The era of the Robot Mower is here and after 6 months of intensive use I feel I am now in a position to update everyone on both the Pros and Cons that I have found using one vs cutting the lawn myself!
Bosch VISIMOW18V-100:
Flymo EasiLife 500 GO:
Gardena Smart SILENO:
MAMMOTION YUKA mini 2:
Segway Navimow:
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There's an advert running on youtube about a cloth that removes car scratches do you think you could test it for us.
Cheers in anticipation.
Most good quality robot mowers are not nickable, because they are digitally serial numbered, and programmed to work only in a certain geographical area. I have no doubt if mine was stolen hacked and used elsewhere, it would be fairly easy to track down through the manufacturer to find out where it’s being used through its digital credentials.
All good points. Some mowers will expand the cut area automatically. Nor do they all need to be manually driven around the perimeter. The phone /PC App shows the map and the position of the mower. No need to monitor it at all. Live view from the mower's own cameras. GPS tracking in the event of theft. It's all available from mid-price models. The transformation of most lawns by robot mowers is simply amazing. From fields, to large commercial grounds, schools, to tiny lawns. They all seem to improve dramatically. You have to see this to understand the change from ANY other form of mowing.
Just seen this and have to say I think they're a waste of money…. much better getting a decent 'proper'mower and at least you can I think do a better job.. 🌟🎊🥳🤩
What happens if you have 3 different lawned areas to cut?
Thank for all of the information. Great video.
How do these manage with wet grass? I have an Imow and it will clog up, slow down etc.
Only a really stupid thief steals a GPS enabled mower. It's like having a tracker in your pocket.
I would have a ride on mower the smiles for hours
I bought the entry level WorX Landroid with the boundary wire last year. Brilliant. A pain to put the wire down to begin, but bought another bag of pegs and used 1 peg per 30cm instead of the 60cm in the manual. 2 rectangular sections of lawn.
The edge bits that get left just get a wizz around boundary 10 minutes once per month with strimmer or proper lawn mower.
Sceptical at first but now would not go back. Just give it a rough cut after winter once at the beginning of the season. You can get some protective mesh to put on the high wear bits of lawn. The grass grows through and the mesh is invisible after a few weeks.
RoBoMo? No.
Don't buy one if your lawn is very rough, overgrown and soft. They need a proper hard ground lawn. I had to send one back because it couldn't move on my rough land.
Mapping??? Can't I just get one that cuts at random like a robovac, until it runs out of power? I don't want it to return to a charging station, as that won't be anywhere near my lawn.
I am on my second robot mower, the first one I had for five years. It used a wire which kept it within my lawn space. My two issues I had were, when it went back to its garage over a period of time ( a couple of years) it started to dig a track in the lawn edge following the wire, the second thing was if it could not negotiate an area, it use to dig a couple of furrows with its wheels rather just stop and tell you it had a problem. I retired that mower this year and invested in an RTK GPS with vision sensors mower, which is working well at the moment. No more perimeter wires which is a real bonus, what with receiving RTK corrections over the cloud means my mower knows exactly where it can and cant go.
Its amazing how the technology has improved of the last five years. I spend a lot of time away from home, and it was tedious to cut knee high grass when I got home.
We have decking steps that lead down to our lawn so no sure what out options are regarding the charging station.
I have had my flymo 1200r for years works absolutely fine, blades i sharpened on an grinding machine , last ages , the only problem is the wire is now around 7 years old and will need replacing, tried one of the wireless ones what a load of rubbish, never could get a signal.
Do you think they would f frighten a pet dog or cat or worse perhaps the dog would attack it😊
Yes I’m considering a robot mower.
But so many choices now.
And so expensive!
RTK😂😂
Let the strip grow under the fence I say. I think it will look quite good
What gets mowed in Vegas, stays mowed????
How do you discipline your kids now?
Just bought a Segway I215E, looking forward to the setup and see it running, got 1400 m2'ish garden
Gives you more time to get rid of the weeds that are in your lawn.
i prompted/hinted enough times when you were fawning over your reel mower to get a robot mower. Glad to hear you stuck with the robot long enough to see the idea behind it.
I'm now on season 6 of owning one, still occasionally watch it for an hour or two. Never gets boring.
to folks reading, you can start at the £400 with a worx landroid with an offset cutting disc that'll cut to within 5cm or so of the edge of your lawn. And contrary to what Stuart said, many of them allow you to change the map shape after the fact…possibly his experience in this is more related to the mower he..got. Theres also side entry/exit systems, so your mower doesnt do a 180deg turn when leaving the base.
I'll add, one more time…its not so much mowing…as clipping. Use it daily, it takes the new growth off..1mm..2mm? maybe 5mm? …easy peasy, easy on the battery, no clippings visible, fully mulching.
They really should not be used in the fashion of a traditional mower, where you may leave the grass for two weeks then try lop off 10cm in one go. Not only isnt it good for the grass, you'll have to run the robot a few times for it to achieve what you want and then you'll be left thinking its rubbish.
