Recalls and battery safety for home robots

Five recalls cover every robotic pool cleaner, mower, vacuum and litter box sold in the United States since 2020, and every one of them was about heat.

HomeRobotDataUpdated September 18, 2026

A search of the CPSC recall database across robotic pool cleaners, robot mowers, robot vacuums and automatic litter boxes returns five recalls since 2020: two Aiper pool cleaners, one Wybot pool cleaner, one STIHL iMOW docking station and one notice covering two Husqvarna all-wheel-drive Automowers. Every one was a battery, an adapter or a dock overheating. No robot vacuum and no automatic litter box has been recalled in the United States, which is worth knowing and is not the same as a safety rating.

How a recall reaches you
Every home-robot recall since 2020
The pattern is the charging path, not the robot
There is no robot vacuum or litter box recall on file
What a clean search does not mean
How the makers say to charge it
Storing it, and throwing it away
Checking a machine before and after you buy it

How a recall reaches you

A recall in the United States starts with the company, not with a government inspection. The CPSC tells manufacturers, importers, distributors and retailers that they have a legal obligation to immediately report a defective product that could create a substantial risk of injury, and it sets the clock tightly: a company must report to the Commission within 24 hours of obtaining reportable information. The notice you eventually read on cpsc.gov is the announcement at the end of that conversation, once a remedy has been agreed.

Two things follow from that. A recall is evidence that a firm reported a problem and agreed to fix it, which is not the same as evidence that the product was worse than one nobody reported. And the record is only as current as the last announcement: the CPSC recall page says its data updates weekly as new recalls are announced.

Read the notice rather than the headline. Each one names the exact models and serial-number ranges covered, states the hazard in one sentence, gives the number of units and sets out the remedy, which is often a free replacement rather than a refund.

Every home-robot recall since 2020

These are all of the recalls the CPSC database returns for robotic pool cleaners, robotic mowers, robot vacuums and automatic litter boxes. Figures are as printed on each notice.

Two things stand out before you read a single row. The unit counts are small, in the thousands rather than the millions, because these are young categories. And no notice in the set was triggered by an injury: across all five, CPSC records one minor burn to a fingertip that needed no medical treatment, and the rest is property damage.

Announced	Product	Hazard, as CPSC states it	Units	Remedy
9 April 2026 (26-372)	Wybot Osprey 700 Max and S1 robotic pool vacuums	The lithium-ion battery can overheat; ten reports of overheating or catching fire, nine of property damage	About 5,000	Free replacement WYBOT C2
20 March 2025 (25-187)	Aiper Seagull Pro ZT6001 cordless pool cleaner	A large current adapter can overheat; 19 reports of melting, smoking or fire while charging	About 32,660	Free replacement Aiper Scuba S1
24 August 2023 (23-784)	Aiper Elite Pro GS100 cordless pool cleaner	The battery can overheat and short circuit when the charging cord is used without the adapter; 17 reports, one minor burn	About 22,000	Free replacement Aiper Seagull Pro
16 March 2023 (23-158)	STIHL docking stations sold with iMOW robotic mowers	The docking station's circuit board can short circuit when exposed to moisture; eight overheating reports, two fires	About 2,700	Free at-home repair
17 February 2022 (22-727)	Husqvarna Automower 435X AWD and 535 AWD	The lithium-ion battery can overheat; five reports of overheating, two fires	About 1,400	Software update, plus a free battery above 1,200 charging cycles

Recall numbers in brackets. Dates, unit counts and incident counts are taken from each CPSC notice.

The pattern is the charging path, not the robot

Three of the five recalls were not about the machine that does the work. The STIHL notice covers the docking station alone, and the fault was moisture reaching a circuit board on a thing that lives outdoors all season. The Aiper Seagull Pro notice names the adapter, not the cleaner. The Aiper Elite Pro fault only appeared when the charging cord was plugged into the machine without the adapter, which is a habit rather than a manufacturing defect.

The other two were the battery pack itself, and in the Husqvarna case the remedy was a software update with a replacement battery for units past 1,200 charging cycles, which tells you the risk grew with age rather than arriving out of the box.

None of the five was about a cutting blade, a child, a pet or drowning. Every one was heat, and most of the heat was where the power goes in.

There is no robot vacuum or litter box recall on file

We searched the CPSC recall database by product name for robot vacuum, robotic vacuum, litter box, automatic litter, pool cleaner, robotic mower and window cleaning robot, and by brand for Ecovacs, iRobot, Shark, SharkNinja, eufy, Roborock, Dreame, Aiper, Wybot, Maytronics, Dolphin, Litter-Robot, Whisker, PetKit, Neakasa, Petlibro, Worx, Husqvarna, Segway, Navimow, Mammotion and Greenworks. Outside the five notices above, nothing in these categories comes back.

The closest adjacent case is a battery one. Anker Innovations recalled more than a million PowerCore 10000 power banks in June 2025 because the lithium-ion battery can overheat, and eufy's own about page says eufy is now Anker eufy, under the unified Anker brand. No eufy robot vacuum appears on Anker's own product-recalls page, and none appears in the CPSC database either.

What a clean search does not mean

A blank result is useful, but it answers a narrower question than most people think it does.

