Having a pool is wonderful when you want to use it, but not so great when you have to maintain it. Vacuuming the leaves and scrubbing the sides is a chore that can consume hundreds of hours a year. Robot pool cleaners have solved this time drain, but there’s still a bit of work involved.
Most robot pool cleaners still need to be manually lifted out of the water. Especially when waterlogged, they can be quite heavy. They also need recharging, and the waste basket emptied, so it’s not an entirely hands-off process.
I recently tested the Wybot S3 robot pool cleaner to see how much of this process can be automated.
Wybot S3 features
The Wybot S3 is a robot pool cleaner that self-docks, charges, and transfers its waste basket contents to outside the pool. When you first open the box, it is a little daunting, but once you start assembling it, it’s like a small Lego set that comes together easily.
Lifting a pool cleaner in and out of your pool to charge, especially when it may be full of water, is heavy, and you’ll likely get wet. The Wybot S3 solves this by docking itself underwater in a wall-mounted cradle.
From this cradle, it charges its battery and empties its waste basket contents into the docking station’s storage cassette at the edge of the pool. Wybot claims that between the 10-litre cassette and 3-litre waste basket, you won’t have to manually empty anything for up to a month. This, of course, depends on how much leaf litter and debris falls into your pool.
Either way, this robot is self-sufficient for a period when other robots would need charging and waste emptying after every clean.
Running a power cord to your robot pool cleaner is, honestly, a hazard. A cord lying on the ground with running kids sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. In theory, the Wybot S3 is self-sufficient with its solar panel if you clean your pool only once a week. With full sun, the solar panel will recharge the batteries in both the base station and robot in about three days. This will take longer if the panel is shaded for part of the day or the weather is cloudy.
I like the idea that if the base doesn’t get enough sun, you can temporarily run a cable to boost the unit. A removable cord also improves the aesthetics, removes the trip hazard and saves you from making cosmetic changes around your pool.
The internal battery lets the robot run for up to 2.5 hours and supports pools up to 300 square metres (about a 15m pool), which is more than enough for the average Australian pool. Charging the robot from the mains takes about three hours. Whilst working, the robot will suck 14,000 litres per hour.
The Wybot uses technology it calls AI Vision on the pool floor. This allows the robot to target areas of your pool that need cleaning using 36 sensors. In simple terms, it can chase leaves and save power by not cleaning every square centimetre in AI Vision mode.
You can select five cleaning modes: Floor, Wall, Wall then floor, Advanced Full, Turbo Floor. The AI mode can be switched on and off but only works with the Floor modes and not Advanced Full. Advanced will reach every spot, ensuring any fine grit is removed.
Wybot S3 specifications and price
| Cleaning area | Up to 300 square metres |
| Battery life | 2.5 hours |
| Basket capacity | 3 + 10 litres |
| Dimensions | 76 cm x 48 cm x 74 cm 21kg |
| Price (RRP) | $4,999 |
| Website | Wybot Australia |
| Warranty | Two years |
Using the Wybot S3
When you first commission the robot, it will create a 3D map of your pool to help it navigate. With each additional clean, it refines that map and its navigation techniques to ensure it reaches all underwater spots, including steps.
The docking station also enables underwater communication, something most robot pool cleaners can’t do. You can change cleaning modes on the go in the app. The app lets you see real-time progress and manually steer your robot to areas of the pool that may need special attention.
In the app, you can also schedule cleans over seven days and use different modes on different days. For example, on Monday you could clean the pool floor, on Wednesday the walls, and on Saturday do a complete clean. A key feature of the wall cleaning is that the robot lifts itself above the water line. This is an area where water, air, and sunlight combine to grow algae. This cleaning motion removes that algae and keeps your pool looking nice.
Whilst the robot pool cleaner seems maintenance-free and doesn’t need to be removed from the pool, that is not actually the case. The robot comes with three filter screen levels. The first is the standard 380 microns, which is the size of the holes in the basket. This is great for catching leaves, which are easily transferred to the base station waste drawer. 180-micron inserts allow finer particles to be captured in the basket, and a separate 10-micron filter can also be added into the unit to capture fine silt and pollen.
These finer filters don’t clean properly with the automatic water waste transfer to the dock. To clean them, remove the robot from the pool and flush the basket and filters with a good-pressure garden hose. Wybot recommends doing this every two weeks. If your pool starts dirty, add the filters after every few cleans to avoid the fine filters getting blocked immediately.
The standout negative of this pool robot is its price. With an RRP of $4,999, that puts the Wybot S3 at the super premium end. Other robots in this price bracket will also clean the surface, but the S3 has self-docking and basket cleaning.
Wybot does offer specials, though; at the time of publication, it listed the S3 for $3,799.99. In the past, Wybot has also done bundles with a solar-powered pool skimmer that collects leaves from the surface of the pool. I’m a big fan of pool skimmers because they catch debris before it sinks to the bottom.
Who is the Wybot S3 for?
The Wybot S3 is for people prepared to pay for extra convenience. If you have a robot pool cleaner, it saves you from cleaning your pool by hand. The Wybot S3 also saves you from removing the cleaner from the pool to charge and emptying the waste basket every time. This model is also suitable for people who would struggle to remove a robot pool cleaner from the pool.
If you have good sunlight to charge the dock, you may get away with not running a permanent power cord, which suits those with access issues, aesthetics, and safety.
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