The WYBOT S3 is the world’s first robot pool cleaner that cleans, docks, and empties itself

Owning a pool is a dream, especially with sweltering summer temperatures around the corner. But it involves a fair amount of manual labor, including dragging the vacuum hose around, scrubbing the waterline, fishing out leaves and debris, managing water quality, and more. Robot pool cleaners can do a lot, but not everything. And that’s the gap WYBOT is closing with the S3.

There’s good reason why the WYBOT S3 has won a slew of awards, including the 2025 CES Innovation Award, a 2025 IFA Honoree Award, and both the 2025 Berlin and London Design Awards. It’s the world’s first self-emptying robotic pool cleaner that can dock, charge, and clean itself, and dispose of its own debris. And with AI-powered mapping, navigation, and obstacle detection, along with multiple cleaning features, the S3 can handle all your pool maintenance this season. Here’s what you need to know.

The headline feature of the S3 is its world-first 3D mapping and smart navigation system. Powered by 36 advanced sensors, including 27 dedicated to robot navigation and 9 for docking precision, the S3 uses its initial run in your pool to build a complete 3D map of the environment. It’s not just scanning the floor but also building a spatial model of your entire pool, with its shape, depth variations, walls, and waterline.

The S3 calculates optimized paths for each cycle, getting more efficient over time as it refines its understanding of your pool’s layout. If you’ve ever watched an older robotic cleaner bump aimlessly off the walls, you’ll appreciate how different a mapped, path-optimized clean looks. And there’s a huge improvement in efficiency, too, with the WYBOT S3 delivering up to 20x faster debris detection than standard robotic cleaners.

The navigation system supports six distinct cleaning path patterns, allowing the robot to adapt its approach to the pool’s geometry. Whether you have a standard rectangle or oval-shaped pool or a custom design, the S3 maps it on day one and adapts from there. It’s compatible with fiberglass, vinyl, ceramic tile, concrete, and pebble surfaces, so it doesn’t require a premium or specialized pool to work well.

Powering its navigation capability is an industry-first AI vision system. The S3 uses a built-in camera to identify debris hotspots in real time and adjusts its cleaning strategy based on what it actually sees. While traditional robotic cleaners follow a predetermined or random path, the S3 can identify debris, like say a pile of leaves, and actively route itself to deal with it. With AI Vision Mode, the S3 targets floor cleaning efficiency where debris tends to accumulate most.

Many robot pool cleaners do a decent job cleaning your pool. But where they all fall short is what happens after the cleaning is done. You’d have to pull the robot out of the water, carry it somewhere, open the debris compartment, dump and rinse it, then either plug the unit in for charging or set it somewhere to dry. On the other hand, the WYBOT S3 requires no manual intervention.

When the S3 finishes a cleaning cycle, or its battery drops below a certain threshold, it automatically returns to its docking station on the pool deck. Once docked, it transfers the debris collected from its internal 3-liter bin into a 10-liter shore-based self-sanitizing debris bin. The robot then recharges itself, ready for the next scheduled cycle. The dock uses nine precision sensors to ensure accurate docking every time, even in low-visibility water conditions.

That 10-liter bin is large enough to handle eight full cleaning cycles before it needs to be emptied. Under typical pool conditions, that translates to roughly one month of maintenance-free operation. The self-sanitizing element of the debris bin is also worth noting. It’s designed to prevent bacterial growth and odor buildup, which is important when you’re dealing with organic material in a warm outdoor environment.

Filtration is handled by a dual-layer system that includes an 180-micron ultra-fine filter box paired with a 40 PPI sponge layer. These capture everything from large leaves and twigs to sand, dust, hair, and algae particles. And because the robot handles floor, wall, and waterline cleaning, you’re getting a complete clean with every automated cycle.

Using the WYBOT mobile app, you can track the S3’s real-time position in the pool, watch it work from your phone, and monitor cleaning progress without being anywhere near the pool deck.

The app also lets you take manual control at any point. If you notice a specific area of the pool that needs extra attention, you can use the app to direct the S3 to that spot. You can navigate it along floors, up walls, and along the waterline as needed.

Smart scheduling is also built in, so you can set automated cleaning routines that run overnight or during off-peak hours. And with live progress updates, you’re never left wondering whether the robot finished its cycle or got stuck somewhere. You’ll be able to find out its status instantly. The connectivity layer uses both Wi-Fi and sonar communication. The sonar component allows the app to maintain contact with the robot while it’s submerged.

Since the dock is poolside at the shoreline, you might not have easy access to power without using long extension cords that get in the way. It supports a traditional DC connection, of course, if you do have a plug point nearby. But if you don’t, the dock can draw power from solar panels.

Under good sunlight conditions, the solar panel on the dock generates enough power to provide approximately 1.5 hours of additional runtime per day. This essentially gives you free cleaning energy during peak pool season, which coincides with peak solar season. If you’re in a place with a sunnier climate, this could offset a meaningful portion of the unit’s energy footprint over time.

The DC charging option serves as a reliable fallback for overcast days or regions with less consistent solar output. The system is smart enough to automatically manage the two power sources. When the dock’s battery is above 70%, it charges the robot, and when it drops below 50%, it pauses charging to preserve dock power. That kind of intelligent power management is what you’d expect from a premium connected device, and it’s good to see it applied thoughtfully here.

WYBOT focuses on sustainability, too. The S3 draws partial power from the sun, reduces the need for chemical-heavy manual cleaning interventions, and keeps the pool consistently clean, which reduces the load on filtration systems and is genuinely better for the environment than the alternative.

Robotic pool cleaners have been getting smarter for years, but the progress has mostly been incremental. The WYBOT S3 shakes things up in the category by being the first robot pool cleaner that not only cleans extremely well but also handles post-cleaning maintenance.

The 3D mapping, AI vision, and the self-emptying dock in particular are innovative advancements in the space. Your pool stays clean, and you barely have to think about it.

The WYBOT S3 will go on pre-sale mid-May for $2,499.99 — a $500 discount from its usual retail price.