Ecovacs Winbot W1 Pro window cleaner: Good enough to replace human drudgery?

Jun 03, 2023

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The Ecovacs Winbot W1 Pro ($899) - seen from inside as it cleans the the outside of a window. Photo / Chris Keall

My partner had taken to cleaning our windows with white vinegar on scrunched-up newsprint - a trend she picked up from TikTok that has the twin benefits of being cheap and keeping newspapers relevant.

But it also requires some elbow grease.

So I hoped to impress her by bringing home a robot window cleaner to test.

Long story short, I did.

The Ecovacs Winbot W1 Pro does leave your windows sparkly and spotless - but with a couple of caveats, which we’ll get to shortly.

The Winbot is the size of a cake tin and comes in a smart attache case with a leather handle. Inside, there’s a big card with simple-to-follow setup instructions.

There’s a 4.7m power cord, plus a safety cord with a carabiner clip to keep it safe from falls during outdoor cleans (although it’s hard to imagine the Winbot falling; it uses suction to create a surprisingly strong vacuum seal).

You can literally be up-and-running in a couple of minutes.

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You plug it in, pour in some of the supplied cleaning fluid, wet one of the two supplied microfibre cloths then attach it via velcro pads to the Winbot’s underside. It automatically starts cleaning when it senses it’s being pressed to some glass.

It sprays small jets of cleaning fluid ahead of it as it goes up and down and side to side, traveling on four rubber wheels, one in each corner, plus two rubber treads.

People have also been using the Winbot to clean the likes of glass fridges and shower doors - possible because the robot cleaner has edge-detection technology (which is also useful with frameless windows).

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Once finished, the robot automatically stops in a convenient position for detachment, back where it started (Consumer found this a welcome point of difference with the cheaper Hobot 2S, which stops at a random position - which can be a major inconvenience for outside windows). For tall windows - especially those outside - this is a super-useful touch.

You can also connect the Winbot to your wi-fi network and install a companion smartphone app - which is worth doing because it gives you access to three different modes: Fast, which leans a window once; Deep, which cleans twice, with extra attention to edges; and Spot, which focuses on the area where you attach the Winbot.

The Winbot can’t perform miracles. Cobwebs on one of our outside windows proved too gnarly for it. But mostly, it does a very good job, akin to a finicky human.

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But there were two areas where I had to buff up its work manually. One is where you detach the robot, which can leave a mark as it de-suctions. And the other is the edges of the window (something noted by multiple reviewers). Even with the deep clean option. The Winbot’s square shape means it can get into corners, which is a positive, but it also errs on the side of caution, taking it noticeably easier when clearing near the frame.

You can appreciate why the Winbot wants to go easy.

The Herald recently reported a case where a woman was awarded $3500 by the Disputes Tribunal for the damage a robot vacuum cleaner (for floors) caused to her home’s skirting boards (the brand was redacted).

And regardless of the Winbot’s skills with edges, it’s too big to clean around the likes of protruding ranchslider or window handles - so my wife with her newspaper and vinegar had it over me there.

It also takes a carbon-based life form to periodically remove and rinse out the Ecovac’s mop pad, refill the cleaning fluid and, of course, move it from window to window.

Helpfully, there’s a little speaker and a voice prompt that tells you when the robot has finished a pane, so you can keep your nose in TikTok between times. But while easy and well thought out overall, the app doesn’t tell you when your Winbot is low on cleaning fluid, so you’ve got to keep an eye on whether it’s still spraying a mist ahead of itself as it goes.

Overall, the app is easy to use (worth noting in the field of apps for home appliances). Among other features, it lets you adjust the volume on the Winbot’s voice updates (just as well, the default is loud enough to wake your neighbours) and name your robot (I went for Windows 95).

FACE OFF: I’m going to attempt to use a robot to clean the inside of our living room windows, while Andrea uses some white vinegar and newsprint hack she got off Insta pic.twitter.com/U5iHMerN6Q

It’s hard to imagine the power cable coming off - there’s a dongle that screws it into place - but if it does or there’s a power cut, a backup battery gives you up to 30 minutes of power.

There’s a bit of noise. But it’s like a quiet cleaner and not something that will bother most.

The $899 pricetag will put some off, but Consumer suggested that Winbot’s the place to start if you do want to go with a robot. It found while the Winbot delivered a “reasonable clean”, the $390 Rozie 1200 left smudges, and the $609 Hobot S2 smeared fly spots - and that both had issues climbing a window if the cloth was too wet. The Rozzie also had a Chinese language-only app (the distributor said an English version was on the way).

Then there’s Ecovacs cleaning fluid, which costs between $37 and $45 (it’s worth shopping around) for a one-litre bottle, versus standard window cleaning fluid that goes for around $5 per litre.

“Our recommendation is to use the Ecovacs official cleaning fluid. This is because we can’t guarantee what ingredients, or how corrosive other products are especially when left in the product between cleans, whereas the Ecovacs cleaning fluid has been specifically designed for use with the product,” an Ecovacs spokeswoman said.

Ecovacs’ cleaning fluid uses deionized water - or water that’s had mineral impurities removed by reverse osmosis. Consumer says deionized water is favoured by professional cleaners over tap water because it’s “hungry for dirt” and dries clear, whereas tap water can leave a residue.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to use Ecovacs’ brand. Consumer tried a $1.75 one-litre bottle of ionized water from a supermarket, and found, “The results were comparable, but the Ecovacs solution dried quicker, giving a slightly better clean than the pure water, probably due to a small amount of detergent in the solution itself.”

Overall, I’d say buying a Winbot would be a no-brainer if it cost around $300. It takes 90 per cent of the drudgery out of one of the most boring and painstaking cleaning tasks.

But at triple that ($899), it will fall into the “maybe” category for most budgets.

Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald’s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.

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