An air conditioner is controlled off of temperature. And that’s the key thing to understand.
Picture either a heater or an air conditioner, that says, "am I too cold or am I too hot or am I just right?" and operates to heat or cool to maintain the temperature.
A dehumidifier is not drawn just on temperature it’s actually focused on moisture removal.
In an indoor pool, a dehumidifier runs more of the time to remove the moisture than it does to turn on for cooling or to turn on for heating. And that’s the big operative difference is that it’s the relative humidity that is driving the dehumidifier’s compressors to turn on and off to remove moisture to maintain the environment.
As you’re dehumidifying the air, you’re cooling it. You don’t want to overcool the air. Desert Aire dehumidifiers have a hot gas reheat coil that captures some of the heat out of the air coming into the dehumidifier and uses it to reheat the air (reclaiming energy) from the cooling and moisture removal process before it’s exhausted from the dehumidifier to return the air to the pool room at a warm temperature.
In Desert Aire dehumidifiers, there is separation between temperature and humidity control.
Learn more at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlERYCrNFs4&t=1s