How Long Do Pool Robots Last, and What Fails First?

Brushes and drive belts or tracks are consumables. They wear faster on rough plaster and pebble finishes than on vinyl or tile, and a robot with worn brushes slips on walls and stops climbing. Filters and baskets tear eventually. None of these ends a robot; all of them are why it helps to buy one whose maker sells parts.

On corded robots the cable and swivel wear next. A swivel that stops turning lets the cable twist until it knots, shortening the robot's reach until it can no longer reach the far end of the pool. A new cable is a common repair.

The pump motor and its seals are the heart of any robot, and a seal that lets water into the motor housing is usually terminal. On corded robots the deck power supply is the other common failure, and it is replaceable. On cordless robots the battery is the part with a known lifespan: every lithium cell loses capacity with charge cycles and heat, and a robot whose battery is sealed in is only as long-lived as that battery.

Two habits extend all of it: take the robot out of the water after each cycle, and store it in shade. A robot parked on the main drain for a week and one baked on the deck all summer are both ageing faster than one hung in a caddy.

Warranty terms here: 14 robots at 1 year, 23 robots at 2 years, 11 robots at 3 years. Warranties differ in what they cover as well as for how long — Hayward's TigerShark QC, for example, covers parts for a year and labour not at all.

Dividing price by warranty years gives a floor on what each covered swim season costs: from $170 a year for the WYBOT A1 to $1,599 for the Dolphin Nautilus Titan. It is not a lifespan, and it is not a prediction; it is how much of the price the maker stands behind.