I have a lot of experience with robot mowers (Husqvarna) and they are just not reliable enough.
I run 7 of them and I probably have to intervene at least a couple of times a week. If it has been particularly wet or windy (small branches down) then much more often than that. They are not big issues but just small niggles that you have to correct in person.
Such as ‘wheel motor blocked’ from build up of grass in the wheel arch, or it has dug itself in to a wet patch.
Or occasionally they go rogue and lose position and have to be physically lifted back into their designated area.
There is no way they will work very well if you are not there.
The WhatsApp message from my wife was routine - £who is the visitor”? Except that my wife is hundreds of kms away in Luxembourg, looking after her elderly Dad..What she had done was to go remotely into the camera functionality of our Luba, just to check it was working properly (it’s been a little unpredictable recently)….and saw a strange car in the drive. In fact It was simply a couple that I’d invited for tea
Presumably it must be possible for complete strangers to hack into things like robo mowers to see inside your property. Probably bad news also for cheating spouses etc!
Not yet, but I had to remove the cutting disk the other day to take out the long grass that got tangled around the spindle in my somewhat over-enthusiastic and optimistic gung-ho approach of “Sure, it can do that, fingers in the nose !”.
It turns out that it couldn’t, hence the manual intervention - one lives and one learns
There are currently some special offers on the latest Luba mini AWD Lidar 1500, and the Luba 3 5000 also looks interestingly priced (still not cheap though). If we go for the bigger version, at I’ll be able to cover most of the garden - currently I have to juggle a bit with the zones because I have a 1500, but given that we’ll only be leaving walkways moving into the height of summer, probably not so much of an issue.
The bigger issue is the unreliable 4G iNaviRTK control that I paid a subscription for and which doesn’t seem to work, meaning I’m reliant on (1) the home wifi being up, and (2) the RTK reference antenna which chooses the most inopportune of moments to do a firmware upgrade, leaving the robot stranded mid-operation.
An article about how badly designed robot lawn mowers can cause havoc elsewhere.
The network part was not working according to French regulations. Eventually, Mammotion issued a software update that fixed the problem.
Several years ago I swapped my petrol push mower for a battery powered one. (the fumes made feel unwell ) At the time I considered it my best gardening decision. Then I got a basic robot from Lidl and that’s now my favourite garden purchase. It saves time. Now 3 yrs old and I recently installed a bigger battery when problems started occurring. I didn’t bother burying the wire, just pegged it down securely.
