Robo-mowers

Any users on here?

Nearly 300msq back lawn, takes me 30-45 mins with a self propelled petrol mower bought 5 years ago for £100.

Classic time poor household, with current mower struggling, and thinking of being away for a few weeks later in the summer.

At about £1000 for these it will take a couple of years to “pay for itself” but could be very useful.

Can’t find a good guide online of how flat my lawn needs to be, and how features on different models work- can they be set to mow outside certain times (e.g. when there isn’t a baby on the lawn!)?

Any model recommendations? Pitfalls? Man maths not adding up?

Have a Husqvana. Mowgli (his name is not a full replacement for a run around with the mower, but it keeps the grass to a manageable height when we are working.

Be aware that they have a boundary wire and more or less bounce around within that. Stones can be pushed into the wire, mice can chew it, and then it will stop working. I was hopign that it would be as smart as the robot vacuum I had, LIDAR Mapping, neat lines, but no. Mowgli does not like steep slopes and seems to love the gooseberry bush and one specific tree.

I’ve been researching these and not found anything that will do exactly what I want that’s under £3500 (husqavana 320 epos) so it’s a no go at the moment. I don’t want to put in a boundary wire and anything without that is £1500+. On the “cheaper” end of that scale it seems they don’t do up to the boundary so you still have to go around and trim the edges. Some of the cheaper ones also don’t do stripes, and still need guide or out-of-bounds wires. I think we’re a few years out from the price coming down for the technology that’s needed, most of it seems to be marketing fluff. I won’t go into the silent garden shredder I just bought, I think the marketing guys must have been out of the room when the techies said it’s about 95db.

We’ve got one, because I absolutely hate mowing the lawn. It’s a Gardena Sileno or something. It’s okay, but at the shit end of okay rather than the good end. The boundary wire is underground so the only time it breaks is when you forget and accidentally put an edging tool through it or something. Although the connectors at the base unit have also gone furry and broken off as well, which I solved by putting actual decent ones on instead. It doesn’t love some of the slopes in our garden, so often gives up and just mows the area down the slope really well then has a rest. Took us ages to get the boundary wire in the right place to ensure it’d mow right to the edges but not get stuck.

It could do with bring more intelligent and not constantly going for that one corner, and the setup was an annoying faff. And in the winter the battery life seems to be less than the time it’s supposed to be out mowing for. However. It was 600€ compared with supposed ‘better’ ones, and it means I’ve saved countless hours messing with extension leads and it’s saved me countless hours of wandering around the garden with ear defenders on doing something I hate. So there is that.

I’ve a 300 quid refurb Flymo.

Does the job fine couldn’t give a hoot about stripes. Long as the grass is cut.

Lidar or the radar tracking would be nice. Boundary cable was a pain to set up but now sits their unobtrusively.

When I looked was about 2k to get a non wire one and it certainly wasn’t worth that to me.

A relative has one and his lawn looks fantastic, I’d be all over one but my lawn is split into too many different levels to work with a single robo mower

Friend who run a business from a farm has one, it’s great. I think it’s a Husky, you set the boundaries by walking round with some sort of magic wand, no wires.
Can apparently set the pattern it mows in if you have nothing better to do with your life. They’re dead chuffed with it. It’s proven far better than the robo hoover they had, especially following the incident with a biro and a cat turd.

Just spent £2.5k of my mothers money on this  https://uk.mammotion.com/ Luba 2.  She has  just over 1000m2 of grass with a steep incline in parts and I’m very pissed off cutting it now. The luba has very mixed reviews online. Most of the issues seem to be poor set up. so hopefully it’ll work out 🤞

We have a Worx S Landroid we got for £400 in an Amazon sale.  He is called Percy Mower and he’s primitive but effective.  We had a few issues with getting the wire in place, but touch wood it has been fine for more than a year now.

He seems happy enough bobbling round mowing through slugs, snails and cat poo.  He is quite random and in a relationship with the lovage pot, but if he’s out three times a week it all balances out.

