WYBOT F1
The tested pick, on a base you should ignore — The best-tested skimmer here and the worst-evidenced one: PCWorld measured it capturing about 85% of test leaves, Bob Vila made it Best Midrange — and its own 4.1★/41 Amazon score is built almost entirely on free-product reviews
Check price at WYBOT direct →Also at: Amazon
Specs
| Power | 33 W solar panel; DC charger sold separately by the maker |
| Debris basket | 7 L with 180 μm fine filter |
| Modes | Smart (24 h, 10 min run / 10 min rest) or Standard (8 h continuous) |
| Connectivity | WYBOT app — manual steering, mode selection, battery level, OTA updates |
| Navigation | EdgeMaster edge-following with obstacle avoidance |
| Weight | 14 lb (PCWorld measurement — WYBOT publishes none) |
| Owner rating | 4.1★ / 41 |
| Warranty | 12 months |
| Replacement filters | Skimmer basket $29.99. No finer tier is sold. |
Pros
- The only skimmer we card with an instrumented capture figure behind it: PCWorld's Christopher Null measured it "collecting about 85 percent of the leaves in my test samples" and called it "the overall best skimmer at capturing debris in our tests"
- Bob Vila's July 2026 hands-on roundup made it BEST MIDRANGE at 4.7/5, scoring Ease of Use 5/5 and Performance 4.8/5
- A 7 L basket with a 180 μm filter — bigger than the Betta line's and second only to the Beatbot iSkim's 9 L
- App steering and mode control at about $300, and it is sold and shipped by WYBOT U.S., the maker's own storefront, so the warranty's authorized-seller condition is satisfied on the link we publish
Cons
- The 4.1★ score is not owner proof. Of the 13 visible review cards, 12 are "Vine Customer Review of Free Product" and NONE is a verified purchase — on a base of only 41 ratings. Treat the star as a marketing artifact and buy on the pro testing instead
- WYBOT warrants the F1 for 12 months. Its own published table gives the C1, C2, C2 Vision and S2 floor robots 24 — so the skimmer gets half the term of the machines beside it in the same line-up
- PCWorld's cons were "Extremely loud", "Blunt operation; runs into the wall constantly" and "Weak battery life" — the same power management the review says knocks it down a peg
- The maker and the listing disagree about what is in the box: WYBOT's own product-page FAQ says the DC charger is "sold separately", while the Amazon bullet says "It includes a charger for use in rainy weather or little sunlight." On a solar machine the backup charger is the whole cloudy-week answer, so confirm it before you count on it
- WYBOT excludes "Products purchased from unauthorized sellers" from the warranty, and the one critical review on the listing is an owner who bought refurbished and had the claim refused on exactly that ground
There is only one critical review to read, and it is a warranty-channel failure rather than a hardware one: an owner bought a refurbished unit with a third-party Allstate policy, the battery stopped charging within weeks, Allstate closed the claim as still being under manufacturer cover, and WYBOT then refused it because the unit was not purchased from WYBOT. That is the maker's published unauthorized-seller exclusion working exactly as written.
3 written critical reviews against a base of 41 at the 2026-10-19 pass; the histogram puts 5% of the ratings at one star · critical reviews read 2026-10-19
Pro review “Wybot's solar skimmer does a surprisingly good job of grabbing leaves off the surface of the pool, but its loud operation and poor power management knock it down a peg.”Dedicated single-product hands-on review published 2025-06-18, with measurements rather than impressions: the reviewer weighed the unit (14 lb, against the 17 lb Beatbot iSkimmer Ultra he reviewed in January), ran counted leaf-capture samples ("collecting about 85 percent of the leaves in my test samples while the remainder sunk to the bottom") over about four hours, and compared it against the $340 Smonet SR5 he had tested in November 2024. Verdict box: pros "The overall best skimmer at capturing debris in our tests", "Huge filter basket", "Remote control allows for manual steering when needed"; cons "Extremely loud", "Blunt operation; runs into the wall constantly", "Weak battery life". Closing line: "If you don't mind the din it creates while it's puttering around the pool—heck, you might even find the noise endearing—it's arguably the skimmer to beat." Wired under the 2026-09-08 standing ruling that an EXACT-product pro review does not age out: a bench measurement does not decay the way a rating does, the F1 is unchanged, and the quote was re-fetched and matched verbatim by the orchestrator on 2026-09-08.— Christopher Null, PCWorld
FAQ
Who is the WYBOT F1 for?
