At a glanceExpert’s Score
Professionals
The general finest skimmer at capturing particles in our checks
Large filter basket
Distant management permits for guide steering when wanted
Cons
Extraordinarily loud
Blunt operation; runs into the wall Always
Weak battery life
Our Verdict
Wybot’s photo voltaic skimmer does a surprisingly good job of grabbing leaves off the floor of the pool, however its loud operation and poor energy administration knock it down a peg.
Value When Reviewed
This worth will present the geolocated pricing textual content for product undefined
Finest Pricing At the moment
Value When Reviewed$329.99
Finest Costs At the moment: Wybot F1 Pool Skimmer
Photo voltaic-powered pool skimmers flit alongside the floor of your pool working underneath the concept if they will scoop up particles earlier than it sinks, you received’t want to wash the underside of the pool.
It sounds logical, however in follow, most pool skimmers don’t do the best possible of jobs—there’s solely a lot floor space a skimmer can cowl earlier than leaves get waterlogged and sink to the depths. However robotic skimmers are higher than nothing, particularly for those who don’t have in-wall skimmer.
The Wybot F1 Pool Skimmer was way more efficient at capturing floating leaves than any skimmer I’ve used to this point.
Specs
Wybot’s F1 Photo voltaic Skimmer is probably the beefiest, burliest skimmer I’ve examined to this point. The 14-pound beast is technically lighter than the 17-pound Beatbot iSkimmer Extremely I reviewed in January, however its look is extra dominating, with a gaping maw in entrance because the gateway to an enormous, 7-liter particles basket. (A small ridge contained in the filter basket prevents particles from coming again out.)
The Wybot F1’s app has has two working modes: normal and good. You may as well use a D-pad to manually navigate the bot across the floor of your pool.Christopher Null/Foundry
As with all photo voltaic skimmers, a big photo voltaic panel makes up your entire prime floor of the robotic, the 33-watt panel feeding a 5200 mAh battery contained in the chassis. An included plug-in charger can prime up the battery for those who don’t have sufficient solar to do the job.
Not like most different skimmers I’ve examined, the F1 doesn’t have seen paddles to propel and switch it within the pool. Slightly, its propulsion system is hidden contained in the chassis, secreted deep inside two channels on both aspect of the machine.
Two vents on both aspect of the robotic are used when the Wybot F1 must again up, jetting water out so the robotic can reverse. An extended LED bar on the entrance of the machine offers a fast take a look at standing (operating, charging, low battery, and so forth), and house owners of swimming pools with very shallow areas can come out 4 anti-stranding bars on the underside of the machine to stop the robotic from reaching sure areas the place there’s not sufficient water to work in.
Efficiency
When beginning up the robotic, what you’ll discover instantly is how loud it’s. The impellers contained in the robotic sound just like the props on a small airplane, whirring and sputtering and blubbering to a level I’ve not encountered in any pool-cleaning machine. The robotic putters across the pool (at a wholesome clip) scooping up particles, however it nearly feels like an precise boat. Multiple customer recognizing it at work within the pool remarked about its noise manufacturing.
The Wybot F1 has two working modes, which you’ll be able to choose by way of the Wybot app: normal mode and good mode; with the latter—satirically—being its default mode. Normal mode runs the robotic constantly till its battery dies, then waits till it’s totally charged to start out operating once more.
The Wybot F1 has a really massive filter basket that captured a number of leaves in our checks.Christopher Null/Foundry
Good mode adjusts the robotic’s runtime based mostly on accessible sunshine to maintain it operating on and off all through the day, ostensibly sustaining sufficient cost on the battery to keep away from lengthy durations of downtime. The app additionally features a distant management that may—slightly crudely—direct the robotic across the pool to areas of explicit bother.
The skimmer just isn’t essentially the most clever I’ve examined, as it’s liable to winding itself as much as most pace then run headlong straight into the wall. Hand it to the F1 although, because it doesn’t like to surrender. After just a few seconds of relaxation, it’ll typically attempt to push ahead immediately into the wall as soon as once more earlier than, finally, it realizes it’s not making progress. Ultimately, one of many backup vents will interact and the robotic will make a flip, then jet off to greener, dirtier pastures.
One way or the other this all works fairly nicely. Its quick pace and sheer tenacity let the F1 cowl a number of floor shortly, however it’s the large opening for the filter basket that appears to be the key sauce. Different photo voltaic skimmer designs typically push particles to both aspect because the ploddingly sluggish robotic creeps nearer, inflicting that particles to be solely missed, the the F1’s vast mouth permits for no escape.
The Wybot F1 was way more efficient at capturing floating leaves in my testing than some other skimmer I’ve used to this point, amassing about 85 % of the leaves in my check samples whereas the rest sunk to the underside. (Solely a pair remained on the floor after about 4 hours of operating time.)
Though it may be robust to dislodge its filter basket, cleanup within reason straightforward, because the basket splits into two elements, permitting for a better washout. That mentioned, it might be helpful if the rear of the basket additionally opened to permit particles to cross by way of to the opposite aspect.
The inevitable caveats
A big photo voltaic panel types the highest floor of the Wybot F1 Skimmer; sadly, it didn’t appear able to protecting the robotic’s battery charged for all-day operation.Christopher Null/Foundry
Sadly, the Wybot F1 isn’t excellent. That further pace equates to a brief battery life, and I used to be by no means in a position to get the robotic to run for a full day with out its battery dying, even underneath the summer time solar of Texas. Its battery can also be sluggish to cost. Even on comparatively sunny days, I typically discovered the robotic didn’t run in any respect throughout the day in normal mode as a result of it had by no means totally recharged.
Wybot’s app could be very easy, primarily used to pick out between the 2 working modes and to activate the distant management; however the Bluetooth and a couple of.4GHz Wi-Fi-connected system additionally offers one essential metric: remaining battery life.
The issue is that I may by no means get this battery indication to replace with out force-quitting the app and restarting it. It doesn’t matter what I did, the battery indicator would stay caught on no matter stage it was on the final time I checked it.
This evaluation is a part of TechHive’s in-depth protection of the very best robotic pool cleaners.
This is usually a actual ache whenever you examine the app and see the robotic has 98 % battery life remaining, solely to restart the app to seek out that the true remaining battery life is simply 13 %.
Do you have to purchase the Wybot F1 Pool Skimmer?
At $330 (road value), the Wybot F1 is vastly cheaper than the $1,499 Beatbot iSkim Extremely I reviewed in January, and it’s aggressive with the $340 Smonet SR5 I evaluated in November 2024.
Should you don’t thoughts the din it creates whereas it’s puttering across the pool—heck, you would possibly even discover the noise endearing—it’s arguably the skimmer to beat.
