. Truly a great aspect. It is very easy to setup, took less than 1hr and most of it was filling the hot tub with water.What to purchase before or at the same time:SALT- if you have the salt water version make sure to purchase salt. It will not come with the hottub and you can not use table salt. Any pool/hottub salt will do. You will need 5 lbs just to start, most come in 40lb bagsThermal pad- If you plan to use this in the winter or in a cold climate. I strongly suggest doing anything to save your monthly electricity bill including this pad. You could get a pad, or a carpet, anything to help insulate your hot tub from the cold ground. It comes with a thin bubble sheet but the more insulation the better.Skimmer- even after 1 use your tub will have hair, dirt, leaves, etc inside and cleaning it by hand will be difficult to impossibleTest Strips- it will come with a pack of 20 but most of those will be used in the first few weeks when you develop a cleaning habitPros:Energy-efficient version- I STRONGLY suggest this if it is available. I got mine for 714$ but came back to write this review and saw they were already harder to come by. It has a cover that goes all the way down to the ground filled with thermal foam and comes with the air bladder to put in the hot tub between the water and the cover. I can only imagine how much money I will save because of this.Thick strong plastic- The hot tub itself and the cover are "hard" thick plastic. It will certainly last a long time and hold up to most things. It seems more durable than bouncy house material. You could easily sit on the hot tub walls and it would support you, though I would not recommend this.Salt-water System- I will update after 2 months but so far this has been amazing. Just added salt and the system breaks it into sodium and chlorine. Seems other hottubs can be converted to salt water with many aftermarket parts that would cost you the same as the entire inflatable hottub. **2 month update, the salt water has been amazing literally just add salt every week or 2, no other chemicals bought, even stopped using the strips**Control Panel- It is portable and can be brought into your house or you can hold it in your hand while in the hot tub to either see the current temperature or make adjustments. The charge lasts a long time and easily charges by placing it on the control base. 3hrs to fully charge it.The APP!- if you are looking at hottubs without an app, stop. This is easily worth almost any extra expense. It will allow you to setup schedules and control the hot tub from anywhere in the world.Lights/ 2 Headrests- The lights and headrests are pretty cool extra item that if you wanted them and they were not provided, in the case of some other hottub purchase, it would cost you 30-60$ for both. So factor that in when looking a prices.Inflation- The control base inflates all pieces of the hot tub. Only the cover is not inflated by the control base and that is because it passively inflates. No need for another inflating machine or using your lungs like with some other hottubs.Bubbles!- The bubbles are much better than I could have ever expected. Are they jets that target parts of your body of course not. This isn't a $5-20k hottub. They give a great ambiance and push the water 6 inches above the normal water line. I can't compare them to other inflatable hottubs but they certainly impressed me.Sanitation Schedule- Certainly a must for a saltwater based hottub. You can make it so your hottub essentially cleans itself without constantly thinking about it. **2 month update, I just have it run 3 hours every night and the water has always stayed perfectly clear and clean**Warranty- **4 month update. It is 1 full year and covers EVERYTHING. It is very easy to use, I called up Intex and spoke to someone within 3mins. Pretty much no questions asked and arrived within 3 days. Had to have electrode splitter replaced and cover started to rip and Intex replaced both with almost no hassle.Cons:Size- This applies to all inflatable hot tubs. If you regularly have 2 people getting in...get a 4 person. 4 people...get at least a 6 person. Square shape seemed better to give people their "own" corners.Heating Up- It takes a LONG time to heat up. Do NOT expect to get in it the first day it arrives. Depending on the temperature it truly heats up at 1 or 2 degrees F per hour. If you put 60 degree water from a hose to fill the hot tub...it will take at a minimum of 24 hours to get to 95+Errors- Once the system gets an error it will stop heating until the error is cleared. To clear the error you must unplug the hottub. This is to obviously prevent damage, but can be a pain if you don't check the control panel or the AMAZING APP and are about to get in the hottub sadly finding it at 85 degrees.Tips and Tricks/FAQ-Answers I learned:Electric Cost- If you have made it this far here is the answer everyone wants to know. After 4 months of use in the CO winter which saw -18F and months of night lows below freezing, the cost of electricity was an average of 1$ per day. This is at a rate of $0.09222 kWh so adjust for your region. This is also with the temperature set at 102F. I can only imagine how much less it will cost in the Spring.Salt- Get the salt before it arrives.Error Codes- Unplug the hottub to clear error codes and get the heat going againGround Padding- Get a thermal pad to insulate the hottub from the ground.First time filling- Fill it with hot water and not your hose to save money on heating and time for the first fill. I suggest filling it with your hose 1/3 of the way then directly attach the hose to the hot water spiket by a sink or washing machine. This prevents shooting 120 degree or higher water directly on the hottub.Sanitize- Schedule sanitize cycles everyday to reduce bacteria growth unless you use it less than twice a week. Then find something that works best for you. This is the only way chlorine is created.When can it be used/minimum outdoor temperature?- You can use it all year round. You can use it below the 40 degrees it says. If you use it in cold climates, be smart. If you live in Minnesota and it is going to be negative 20 degrees for a few nights, you might want use it in a garage or take it down entirely. Every degree below freezing is a greater strain and risk. 95 degrees inside of the hottub and -20 degrees outside would put a large strain on any product. I live in CO and I plan to move it in the garage when it starts to snow/ the worst of the winter. To protect my hottub and because of the electric bill I would fear.Water Temperature- after lots of research and my own experiences...it is entirely up to you. Some days 100 is enough for me, others I want 104. But what is clear is that it takes a long time to heat up and a linear temperature increase is a exponential electric bill increase. Start low. Increase until you are satisfied. Can not confirm yet, but many say the difference between 100 and 104 is 10-40% in savings.****All of the above is after 1 week and 4 month update of use. Large purchases are important and I tried to answer all the things I wanted to know when choosing between products or getting an inflatable hottub at all.****