Send it out everyday…I think I worked it out at 20p/day in electric for 3-4hours of mowing….just send it out everyday and your lawn looks the same, everyday, and you even forget about the bad old days of hurting your back lugging grass clippings about.
lastly, a cheaper, smaller robot is also a lighter robot. Which means it doesnt get stuck in the mud so much. If youre into dropping 4k, then you can now get 4wd ones…but if youre sending it out december and its a bit muddy and theres leaves about and you have dogs who make trails as they run about, you'll appreciate the lightest mower you could afford that'll still mow all your grass without getting stuck on a random stick thats fallen while trying to execute a turn.
Is it time to review and critique this advert, which is showing up with monotonous regularity everywhere on YouTube, regarding a pressure washer that only needs connecting to a garden hose tap? It looks like a scam with similar claims to other worthless scams for welding and laser cutting et al
Purchased an easymow 260B. Just under £300. Small grass area about 36m2 yes it has a wire perimeter but after a year you can’t see it. Favourite hobby is watching jeffery (above named it) cut the grass. Customer support is very good and they actually rewrote software for me suit my needs
I’ve just had a Stiga highly recommend.
In my area we have “typical” suburban lawns. However by specification not a signal robot mower can actually cut my lawn. On a hill, all houses only have 6 foot side yards. We all have storage on those sides so the narrow spaces are 30-34” Max. Angles of hills are more than 24 degrees. On the high side of the hill everything is low, so if you build a deck or stone patio it’s probably less than 3” in height. Rtk signal in these tiny yards with roof overhang and tress do not work. WiFi signal through stone houses to the outside yard, horrible. Cellular in the suburbs is horrible and spotty too. Unless it’s all wheel drive, has solid state lidar and cameras and bumper sensors on EVERYSIDE and cliff detection to not fall off the curb it’s useless. The can make a vacuum that maps my entire house in minutes, clean and mop into ever corner, avoid cables and never even tap a chair leg that auto updates it map as soon as things change but the lawn mowers feel like they are first generation vacuum cleaners. So far only one has true auto map capabilities but requires 3.3 feet passages minimum. Most of the lidar ones only use that feature for obstacle avoidance for over 7.8 inches that I can tell. Those top mounted ones seem useless and are easy to get dirty compared to soiled state lidar. How many more years till these things are designed for no intervention and can do “complex yards” which are just typical depending on where people actually live?
Hi Stuart.
Random question but I’m sure you once dropped a hint on a super quick and easy way to tie if a string line. Any idea what video that was on?
Thanks for the video. Many hedgehogs are killed or injured by mowers and strimmers. If you are buying one, please check they're hedghog friendly (with sensors) or at least send them out well into the day and not first/last thing when the hedgehogs are about.
I have a cheap one from Lidl, yes I had to install a perimeter wire, but that only took a few hours. It's amazing! It saves me so much time.
I would like a robot gardener that did everything, including clearing up afterwards.
Just "installed" one in my daughter's "garden". She and her husband were never going to mow their grass, and it was always left up to me! The Navimow I gifted them works superbly and whilst it is early days I am confident the lawn will eventually improve after nigh on 4 years of partial neglect. Very versatile and scheduled to do its bit every Friday at 12.00 when no one is home. It still needs strimming on the edges, and I guess I'll be relegated to do the necessary so even now no escape!
I learn many interesting things, and truly enjoy watching, thank you.
They invented herbicide to kill grass below fences.
To be honest, I enjoy getting out in the garden and mowing my lawn, its kind of theraputic, but i guess with a lawn the size of yours it can get too much especially as we get older
Great vid – I want to take the plunge. That mower looks great – what kind is it?
They're pretty useless in sloped or bumpy terrain, don't collect the grass clippings/dead leaves etc, don't roll the surface or give a good finish. And mowing the lawn manually is good exercise!
You forgot to add a few things that I learned the hard way, unfortunately they are all Cons.
1) The cutting surface (blades) are razor blades. Some (most) just 4, some up to 8 blades. It cannot handle some grasses (they have a problem with Fescue) and the blades wear out FAST. I had to replace them twice in the same season. Find a mower with actual blades. They do make them!
2) The cutting area is only 7 to 9 inches across (17 to 23cm) and rely on GPS to chart their path. Not even military GPS is accurate to less than 4 inches. Whole strips of grass get missed then the "eyesight technology" starts to think that portion is too big for it to handle so the problem compounds itself rather quickly.
3) Marketing people SUCK! I have a 1/3 acre piece of property and only half of it (approximately 7500sqft) is kept as a maintained lawn – so about 1/5 of an acre. I bought a robomower "rated" for a half acre and it took 3 rounds to fully cut it. First start with a full charge, 4 hours to charge again, second round with a full charge, 4 hours to charge again, then half a charge to finish. If it was the Summer Solstice it could just BARELY finish in the same day if I started it at dawn. When I called to complain about this they said "Oh yeah, that is normal. It is rated to handle a half acre with multiple recharges!" … That is not how this works people! You don't buy an electric car with a 350 mile range but only if you charge it every 125 miles! If you are going this route and you want it to finish the same day, multiply your square footage by 3 and that is the smallest mower you should get. That Navimow got returned in a hurry.