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¿Robot o humano?

Pool cleaning

Weekly pool service vs Robotic pool cleaner (you still do chemistry)

Estimaciones modeladas por Whirrwork, no hechos. Metodología · Historial de aciertos

Humano · Al año1500 US$Pool service
Robot · Al año1156 US$Buy a robotic cleaner
Plazo de recuperación22 meses
Año de cruceyaBase-case year (earliest to latest across scenarios)

On these numbers the robot option is clearly cheaper.

Estados Unidos · USD · BLS OEWS May 2025 national medians by SOC occupation

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Carga de trabajo
Supuesto

One month of pool care.

Supuesto

Robot cycle hours per day it runs.

Supuesto

Cleaning cycles per month.

Supuesto

Months the pool is open.

Personal
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

BLS OEWS May 2025 national median hourly wage, SOC 37-2011.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Wages and salaries were 70.0% of total employer compensation cost for private industry workers in June 2026 (ECEC), so total cost = wage / 0.70.

ilostat.ilo.org

Nominal 4.4% a year, 2015-2025 (ILOSTAT hourly earnings).

Precios
Calculado PoolRobots.com

Midpoint of $100-$150/month weekly professional service.

Robot
Supuesto

A month of cleaning needs about 24 robot-hours (8 cycles of 3 hours).

Calculado Maytronics US store

Midpoint of $849-$1,449 mid-range Dolphin models.

Supuesto

Plug it in.

Supuesto

Yearly parts (filters, brushes, eventually a motor) as a share of price.

Supuesto

Useful life in years.

Supuesto

Availability.

Supuesto

Months lost to faults.

Supuesto

Share of the service you still need: water chemistry, filter and equipment checks. Many owners do these themselves (then set 0).

Supuesto

Your time is not costed.

Supuesto

kWh per robot-hour.

Supuesto

Electricity price per kWh (USD). Check your bill; energy is rarely a big line.

Finanzas
Supuesto

Annual financing / discount rate. Nobody publishes yours; 8% is a round mid-2026 commercial borrowing guess.

Supuesto

Years in the NPV comparison.

Supuesto

Share of a human service price that is labour (rises with wages). Used to escalate and to adjust US service prices to other countries.

Supuesto

Share of a robot service price that is labour (pilot, technician). The rest is equipment, which learning curves make cheaper.

Supuesto

Share of a lease or RaaS fee that pays for hardware (learns down). The rest is service and support (moves with wages).

Download these results (CSV)

Resultados

OpciónAl mesAl añoPer unit (month of service)Inversión inicialPlazo de recuperaciónBreak-even utilisation5-year NPV vs baseline
Humano Pool service Referencia 125 US$1500 US$125 US$— — — —
Robot Buy a robotic cleaner 96,37 US$1156 US$96,37 US$1149 US$ 22 meses 27 %
Utilisation 52 %
 1596 US$

What moves the answer most

Each bar shows the 5-year NPV of the best robot option when one input moves to the low or high end of its range, with the rest held at your values.

5-year NPV vs baseline: Buy a robotic cleaner5-year NPV vs baseline: Buy a robotic cleanerRobot purchase pricelow value: 849 → 1994 US$high value: 2999 → -863 US$Work that stays humanlow value: 0 → 3191 US$high value: 0.7 → 347 US$Active months per yearlow value: 5 → -226 US$high value: 12 → 1596 US$Pool servicelow value: 100 → 968 US$high value: 150 → 2224 US$Useful life or contractlow value: 3 → 948 US$high value: 7 → 1816 US$Maintenance per yearlow value: 0.04 → 1785 US$high value: 0.15 → 1265 US$Financing and discount ratelow value: 0.05 → 1805 US$high value: 0.12 → 1347 US$Wage growth per yearlow value: 0.0236 → 1525 US$high value: 0.0636 → 1669 US$Electricity price per kWhlow value: 0.08 → 1604 US$high value: 0.3 → 1578 US$1596 US$0low valuehigh valueSource: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/pool-cleaning/). Modelled estimate, not a fact.

Cost per unit to 2035

Real terms (today's money). Robot hardware follows Wright's law; wages follow each country's history. Shaded band: robots-slow to robots-fast scenarios. Estimaciones modeladas por Whirrwork, no hechos.

ChartCosto humano por unidad (Base), Costo del robot por unidad (Base), Costo del robot por unidad (Robots: avance rápido), Costo del robot por unidad (Robots: avance lento). Source: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/pool-cleaning/). Modelled estimate, not a fact.0,00 US$50,00 US$100 US$2026202720282029203020312032203320342035USD / month of servicescenario rangeCosto humano por unidad (Base)Costo del robot por unidad (Base)Costo del robot por unidad (Robot…Costo del robot por unidad (Robot…Source: Whirrwork Robot-or-Human model v1.0.0 (whirrwork.com/tools/robot-vs-human/pool-cleaning/). Modelled estimate, n…

Año de cruce: ya

What the spreadsheet misses

Seguridad
Wrong water chemistry is the real risk; a cleaning robot does not test water.
Calidad
Robots scrub walls and floors well; leaves and debris loads vary.
Flexibilidad
A service catches failing pumps and leaks early.
Edge cases
Oddly shaped pools and steps defeat cheaper models.
Customer experience
No strangers in the garden every week.
Jobs and redeployment
Pool technicians keep chemistry and repairs; cleaning visits shrink.
Regulación
None for private pools; public pools have water-testing rules.

Relacionado

Fuentes de esta página

Las notas y las fuentes están en inglés; la versión en inglés es la de referencia.

  1. Weekly professional pool service $100-$150 per month PoolRobots.com, 2026-10 · vendor
  2. Maytronics Dolphin residential robotic pool cleaners $849-$1,449 (mid-range models) Maytronics US store, 2026-10-25 · vendor
  3. Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 (median hourly wage by occupation) U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025-05
  4. Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026: wages and salaries 70.0% of private-industry compensation (series CMU2020000000000P) U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2026-06
  5. Mean nominal hourly earnings of employees by sex and occupation (ISCO-08), DF_EAR_EHRA_SEX_OCU_CUR_NB ILOSTAT (International Labour Organization), from national labour force and earnings surveys, 2025
  6. Labour cost levels by NACE Rev. 2 activity (lc_lci_lev): Germany 2022-2025, total labour cost vs wages and salaries per hour Eurostat, 2025
  7. Rates and thresholds for employers 2025 to 2026 (employer Class 1 NIC 15% above £5,000) HM Revenue & Customs, 2025-04-06
  8. 令和6年賃金構造基本統計調査 (Basic Survey on Wage Structure 2024), table 1 by occupation Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Japan (via e-Stat), 2024-06
  9. Average monthly earnings of employees by sex and economic activity, DF_EAR_EMTA_SEX_ECO_CUR_NB ILOSTAT (International Labour Organization), 2022
  10. Average annual wage of employed persons in urban units in 2024 (by position and by region) National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2025-05-20
  11. Euro foreign exchange reference rates (cross rates to USD), via Frankfurter European Central Bank, 2026-10-23
  12. Wright, T. P. (1936). Factors affecting the cost of airplanes. Journal of the Aeronautical Sciences, 3(4), 122-128 Journal of the Aeronautical Sciences, 1936
  13. Nagy, B., Farmer, J. D., Bui, Q. M., & Trancik, J. E. (2013). Statistical basis for predicting technological progress. PLoS ONE, 8(2), e52669 (62 technologies; Wright's law among the best hindcasters; errors grow with horizon) PLoS ONE, 2013