Expert’s Rating
Pros
- The general greatest skimmer at capturing particles in our exams
- Huge filter basket
- Remote management permits for guide steering when wanted
Cons
- Extremely loud
- Blunt operation; runs into the wall Constantly
- 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.
Price When Reviewed
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Best Pricing Today
Price When Reviewed
$329.99
Best Prices Today: Wybot F1 Pool Skimmer
Solar-powered pool skimmers flit alongside the floor of your pool working beneath the concept if they’ll scoop up particles earlier than it sinks, you received’t want to wash the underside of the pool.
It sounds logical, however in apply, most pool skimmers don’t do the very best of jobs—there’s solely a lot floor space a skimmer can cowl earlier than leaves get waterlogged and sink to the depths. But robotic skimmers are higher than nothing, particularly in the event you don’t have an excellent in-wall skimmer.
The Wybot F1 Pool Skimmer was far more efficient at capturing floating leaves than any skimmer I’ve used thus far.
Specifications
Wybot’s F1 Solar Skimmer is maybe the beefiest, burliest skimmer I’ve examined thus far. The 14-pound beast is technically lighter than the 17-pound Beatbot iSkimmer Ultra 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: commonplace and sensible. You can even 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 the complete 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 in the event you don’t have sufficient solar to do the job.
Unlike most different skimmers I’ve examined, the F1 doesn’t have seen paddles to propel and switch it within the pool. Rather, its propulsion system is hidden contained in the chassis, secreted deep inside two channels on both aspect of the gadget.
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 gadget supplies 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 gadget to forestall the robotic from reaching sure areas the place there’s not sufficient water to work in.
Performance
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 gadget. The robotic putters across the pool (at a wholesome clip) scooping up particles, however it nearly appears like an precise boat. More than one customer recognizing it at work within the pool remarked about its noise manufacturing.
The Wybot F1 has two working modes, which you’ll choose by the Wybot app: commonplace mode and sensible mode; with the latter—sarcastically—being its default mode. Standard mode runs the robotic repeatedly till its battery dies, then waits till it’s absolutely charged to start out operating once more.
The Wybot F1 has a really giant filter basket that captured numerous leaves in our exams.
Christopher Null/Foundry
Smart mode adjusts the robotic’s runtime based mostly on out there sunshine to maintain it operating on and off all through the day, ostensibly sustaining sufficient cost on the battery to keep away from lengthy intervals of downtime. The app additionally features a distant management that may—relatively crudely—direct the robotic across the pool to areas of explicit hassle.
The skimmer is just not probably the most clever I’ve examined, as it’s vulnerable 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 a couple of seconds of relaxation, it can typically attempt to push ahead straight into the wall as soon as once more earlier than, finally, it realizes it’s not making progress. At final, one of many backup vents will interact and the robotic will make a flip, then jet off to greener, dirtier pastures.
Somehow this all works fairly nicely. Its quick pace and sheer tenacity let the F1 cowl numerous floor rapidly, however it’s the large opening for the filter basket that appears to be the key sauce. Other photo voltaic skimmer designs typically push particles to both aspect because the ploddingly gradual robotic creeps nearer, inflicting that particles to be completely missed, the the F1’s extensive mouth permits for no escape.
The Wybot F1 was far more efficient at capturing floating leaves in my testing than some other skimmer I’ve used thus far, amassing about 85 % of the leaves in my take a look at samples whereas the rest sunk to the underside. (Only a pair remained on the floor after about 4 hours of operating time.)
Although it may be powerful to dislodge its filter basket, cleanup within reason simple, because the basket splits into two elements, permitting for a better washout. That stated, it could be useful if the rear of the basket additionally opened to permit particles to go by 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 maintaining the robotic’s battery charged for all-day operation.
Christopher Null/Foundry
Unfortunately, the Wybot F1 isn’t good. That further pace equates to a brief battery life, and I used to be by no means capable of get the robotic to run for a full day with out its battery dying, even beneath the summer time solar of Texas. Its battery can be gradual to cost. Even on comparatively sunny days, I typically discovered the robotic didn’t run in any respect throughout the day in commonplace mode as a result of it had by no means absolutely 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 pair of.4GHz Wi-Fi-connected system additionally supplies one essential metric: remaining battery life.
The drawback is that I might by no means get this battery indication to replace with out force-quitting the app and restarting it. No matter what I did, the battery indicator would stay caught on no matter degree 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 could be a actual ache once you test 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 %.
Should you purchase the Wybot F1 Pool Skimmer?
At $330 (road worth), the Wybot F1 is vastly cheaper than the $1,499 Beatbot iSkim Ultra I reviewed in January, and it’s aggressive with the $340 Smonet SR5 I evaluated in November 2024.
If 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.