Expert’s Rating
Pros
- Solar charging signifies that, in principle, you by no means must plug on this robotic
- Very efficient cleansing (at the least whereas its battery lasts)
- Lots of working modes
Cons
- The effectiveness of photo voltaic charging varies with the climate, and it could possibly take days even in optimum circumstances
- Couldn’t clear my whole pool on a single cost, resulting from an undersized battery
- App is susceptible to disconnects
Our Verdict
A solar-powered pool robotic feels like an ideal cleansing resolution, but it surely seems the solar can present solely a lot juice in a day.
Price When Reviewed
This worth will present the geolocated pricing textual content for product undefined
Best Pricing Today
Price When Reviewed
$1,499.99 at Wybot.com; $1,799.99 at Amazon after making use of a $200 coupon
Best Prices Today: Wybot S2 Solar
$1,999.99
The dream of each swimming pool proprietor is that some gadget will come alongside that can clear the pool with out requiring a lot—or any—interplay. Pump-powered robots are obtrusive and ugly because of their snaking cables. Battery-powered robots should be manually retrieved after just a few hours, cleaned out, and recharged. The holy grail stays elusive.
With its S2 Solar Vision, Wybot takes at the least one child step in the correct course, outfitting a modified model of its current Wybot S2 robotic with a solar-powered docking and charging station. In easy phrases, a photo voltaic panel sits on the sting of the pool, charging the robotic by way of an inductive plate that sits under the waterline. Better nonetheless, the docking station can talk with the robotic whereas it’s within the water, so it could possibly discover its approach again to the dock when its battery is getting low.
The Wybot S2 Solar Vision does an incredible job on partitions and the waterline—it actually churns up the water with its front-mounted scrubbers.
Specifications
The Wybot S2 Solar Vision’s docking station incorporates a photo voltaic panel that sits on the fringe of the pool, the place careless–or malicious–youngsters would possibly step on it and injury it.
Christopher Null/Foundry
A number of specifics could assist fill out the image. The whole system is available in two packing containers. The robotic and docking station fill one, the photo voltaic panel occupies one other. The photo voltaic panel and docking station should be linked by way of a easy, albeit not instantly intuitive, course of, and the assembled dock can then be (roughly) adjusted and balanced on the sting of your pool. (The aim is to get the dock moderately flush with the pool wall, so the robotic can simply climb into it unaided.)
The 20-pound, treaded robotic features a battery with a 5200mAh capability. The docking station has a capability of 2600mAh. The 30-watt photo voltaic panel itself has no battery of its personal. Both robotic and docking station embrace commonplace A/C adapters if you wish to cost them extra rapidly, although this, in fact, defeats the purpose of the setup to some extent. The unit guarantees a operating time of two.5 hours (or longer in its low-speed “eco” flooring mode) and an “ideal pool size” of as much as 3,230 sq. toes. My check runs typically ended after nearer to 2 hours.
A cautious studying of the battery capability numbers cited above would possibly reveal one of many largest issues I had with the Wybot S2 Solar Vision: The photo voltaic panel expenses the docking station’s battery, and the docking station’s battery in flip expenses the robotic. This is essentially inefficient and, as a result of the dock’s capability is half that of the robotic, one thing of a mismatch.
The Wybot S2 Solar Vision’s poolside docking station and photo voltaic panel.
Christopher Null/Foundry
Even if 100 p.c of the power within the dock made it to the robotic, it could nonetheless solely be half full. In principle, the solar ought to recharge the dock whereas it’s discharging into the robotic, however even eight hours of daylight wasn’t sufficient to recharge the robotic in a well timed vogue in my exams. In the lifeless of the Texas summer season, it took greater than 2.5 days to take the robotic from a 19 p.c cost stage as much as 100 p.c.
That’s unhealthy information in case you have a very soiled pool and need to run the robotic day-after-day—and it’s worse information if the climate isn’t cooperating. You can at all times revert to eradicating the robotic from the pool and manually recharging it, in fact, but when that’s going to be a daily incidence, it can save you $1,000 by forgoing the docking station and photo voltaic panel and shopping for the non-solar Wybot S2—with a bigger, 7800mAh battery—for $800.