Hello Everyone,I just wanted to share my experience with this product. I would first like to say it is very easy to assemble. That being that it is very difficult to get the control unit to attach properly to the tub as it will leak and depending on where it is potentially flood your garage. The biggest kicker is how much time you will be spending just trying to keep this thing operating. It will constantly throw random error codes over and over again on an almost daily basis and once you have tried to solve one of the many error codes another will pop up. During this time the tub is not heating and when you finish diagnosing it would could be a couple hours or a couple days it will take another day or so to heat back to temp. Now as far as running the filter every time you run the filter the water temp will drop significantly as it cannot heat and filter at the same time so in summary every time you run the filter the hot tub will not be functional for a couple days again. You see where im going with this. Appreciate the sparing moments the hot tub is actually running and upto temp as those moment will be few and far between. I would recommend being in shape if your purchasing because you will constantly be bent over in tinkering with and performing maintenance like a mechanic. If you have back problems I would not recommend. The customer service is TERRIBLE and does not care about the warranty they say they offer. If you try and reach out they will basically tell you to to pound sand and it’s not their problem. There service email as well is useless and you will NOT get a response from them.

Honest review: This is NOT a fill it and forget it device! My second time with Intex hot tub. My 1st one lasted just over 3 1/2 years. I had the round 6 person version previously. They are like owning a German luxury sports car. You MUST baby them, as they're fun when they run. You must pay attention to chemical maintenance and keep clean filters in them don't let them run on dirty filters. If you are not going to use the tub for extended time. Drain it and unplug the pump. The unbalanced chemicals, accumulating dirt and sludge will deteriorate the walls and the internal components of the heater/pump. If you purchase one of these you or someone needs to be the DAILY pool boy/girl. Make sure it has protection from sun and rain. Make sure you have a protective solution (besides the bubble cover Intex gives you). Get one of the rubber mat solutions to protect the bottom of your tub. If outdoors get a cheap gazebo to help protect from the elements. I used to run my first tub heater 24/7 and shut it down for the winter (yes in Northern California). I would keep it up but with additional covering from the wind, rain and sun. This new tub is different.It is a Salt water hot tub. Which means you don't have to deal with Chlorine or Bromine and spa up and down balancing. However, you still need to be just as vigilant. The tub uses a device/chemical process to convert salt to chlorine. This is done using the SANITATION process that needs to run daily for 5 to 8 hours. You still need to manage salt levels, PH, Chlorine etc. Super important to rinse the filters DAILY to avoid E90 errors. I've gotten two since I've owned for a little over a month. Found a tip on YouTube that states you need to shake out the bubbles on the filter before putting the filter back after rinsing. Haven't gotten a E90 since I started doing this. Also it is recommended you run the bubbles daily for an hour. Honestly I really don't have time to do that so I try to at least every few days. Ive been using the tub pretty much daily. Great relief after a strength training/Peloton or work stress.What I like:- The size of the tub. No way you're getting 6 adults in there but nice size for 2 - 4.- Removable control unit.- WiFi/Application (make Sure you use the NEW version and not the old one that's buggy and pretty useless). I did loose the WiFi radio for a few days reached out to support. But it came back and has been working for a couple of weeks again without issues (fingers crossed)- Intex Link Application scheduling. - Need WiFi to work but this is a must to manage all these maintenace task and schedule pool heating segments.- Salt water system. No more overly chemical yukyness. Way less chlorine exposure.- New style cover - looks really cool, keeps your tub insulated and heated. It's heavy, kind of cumbersome and many folks complain about it.What I don't like:- Customer service - send you back a reply you can't reply to (DUMB) so you have to keep filling out a form to reply.- Instructions are very vague- Application is a little weird (but useful and necessary). I'm starting to get the hang of it. Otherwise your tub won't be hot or clean when you're ready to get in.- Heat dissipation during usage (all inflatable hot tubs have this issue as outside air is used for bubbles).- FiltersOverall:Great hot tub experience for a fraction of the cost. I haven't had it long enough to see what the energy cost will be. Or how long it will hold up. I see lots of low ratings and issues. Hot tubs are ultimately a gamble and very dependent on how they're cared for and the Intex or any of the manufactures QA at the factory. You could get one with an issue or a good one. When everything is working they are AMAZING! When they're not they are a pain to deal with. Returning them would be a shipping nightmare. Getting rid of an old one is expensive and difficult. So would I recommend any inflatable hot tub? It depends on if you're willing to take the risk as your bargain inflatable hot tube could be a messy nightmare. Sorry.... hope this helps.