It does not mean nobody has reported harm. Consumer reports of harm live in a separate database at SaferProducts.gov, and CPSC states plainly that it does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or adequacy of the contents of that database.
It does not mean the record is complete today. The CPSC recall page updates weekly, so a product recalled this week may not appear yet.
It does not cover other countries. The Aiper Elite Pro notice links to a matching Canadian recall; a recall elsewhere does not have to appear on cpsc.gov.
It does not include a maker's own safety notice. Anker, for instance, publishes its own recalls page, and a firm can issue a service bulletin or a firmware fix without a CPSC announcement.
It is a text search. Look up the brand, the model name and the plain product words separately, because a notice titled after a distributor will not surface under the brand you bought.

How the makers say to charge it

The two recalled pool-cleaner brands now publish charging instructions that read like a direct answer to their own notices. Wybot says it does not recommend charging the device outdoors due to the risk of battery catching fire caused by sun exposure, and that the device should be charged indoors, away from sunlight and high-temperature environments. It also tells owners to switch the unit off and check the charging port for water before plugging in, because dampness can cause charging failure or port corrosion.

CPSC's own advice for lithium-ion devices is short, and it is the same advice for every category here: use the charger that came with the device, only use an approved replacement battery pack, follow the manufacturer's instructions for proper charging, and unplug the device when done. Roborock adds a temperature window, capping the robot's working range at 4 to 40 degrees Celsius, or 39 to 104 Fahrenheit.

CPSC's wording on when to charge leaves no room: always be present when charging devices using lithium-ion batteries, and never charge them while sleeping.

Storing it, and throwing it away

A pool robot, a mower and a vacuum all sit unused for months at a time, and a battery left flat over a winter is the one that ages fastest. Aiper's cold-season page gives the most specific routine published by any of these makers: dry the unit with a paper towel or soft cloth, box and store the device in a cool, well-ventilated area, charge it every two months to 40 to 60 percent battery capacity, and never charge it in direct sunlight.

The vacuum makers say the same thing on a longer clock. Roborock's manual says to charge the robot fully before storage, turn it off, choose a cool, dry place, and recharge it at least every three months to avoid battery overdischarge. Ecovacs' Deebot manual says that if the robot will not be used for a long time, fully charge it and power it off for storage, and unplug the docking station.

A lithium-ion battery does not go in the bin. CPSC's instruction is never to throw lithium batteries into the trash or general recycling, and to take them to a local battery recycler or hazardous waste collection center instead. On a recalled battery it goes further, saying not to use the used-battery boxes in retail and home improvement stores either, because recalled lithium-ion batteries present a greater risk of fire. Roborock's manual puts it as leaving waste batteries with a professional recycling organization.

Checking a machine before and after you buy it

Two minutes of checking covers most of what a recall search can tell you, and it is worth repeating once a season rather than once.

Search cpsc.gov for the brand, then for the model, then for the plain words: robot vacuum, pool cleaner, robotic mower, litter box.
Find the serial number before you search. Every notice here is limited by serial-number range or model number, and the numbers sit under the machine or inside the lid.
Check the maker's own recalls or safety-notice page as well as the CPSC database.
Register the product with the maker, which is how a firm contacts known purchasers directly, as Wybot and Aiper both did.
Subscribe to CPSC recall emails, which is the only version of this check that runs itself.

Questions people ask

Has a Litter-Robot ever been recalled?

Not in the United States. Searching the CPSC recall database by manufacturer for Whisker and Litter-Robot, and by product name for litter box and automatic litter, returns nothing in this category. Whisker has issued firmware and service changes over the years, but a maker's own fix is not a CPSC recall and will not show up in that database.

Has any robot vacuum been recalled in the US?

No. A search of the CPSC database for robot vacuum and robotic vacuum returns no results, and brand searches for iRobot, Roborock, Ecovacs, Shark, eufy and Dreame return nothing in this category either. The only robotic cleaners in the database are pool cleaners.

Why were both Aiper recalls about charging rather than the robot?

Because that is where the heat was. The Seagull Pro notice names a large current adapter that can overheat, and the Elite Pro notice describes the battery overheating and short circuiting when the charging cord was plugged in without the adapter. In both cases the incidents CPSC lists happened while the machine was charging.

My robot is on the recall list. What do I actually get?

It depends on the notice. Wybot and Aiper both offered a free replacement machine with a prepaid return label. STIHL offered a free at-home repair of the docking station by a servicing dealer. Husqvarna pushed a free software update and sent a replacement battery to owners whose mower had passed 1,200 charging cycles.

Is it safe to charge a pool robot or a mower in the garage?

Indoors is what the makers ask for. Wybot recommends charging indoors and away from sunlight and high-temperature environments, and says it does not recommend charging outdoors at all. A garage that bakes in summer is closer to the outdoor case than the indoor one, so pick the coolest spot you have and stay with it while it charges, which is CPSC's standing advice for any lithium-ion device.

How should I store a pool cleaner or mower over the off season?

Aiper's cold-season instructions are the most specific published: dry the unit with a cloth, box it and store it in a cool, well-ventilated area, and top the battery back up to 40 to 60 percent every two months. Do not leave it fully flat for a whole winter, and do not leave it on a charger in direct sun.