WYBOT Robotic Pool Cleaner - Osprey 700 Pro

8/13/2023 Update: The app has improved significantly over the past few months. The robot works really well and has made it a pleasure to maintain our pool compared to our past experience with pressure side robotic pool cleaners. I stand by what I said below and I wholeheartedly recommend its purchase. The company responded to an inquiry from me a few weeks ago and they're finally starting to offer accessories and replacement parts on their web site for these robots. My confidence has grown over the time I've owned this robot. ORIGINAL REVIEW 5/1/2023 I'll start off by saying I was very hesitant to make this purchase. The brand has not been around for a long time it seems and hasn't made a name for itself, at least on the US market. When I saw this model go on sale I jumped on it and also purchased the extra warranty through Amazon/Asurion because I don't want to end up getting stuck with a 15 pound paperweight. The robot comes well packaged in a solid box, sufficiently well suspended to prevent accidental damage in transit. The water in the bag is from the testing procedure that is performed before the robot is shipped out. As instructed I charged it fully before first use. Pairing to the app was easy as well, but as others have stated, the app is pretty much useless. I hope to see that improved drastically over the next year. There are no explanations of what each section means or does. There are no confirmations when you select a type of setting for pool shape. It seems to arbitrarily pull weather data, not based on my location and it's also in Celsius without any way of changing to F. Small gripes, I know, but the app is truly terrible. Had I known it's this bad I'd have opted to the non-app enabled version of this exact robot, which is usually $100 less expensive. As far as the robot itself, it does a fabulous job of picking up even the smallest debris from the pool. It did not miss much at all after the first run and leaves the pool in great shape every time we run it. I haven't measured exact run time, but it seems to be 100-110 minutes or even slightly above if you don't want waterline scrubbing or climbing walls (which honestly isn't necessary every time you run the robot unless you have a serious algae buildup problem. The active brush seems to do a great job, and the robot climbs walls with ease. The motors seem to be plenty powerful for the task. Once done it doesn't seem to return to the location where you dropped it off, ever, but that's not really a problem. It does go to the edge of the pool closest to the wall, but it's usually on the opposite side of where you initiated a cleaning and dropped it in. The provided hook goes on a standard pole and makes it a piece of cake to fish out the robot. Water drains from it quickly with very little water retained inside. The collection basket is large. The design does need to improve a little bit because debris gets caught behind the intake every time. It has something to do with how the water is pushed through the basket and through the robot itself. Even when there is very small amounts of debris it will end up in that tight wedge of the basket behind the intake flap. It's hard to wash off. If the design was changed to have no collection space behind that intake, debris will collect elsewhere and will be much easier to clean off. The basket mesh is very fine and captures the smallest sand particles perceptible to the human eye. It's quite impressive really and very pleasing to see all this come out of the pool bottom. Another thing worth mentioning is that just like all other pool robots this one also does not do well with stairs, but that's to be expected and you will need to scrub and push any debris off the stairs yourself. All in all I am very satisfied with the purchase. I would recommend it to anyone who is tired of dealing with the likes of pressure side or suction side pump based pool cleaners or handheld models. Given the current state of the app I would suggest buying the model without app support and saving yourself $100 (or putting that $ towards extra warranty). I do not see any spare parts listed on the Wybot web site, but I plan to inquire with the company soon about how to purchase additional collection baskets, tracks and replacement brushes as all of those items tend to wear out. I cannot speak about longevity at this point, after just a month of use, but the unit feel sturdy and I expect it to last about as long as our Polaris did, which coincidentally costs the same as this Wybot. I am never going back to pump based pool robot cleaners.