You buy on measured testing rather than on a star rating. PCWorld's instrumented run had it collecting about 85% of the leaves in the sample — more than any skimmer that reviewer had tested — and its 7 L basket is the biggest here bar the Beatbot. Buy it knowing two things: the 41-rating Amazon score is a Vine base, not owner proof, and WYBOT warrants the F1 for 12 months, half what it gives its own floor robots.
What do owners say about the WYBOT F1?
4.1★ across 41 owner ratings (Amazon, read 2026-10-19 · early data · incentivised base · global base). What owners complain about: There is only one critical review to read, and it is a warranty-channel failure rather than a hardware one: an owner bought a refurbished unit with a third-party Allstate policy, the battery stopped charging within weeks, Allstate closed the claim as still being under manufacturer cover, and WYBOT then refused it because the unit was not purchased from WYBOT. That is the maker's published unauthorized-seller exclusion working exactly as written.
What does the WYBOT F1 cost?
About $299.98 at WYBOT direct, checked 2026-10-19. Prices move — the buy link above goes to the live listing.
What is the warranty on the WYBOT F1?
12 months
What does the WYBOT F1 clean, and what size pool is it for?
Surface — leaves, pollen, bugs, pet hair. Sized for Not stated by WYBOT.
Record
- — Owner rating re-read on Amazon: 4.1 stars across 41 (was 4.6 across 32). The new ratings ran lower than the old average; the base grew rather than being replaced.
- — Added off the 2026-09-08 skimmer node scan, which surfaced it from a maker site rather than the marketplace node. Its Amazon rating count was unread at hand-over; reading it turned up a 32-rating base that is 12/13 free-product (Amazon Vine) reviews, so the product is carded on PCWorld's and Bob Vila's hands-on testing and the star is explicitly disclaimed.
Cleans: Surface — leaves, pollen, bugs, pet hair · Sized for: Not stated by WYBOT
Warranty
12 months · you are buying this direct from WYBOT
WYBOT offers a 30-day money-back guarantee for all products purchased directly from WYBOT or an authorized WYBOT reseller. … [What the Warranty Does Not Cover — Other Exclusions:] Products purchased from unauthorized sellers.
WYBOT’s own warranty document · read
Read it yourself: WYBOT warranty document · we read it . Terms change without announcement, so treat this as a dated snapshot. How warranty works by buy path →
✓ Safety: no active recall — No CPSC recall on this product. CPSC recall API read 2026-09-08 (saferproducts.gov/RestWebServices/Recall): ProductName="WYBOT" → 0 records and ProductName="Wybot" → 0 (both cases tried, since the API substring-matches and is case-sensitive in practice). Class queries the same sitting: "pool skimmer" → 0, "robotic pool cleaner" → only Aiper Seagull Pro #25187. POSITIVE CONTROL: ProductName="Aiper" returns both known robot recalls (#23784 Elite Pro 2023, #25187 Seagull Pro 2025), so a zero here is a real answer and not a dead query. Solar unit with an internal battery; the DC charging port is the one electrical interface and the maker sells the charger separately. CPSC recall API re-checked 2026-10-19: ProductName/RecallTitle=Betta return only #16036 (PetSmart's Top Fin Betta fish-bowl kits, an unrelated product); WYBOT 0 by ProductName, while RecallTitle=Wybotics returns #26372 (2026-04-09, Osprey 700 Max WY3312MAX/WY100MAX and S1 WY200 robotic vacuums — not the F1 skimmer); Maytronics 0, Skimmi 0, Beatbot 0; class RecallTitle="Pool Skimmer" 0 and "Robotic Pool" 3 (#26372, #25187, #23784); control ProductName=heater 183, no error object. Precedent kept: other WYBOT cards stay clean with #26372 named, because it names other models.
Size your pool first → ·All pool gear →
Data last verified: 2026-10-19. Ratings are real, dated reads — never scraped or invented. Full methodology and monetization disclosure: how we test.