Also have a worx landroid that I bought off the folk I bought the house from as they were downsizing. Got to say it’s brilliant as I put it to work probably more than I should but it’s the same as they had the grass is really thick and pretty much chokes out any weeds and moss. I work away from home and it’s great to come home to grass that’s not a foot long, just need to strim the edges.

It’s got a boundary wire but it’s buried maybe an inch down.

Got a Landroid 167e. Offset blade is nice meaning it can get almost to the edge. Has an edging cycle which lets it traverse the wire a bit more than normal.  When we get a bigger garden I’ll have a go at doing the trick triangular corner thingy with the wires to make it get properly to the edge.

i really like it. Saves me loads of time and it just does its thing automagicsllly. It’s completely random in mowing pattern, which is fine.  Senses the rain properly. Has a party mode which sadly doesn’t make it dispense crudités or collect glasses, but does stop it mowing your guests.

@bruneep – that looks a decent saving over the Husky ones and without the faf of a positioning beacon, so please post back on your experiences.

especially following the incident with a biro and a cat turd.

More info and pics please 🙂

I used to think they’re a bit of nonsense for slackers, but everyone I know with one seems to have a great lawn thanks to the frequent cutting, so less mucking around with weeds and moss is a bonus prize

Some of the cheaper ones also don’t do stripes

The horror!

I’d like one but the garden is too small and it would probably be cheaper to pave over the grass.

I also want to know more about the robo-vac/biro/cat turd incident.

Anyone seen or used one of these…

https://navimow.segway.com/uk/product/navimow-i.html

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Mowing of our lawn has been transformed by A switching to a battery mower and B letting the cuttings mulch. Long, old thirties lawn, I used to detest with a passion mowing the bloody thing – took hours, was hard work. Leaving cuttings to mulch (which I guess Robo Mower will do anyhow) is an absolute game changer – have to mow more regularly but not having to empty the grass box saves LOADS of time, I can’t tell you how much. Battery mower takes a lot of faff out – no cables, no fuel, just remember to recharge after each/every other cut and you’re good. Lucky enough to WFH and can easily do it on lunch – during No Mow May, when we leave the bottom third, it’s 20 minutes for a 50m long (cutting mebbe 35m of it), tops.

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Worx has a new one that doesn’t need boundary wires. I only know this because I was looking at the site for the jet washer they sent last week. I definitely don’t have a robot mower level lawn!

https://uk.worx.com/robotic-lawn-mowers/

That looks like an entrant on Robot Wars!

I also want to know more about the robo-vac/biro/cat turd incident.

Unfortunately almost exactly the same as how your mind has filled in the blanks.

They went out in the morning, hoover happily docked, all of their single level house ready for a sweeping of dust. Except the biro that had fallen on the floor. At some point during the course of the, their cat decided to eschew its’ usual use of the litter tray and leave a gift in the middle of the floor.

When the family returned later in the day, most of the floor of their house was covered in a polished emulsion of blue cat excrement, with some flung up the bottom portion of walls for good measure

A client of mine has a robot mower than can be controlled via an app/WiFi and GPS, you just draw the area you want mown (easy to amend) in the app and it does what you tell it, with pattern options and scheduling etc. Returns to home (little house/dock in garden) when it needs a charge and/or has finished the lawn. I’ll find out the make/model.

Stepfather and BIL both have Husky robots, about £1200 each. they work, the lawns look good, and it saves time. My BIL has a large rolling lawn and used to use a Honda sit on mower. I don’t think it’s been out of the garage for a couple of years. So on that basis recommended, but don’t buy cheap. Our lawn is much smaller and flatter, and I like double stripes. The gardener does these at no extra cost 😉

ive just bought a flymo easilife (800). It says husqvarna on the inside (owned by them). Yet to set it up

“put down your rake!”

“You have 15 seconds to comply!”

I’ve (well not mine) a pretty complex “lawn” made up of various medium sized plots and strips of grass dotted along an access road. Anything that just bounces off the perimeter in random directions wouldn’t have a chance in hell. So far I haven’t found any manufacturer or retailer who can advise on whether they have something suitable based on my sharing of a couple of photos and an aerial photo.