Daily utilization testing
The Wybot S2 Solar Vision options three working modes on its touch-sensitive management panel— flooring solely, partitions solely, or flooring/partitions/waterline—but it surely rapidly turned obvious in my testing that the unit simply doesn’t have a large enough battery to do your complete job successfully. Test runs below the “everything” mode invariably left me with a pool flooring that had barely been touched.
The Wybot S2 Solar Vision does an incredible job on partitions and the waterline—it actually churns up the water with its front-mounted scrubbers—but it surely simply didn’t have something left in my testing to complete the job in spite of everything that motion. On one event it didn’t even have sufficient energy left to return to the dock, and I needed to manually rescue it from a nook of the pool with a pole.
The Wybot S2 Solar Vision did a wonderful job cleansing my pool’s waterline.
Christopher Null/Foundry
The excellent news is that in floor-only mode, bypassing the partitions and waterline, it additionally did distinctive work, cleansing up 100 p.c of my artificial check leaves earlier than returning efficiently to the dock. The Wybot shops particles in a easy hinged basket, and it comes with an extra filter for finer-grained materials. That stated, the basket itself, which does a a lot good job by itself. It’s additionally straightforward to come out and clear when wanted. When the robotic is docked, nevertheless, you’ll want to achieve a few foot into the pool to seize its deal with, which gained’t be excellent within the winter months. (A pole can also be an possibility, in fact.)
The photo voltaic panel consists of two bodily buttons which might be usable for impromptu operations. A Play button begins the robotic on no matter mode it’s presently in, and a Home button calls it again to base. Both of those labored positive in my testing, though the robotic will be fairly gradual to get again to base when known as, and I’d usually press the house button a number of occasions to make certain the command was obtained.
The Wybot S2 Solar Vision’s app gives a number of cleansing choices.
Christopher Null/Foundry
Note that houses with babies would possibly need to rethink the S2 Solar Vision altogether, because the panel would probably be destroyed if anybody by chance—or deliberately—steps on it.
The Wybot S2 Solar Vision gives each Bluetooth and a couple of.4GHz Wi-Fi connectivity and a cell app, however I had such hassle with the app that Wybot despatched me a full alternative robotic, docking station, and photo voltaic panel after a firmware replace killed the system’s wi-fi connectivity totally.
Wybot’s app is okay, however fairly restricted. Four further working modes can be found right here, as is an easy distant to manually management the robotic for spot cleansing. As with the Wybot F1 skimmer I reviewed on June 18, the app’s battery standing experiences—one for the robotic and a second for the docking station—are susceptible to inaccuracy until you force-quit an restart the app.
The Wybot S2 Solar Vision’s massive particles basket captured a considerable amount of materials throughout my exams.
Christopher Null/Foundry
A “weekly cleaning” characteristic enables you to set a every day schedule for operations, together with each time of day and sort of run; and like the unique Wybot S2, you’ll be able to set choices for pool form and the way in which you need the robotic to go about its work, though I can’t think about why you’d care whether or not it cleans in an S sample, cross sample, or star sample.
Should you purchase the Wybot S2 Solar Vision?
One hiccup of notice: If the docking station battery dies—which it did ceaselessly, usually in a single day, in my testing—the system will lose its wi-fi connectivity throughout robotic recharges. The solely resolution I’ve discovered for that is manually turning the bottom station again on by tapping the house button as soon as it has a small quantity of cost on it. But which means one other bodily journey to the pool.
Problems like that additional obviate the S2 Solar Vision’s finest characteristic, which is the promise of comfort. Between cleansing out the filter basket, retrieving a wayward robotic from the pool flooring, ready for recharges, and rebooting the dock, I discovered myself trekking out to the pool almost as a lot as I’d do with a typical pool robotic—all whereas having fun with solely a 3rd of the supply resulting from gradual recharging.
And for that, you’ll pay $1,800 after utilizing a coupon on Amazon, making this one of many dearer robotic pool cleansing programs available on the market.
If you’ve gotten a small pool, a number of solar, minimal particles to wash up, and infinite persistence, the Wybot S2 Solar Vision would possibly work nicely for you. But for my circumstance, I merely didn’t see sufficient financial savings in time or effort to justify the expense.