The Rise Of The Window Robots

Nick Savadian of Ecovacs Robotics demonstrates the company's new robotic window cleaning machine, and a veteran New York City window cleaner offers his thoughts.

Robots Rise; Humans Balk - New York's legion of window washers have long fascinated city dwellers below with their fearlessness. But the future of the profession may belong to those even more impervious to dangerous heights: robots. Clearing a path to the market soon will be the Winbot 7, a compact machine billed by manufacturer Ecovacs Robotics as the first full-service window-washing robot. The device, which resembles a Roomba vacuum cleaner, attaches itself to a pane, maps out its perimeter and proceeds to clean the surface, playing a tinny tune when the work is completed.

Nick Savadian, executive general manager of the company's U.S. arm, said the robot is aimed at busy homeowners looking for a labor-saving escape from boring chores. "One thing we're short of in life is time," he said. Mr. Savadian allowed that his company's small robots could have potential applications someday on gleaming skyscrapers, where window work carries risks. "Winbot is very proud to put itself in that position," he said. "It will clean the outside without taking any chances of liability."

But the prospect of a near future in which scaffold-riding professionals are replaced by automatons doesn't appeal to everyone—particularly window washers and the New Yorkers who romanticize them. "Technology is nice—phones and everything—but for window cleaning, I can't see it," said William Coffey, who works for Manhattan-based Skyway Window Cleaning and has been in the industry for three decades. Mr. Coffey has worked alongside cleaning machines at times but said his most important jobs, including cleaning the glass observation deck at the Twin Towers, have always been done by human hands. "We're jumping, we're going on a scaffold, we're getting pushed out [by wind], you know, we're going down the side of a building," he added. "I can't see a robot thinking of all the things that have to be done."

The total number of high-rise window washers in and around the city isn't clear. The window-cleaning division of Service Employees International Union Local 32BJ, one of the largest unions, counts 800 members. Andrew Horton, who coordinates safety training for the union's apprentice window washers, said graduates of the nearly two-year-long program can expect to earn roughly $27 an hour plus an $18-a-day fee for working on a scaffold; experienced window cleaners can earn up to $60,000 a year.

In a city defined in no small measure by its towering architecture, Brooklyn Public Library archivist Ivy Marvel believes there is "civic pride" in knowing that window cleaners exist. "It humanizes the city," she said. "We take a lot of pride in people that do those jobs that only exist in a city like this." The city's sense of window-washing heroism is likely as old as its skyscrapers. Ms. Marvel recently found a 1952 Brooklyn Daily Eagle profile of Ed Kemp, a window cleaner she describes as fighting a "grimly noble struggle against ambient dirt and pigeon dung." She said she wouldn't be surprised to see machines doing the work one day.

While the Winbot 7 tries to win over homeowners, others are already aiming to automate window-washing work for the world's futuristic mega-towers. Swiss manufacturer Serbot AG is close to completing a robot dubbed the Gecko, and company salesman Hansjorg Schindler said there are interested customers in Russia, the Middle East and Asia. In Dubai, meanwhile, the 160-story Burj Khalifa was designed to accommodate 18 machines built on horizontal tracks currently assisting human cleaners in navigating the building's half-mile façade.

Cameron Riddell, president of J. Racenstein, a company that has supplied window cleaners since 1909, notes that workers in the industry are notoriously hidebound. Some old-school cleaners are so resistant to change that the company still stocks brass-handled squeegees, even though newer models made of plastic offer protection against cold temperatures. "They're traditionalists," he said. Even with advances in robotics, Mr. Riddell believes the idiosyncratic corners, buttresses and recesses of New York's 20th-century skyline will keep humans involved in the trade. "In some cases you could see a machine has benefit, but in most cases it'll be old elbow grease and ingenuity," he said. At J. Racenstein, which has offices in Secaucus, N.J., the most high-tech option available is the HighRise Window Cleaning System, which costs up to $50,000 and promises to cut labor costs by 50%. The machines are operated by technicians and built to fit into existing rigging used by human cleaners.

Steve Sullivan, president of Indianapolis-based American National Skyline, has purchased two of the machines in the hopes of impressing clients and cutting costs. His company's building managers are keen on limiting liability associated with workers "hanging out of the side of the building," he said. Mr. Sullivan said the HighRise can move up and down a 15-story building in about 20 minutes—a feat that would take a person "a considerable amount of time longer." But he acknowledged the machine wouldn't work in places like Manhattan, where high-rise buildings are packed together and falling water from the machine would be an issue for pedestrians below.

Mr. Riddell, for his part, doesn't anticipate any time soon a robotic future that deprives his distributorship of its customer base of traditional window cleaners. "In time there may be some advancement which on a certain building may eliminate men," he said. "But it's never going to be a thing where men lose jobs." Mr. Horton, the union official, agreed: "I'm in favor of change but I don't see automation taking over the industry." Mr. Savadian, the robot maker, understands the general wariness people feel over a robotic future. "Any change is scary. When it's something new it's always difficult," he said. "But once you understand it and adjust to it, you see how much it can improve your lives. Change is a fact of life."