Just spent £2.5k of my mothers money on this  https://uk.mammotion.com/ Luba 2.  She has  just over 1000m2 of grass with a steep incline in parts and I’m very pissed off cutting it now

Well done, I’m a long way from getting agreement for something like that. Currently we’re at the denial stage where they say they’ll keep on top of it, but inevitably ends up with it going wild in the weeks between my visits. So then I have to do a strimmer pass followed by two mower passes to get it under control. The modern incarnation of childhood me who mowed old people’s lawns for £5 using their own mower, no longer appears to exist.

One of my neighbours has one. Was great at Halloween as he had it out in the front garden with a sheet and a light underneath pretending to be a 👻

Sorry nothing else to add.

I want a robot mower for a 15m2 patch of grass, not found anything suitably small yet as the charging station and mower would take up most of the “lawn”.

I got the Worx Landroid to do our back garden about a year ago and it’s been great. Opted for the largest size as it wasn’t much more. from Amazon at the time. Boundary wire is relatively quick and easy. Put the eye accessory on it to dodge items left on the lawn and the odd tree that I did not ‘wire around’. Occasionally gets stuck but the lawn always looks nice and I don’t have to factor in 1-2 hours to cut it each week.

I can’t be the only one thinking of The Ruum surely?

I want a robot mower for a 15m2 patch of grass, not found anything suitably small yet as the charging station and mower would take up most of the “lawn”.

Why? That should take less than 5 minutes with a push mower.

Yes, it takes longer to get the push mower out than mow. Isn’t convenience and efficiency the whole point of automation?

I’ve been looking into these and had a couple of reps out this week to help decide what machine to go for. It looks like the Kress range is the most suitable and the 236E model in particular. It operates by GPS and the mapping can be customised to suit complicated, large gardens. There does appear to be flaws in every type of robot mower I’ve looked at but as a time & money saving tool they look excellent if somewhat expensive. The Kress app & network seem very good too.

I think they will be quite common in a few years.

Had a few days now playing with the Luba 2, now been christened Mowses.

Assembly and set up been fairly easy and straight forward biggest dilemma is where to place base station and the RTK receiver. Think I’ve got best place for it now.  Had a few issues, mostly they are user input error and connectivity failures, little or no wifi at furthest away parts of garden.   Have since fiited a

Mapping is done by driving luba around the perimeter using controls on app on phone via Bluetooth. can also add no go areas (yellow blobs) for flower beds, trees, ponds etc. Many options for cutting patterns, angles and blade heights. Can send out manually from app of set a schedule to do a set times.

Manual advises 6″ away from edge and I kinda ignored that and went a bit to close, can edit these errors out. I forgot to add a no go area to one area and it got stuck in flower bed.

Overall very pleased with it. Still much learning to do with settings and  I’ll still have to strim edges but I can live with that if it saves me cutting the grass.

Where do the cuttings go?

Sounding more like Wall.E on here all the blooming time. Just think of it as exercise. Kills my back mowing and hedge trimming, but I do it (broken spine 8 years ago car vs bike).  Use it or lose it.

What happens when it get’s full, or you have 3 lawns (small) like I do ? It can’t open a gate or negotiate steps ?

Idea is to to cut regular 2-3 times a week so cuttings are  just mm in length and mulch back into grass.

It’s my mums grass I can’t commit time and effort 2 times a week to cut over 1000m2 grass let alone do hedges and other garden work. Mowses frees my time do other things there.  I get plenty exercise thanks.

The RTK mapping approach looks great and how you can teach it about the obstacles and passageways between different areas of grass. Much better than randomly bouncing around the place when it senses an obstacle.

Did you consider the Kress ones which are also RTK and about the same price?

Sounding more like Wall.E on here all the blooming time.

Weren’t like that in my day. We would cut t’grass with a lump of coal – and you know what we would like it !

Did you consider the Kress ones which are also RTK and about the same price?

The kress  mapping stick was an extra cost or you can get a dealer to do.

Due to slopes an uneven surface of grass in places I felt the AWD was a better solution.

Sent him out to work from home by time I get out there that area will be completed.