Pros
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Feels very secure -
Reasonably good cleaning
Cons
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Cumbersome to use -
Needs several passes to get a good clean -
Loud, and a bit fiddly
Key Features
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Review Price: £329 -
A self-guided, window-cleaning robot
The Hobot S7 Pro sucks itself onto your window panes, then moves across them, cleaning as it goes. It comes with a remote control, or you can use the app. -
Multiple safety features
This robot doesn’t feel likely to fall off. It’s got an emergency backup battery and a safety rope to make sure.
Introduction
If you’re tired of cleaning your own windows, or paying someone to come and do it for you, the Hobot S7 Pro could be for you. This smallish, square robot fits onto your window panes, then moves across them, wiping them clean as it goes. It comes with a remote control, and there’s also an app which lets you connect via Bluetooth.
This robot works by sucking itself onto the glass. To that end, it’s got a powerful fan on board. It’s actually powered from the mains – you get a generous eight-metre cable with a screw-in connector. Hobot has really thought about safety: there’s an emergency battery to take over in a power cut, and a safety tether in case of a disaster.
The question is, can it leave your windows spotless? And is it worth the rather expensive asking price?
Design and features
- Nicely engineered feel
- Good safety features
- Clunky remote control and app
This is a neat little robot, a little smaller than the typical robo-vacuum, but still weighing in at a considerable 1.7kg. You wouldn’t want it to fall on your head. It’s fortunate then that this is a thoroughly convincing design: it feels solid, nicely made, and well thought through.
Onboard there’s a central fan with its intake vents on the underside, in the centre of two reciprocating microfibre cloths. When it’s running, it creates a partial vacuum, sucking the cleaner firmly onto the window.
That’s great on my flat, reasonably new windows, but it could potentially be an issue on wonky frames, or frameless windows with gaps. The Hobot S7 Pro comes with edge-detecting bumpers, but also with leak detection, which lets it react quickly if it senses the vacuum level is dropping and it might come away from the glass.
This robot moves around on two caterpillar tracks, steering a bit like a tank to move in a slightly uneven zigzag across the window. It needs mains power, which is converted to DC, and connected to the robot with a screw-in plug. All-told there’s about eight metres of cable, which gives you the flexibility to reach the top of very large panes of glass.
Hobot has clearly given safety a lot of thought. Aside from all the edge and leak detection, there’s an onboard emergency battery that gives about 20 minutes’ of standby suction if the mains power is lost. If all else fails, the S7 Pro is on a safety tether that should stop it plummeting to its doom or – god forbid – anyone else’s.
This cleaner has two small onboard tanks for cleaning fluid, which is distributed via ultrasonic jets. You get a smallish bottle in the box, along with three sets of microfibre cloths, a spare ultrasonic nozzle, and a remote control. This lets you turn the water sprays on and off, gives you simple directional control, or offers a few different automated cleaning patterns. Unlike some cleaners, you can only use Hobot’s fluid, which is based on de-ionised water; tap water would soon block up the ultrasonics.
You can also connect to the Hobot S7 Pro via Bluetooth, using the Hobot app. This duplicates the remote controls, and supports features such as firmware updates. To get connected, you need to hold down the cleaner’s start/pause button while turning on its power. Get this wrong and the fan will start up, and the robot will start to shout unreasonably friendly greetings at you. I turned these off as soon as I got it connected, but if you want you can customise them. I didn’t get on brilliantly with the app. It’s basic, and you can’t connect to the robot unless it’s running or in maintenance mode as above.
Reading the instructions, my first impression of the Hobot S7 Pro was that it was all rather complex. The recommended technique is to run a dry cleaning pass first, then run a wet pass, then run a final dry pass to remove streaks. It’s recommended you clean the caterpillar tracks between wet and dry, and you’ll need to swap microfibre cloth sets between the two.
Performance
- Reasonable cleaning
- Moderately loud
- A lot of work
I was really looking forward to testing this robot. We live in a town house with skylights that are near impossible to clean from the ground, and one in particular had become really dirty. However, I started out with our much more accessible patio doors so I could get a feel for how the Hobot S7 Pro performed.
The first thing to mention is that it’s moderately loud. Even with the voice turned off, this robot makes about as much noise as a portable vacuum cleaner. Live in a confined development like mine, and your neighbours are likely to spot it inching its way up your windows like Feathers McGraw.
I placed the robot on the window, turned it on, and within moments it had suckled on with a limpet-like grip. You have to use quite a bit of force to pull it away, and when working it coped perfectly well with the bead and frames on my windows. I’d be quite confident it would never fall off. I double-checked by switching off the power: while the robot stopped moving immediately and its suction fan dropped to a lower speed, it was still securely on the window, shouting to let me know it had lost its power connection.
I started with the recommended dry cleaning run, and watched as the Hobot S7 Pro worked methodically down the first of three tall, thinnish windows without any issues. You have to remove the S7 Pro and manually transfer it between panes. It coped fine with the second, but seemed to get confused on the third, eventually stopping just a few centimetres down from the top. I used the remote to start it going again, and it completed the job.
As recommended, I turned on the sprays for a second run at all three panes. These are more focused than I was expecting, and aimed quite deliberately towards the lower half of the S7 Pro’s cleaning area: the idea is the upper half remains dry, with the robot removing the cleaning fluid and reducing streaks as it moves down the glass.
At least, that’s the theory. My windows had become quite smeared by this point, with trails quite visible in a couple of areas. I ran the suggested dry pass to polish them off, but the stains remained.
Hobot’s manual suggests that if your windows are particularly greasy, you wet the microfibre cloths manually before the wet pass.
I repeated the entire process for all three windows, and eventually got a decent result. The Hobot S7 Pro had cleaned almost to the edges, leaving the windows streak-free and much cleaner everywhere it could reach. The whole effort had taken me almost an hour, though, and it wasn’t exactly automated: I had to move the robot manually between panes, swap around its cloth sets, and help it out when it got confused on the third window, which it seemed to do every time.
Slightly discouraged, I moved to the skylight. While journalists can be cavalier with the products they’re testing, here I was very careful: two storeys up and directly above our front door, I made sure to use the 4.5 metre long tether.
With dry pads, the Hobot S7 Pro made little impression on this filthy window. I also noticed that the S7 Pro wasn’t cleaning to one side of the small-ish pane. The tether had become hooked over one of the edge sensors, potentially affecting its navigation. Eventually it had rotated through 360 degrees and looked like getting dangerously tangled. I removed it from the window, untangled it, and put it back outside.
This robot was surprisingly effective once I switched to pre-wetted cloths and turned on the ultrasonic sprays. Soon, most of the worst, mossy deposits were off.
However, it was beginning to get tangled again. I restarted it for a third time, this time from the foot of the window, and had similar issues. Eventually I gave up, although by now I had a much cleaner skylight.
After
It’s a shame the Hobot S7 Pro couldn’t get all of the mossy deposits, and that it didn’t clean properly to the edge.
To be fair, this was a tough test, but it helped crystallise my thoughts about the Hobot S7 Pro. On windows you can reach, it’s far slower than just cleaning with a sponge and a squeegee, and the results aren’t quite as good. I really wanted this robot to perform well on the windows I couldn’t otherwise reach, but it was extremely difficult to pass it out from the house onto the glass, and then it struggled to navigate.
On my house at least, this isn’t a time-efficient and reliable way to clean windows. Far from being a time-saver like a robo-vacuum, the Hobot S7 Pro required too much attention, and didn’t deliver the results. The kicker came when I realised that for the price of the Hobot S7 Pro I could pay a professional to clean my windows 16 times, or for my son to clean them around 50 times – your pocket money’s safe for now, young man.
Should you buy it?
Buy if you have large windows
The Hobot S7 Pro is at its best on larger windows, where it requires less supervision for a given area. It should clean nicely, and could be particularly useful where you can’t reach the top.
Don’t buy if you have typical windows
It’s easier and quicker to clean smaller windows by hand, and you’re likely to get better results.
Final Thoughts
This sounded like a brilliant, time-saving way to clean my windows – particularly the outside of top floor windows which I can’t otherwise get to myself. It’s not. The Hobot S7 Pro requires too much attention when working, and it doesn’t produce perfect results.
In addition it’s hard to get it onto the outer surface of inaccessible windows – I needed a kick-step to put it on my skylight. From inside, I couldn’t safely place it on the outside of top-hinged windows, meaning I still need to find another way to reach and clean them. I really wanted to like this robot, but I’m afraid I was disappointed.
Trusted Score
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- Tested on a variety of windows
- Before and after comparison shots taken
FAQs
They’ll do just fine on flat windows in good condition, but they may struggle elsewhere. Cracked or warped windows, or those with large beads, might cause problems with the vacuum seal. Some cleaners struggle with frameless windows too.
Some cleaners will take plain water, but others like the Hobot S7 Pro require a specific fluid – using tap water could block up its ultrasonic jets. Don’t use detergent, vinegar or other additives unless a cleaner’s manual specifically says you can.
Test Data
| Hobot S7 Pro |
|---|
Full Specs
| Hobot S7 Pro Review | |
|---|---|
| UK RRP | £329 |
| USA RRP | $459 |
| EU RRP | Unavailable |
| CA RRP | Unavailable |
| AUD RRP | Unavailable |
| Manufacturer | – |
| Quiet Mark Accredited | No |
| Size (Dimensions) | 262 x 264 x 89 MM |
| Weight | 1.65 KG |
| ASIN | B0F4R326KH |
| Release Date | 2025 |
| First Reviewed Date | 28/09/2025 |
Trusted Score
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