Robotic lawn mowers

sovietspybob said:
What i find the best bit is that the lawn is ALWAYS perfect.

Nice day in the summer and the kids want to get the paddling pool out? no worries the garden is perfect.
Want a BBQ, no probs the garden is perfect.
Been raining for 7 days solid and just glancing at your garden from the landing window, ideal the garden looks perfect.

I really notice now when i see other gardens that they're only perfect for 1 or 2 days at most before the grass starts looking a bit scruffy, and even freshly cut grass doesn't look quite as good until it settles in compared.
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This is the draw for me. I don't mind mowing the lawn myself really, but I don't have time to do it the 3x a week that it needs at certain times of the year to keep it nice all the time.

That and never having to get rid of cuttings again.

I see your husqvarna 420 is around 1800 quid, my garden isn't so big so I think the 310 might be a good bet. Does yours do proper edge to edge mowing or do you need to tidy the edges sometimes?
 
dl8860 said:
This is the draw for me. I don't mind mowing the lawn myself really, but I don't have time to do it the 3x a week that it needs at certain times of the year to keep it nice all the time.

That and never having to get rid of cuttings again.

I see your husqvarna 420 is around 1800 quid, my garden isn't so big so I think the 310 might be a good bet. Does yours do proper edge to edge mowing or do you need to tidy the edges sometimes?
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No unfortunately that's the only thing mine is lacking, it depends how its all laid out but i do need to strim around some edge bits to keep it all neat. Luckily i'm pretty rural so you don't really notice it with all the hedging and stuff i have round the garden.
 
sovietspybob said:
No unfortunately that's the only thing mine is lacking, it depends how its all laid out but i do need to strim around some edge bits to keep it all neat. Luckily i'm pretty rural so you don't really notice it with all the hedging and stuff i have round the garden.
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Ah OK, my garden is about 800m2 but has lots of internal borders and things so edge cut is basically essential for me.

Leads me to Worx Landroid, but I'm reading mixed reviews for them.

Really stupid question, does the charge point need to be on the lawn itself i.e. inside the cable boundary? If it does, how does it ever mow it's own home? If it doesn't, how does it know where it's home is if it's outside of the boundary that it's allowed to go?
 
Stock of these is terrible at the moment. I guess they've all wound down as it's nearly the end of the mowing season, at least I hope that's why as I cannot find any Bosch 1000 or Worx L1000 in stock anywhere.

dl8860 said:
Really stupid question, does the charge point need to be on the lawn itself i.e. inside the cable boundary? If it does, how does it ever mow it's own home? If it doesn't, how does it know where it's home is if it's outside of the boundary that it's allowed to go?
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My understanding is that the charging dock needs to be connected to the guide cable but not necessarily on the lawn, although if it's not on the lawn it would be hard to secure / hide.

When the mower needs to recharge (or is doing an edge cut), rather than 'bouncing' off the cable, it follows it back home until it finds the dock.
 
dl8860 said:
Ah OK, my garden is about 800m2 but has lots of internal borders and things so edge cut is basically essential for me.

Leads me to Worx Landroid, but I'm reading mixed reviews for them.

Really stupid question, does the charge point need to be on the lawn itself i.e. inside the cable boundary? If it does, how does it ever mow it's own home? If it doesn't, how does it know where it's home is if it's outside of the boundary that it's allowed to go?
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The charging dock for mine at least needs to be on the edge of the lawn somewhere, it's where the 2 ends of the boundary wire terminate so you could loop it back to make a bit of an alcove if you wanted.

With the Husqvarna at least it uses a radio signal so it knows when it's close to the base station so it doesn't bump into it. Mine also has a setting for a 'mower house' so it gives it a bit of an extra wide birth to not keep bumping into its shelter.
 
I have a
McCulloch ROB RM800
Its made by Husqvarna. Extremely basic. No Bluetooth or WiFi.
Everything is done on the robots LCD screen, but once it's setup it's very maintenance free.
I wish it was app driven but I got it for a steal price so happy enough. 500ish quid UK cash.

There are tools you can get to bury the guide wire as you lay it, like a trundle wheel/plough.
Might only be professional grade though, so expensive.

We have a very uneven lawn and pretty complicated bushes and a tree or 4.
We made "Islands" around everything and it bounces off the green house.

It's as dumb as a plank. I've seen it get stuck in the same area for ten mins, but only once every 20 or so chops.

It also has been stuck in the tiniest of furrows and ditches, but once you find them all and FillL in smooth out them it's fine.

We had ours on 24/7 in summer with 700h operation time... 1h cut 1h charge.
Grass looks as good as it could. It's a nasty mix of Swedish scrub grass and 1000 dandelions, typical of here. It cuts everything down so fine it always looks good from a distance :p

Robomower and robovaccum 2 of the best things invented.

Get a better model than mine, it's functional but it's low on features.
 
Thanks @Efour, interesting post.

I've been looking at the Worx Landroid L1500, which although I don't need that much mowing area ability, is for some bizarre reason only £800 through the Worx eBay store. So I've just ordered it.

Overkill, but cheaper than the 1000 models and you never know when your lawn might be bigger!
 
Pretty much what I'll be getting when this one dies.
Good luck with it.
If you need help with guide wire placement, it's fairly straight forward. I was clueless but learned a lot.
Do a good job when you lay the perimeter wire :p my mower chopped mine once as it was badly secured.
Also have magpies that love digging them up, but that's another story.
 
I've recently bought a worx M500+. As others have said a robot mower is amazing. I had a new lawn laid and i've never touched it with a traditional mower. After setup you just forget about it.

Before:


During:


Laid:


Mower:
IMG-1371.jpg


Now:
 
john_smith said:
I've recently bought a worx M500+. As others have said a robot mower is amazing. I had a new lawn laid and i've never touched it with a traditional mower. After setup you just forget about it.
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Nice. What do you use to stripe it? And where did you order the anti-collision system from?
 
I have the Flymo 1200R and it's honestly one of the best purchases I made. I bought it close to £450 on a Black Friday sale a few years back. I'd never buy a manual/handheld lawnmower again, these robotic things are just incredibly convenient.
 
The daughter got a new slide the other week and just put it in the garden yesterday without thinking, about half 7 at night i hear a loud grinding noise from the garden.

Ott didn't like the legs, luckly just popped the end cap off and only a few slash marks on it :p moved it now so the leg is on the paving slabs! First world problems.

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john_smith said:
The turf was laid with the stripes, there's no stripes now with the mower unfortunately. The ACS, and mower, came from Amazon.
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Would you say the ACS is worth it? I have quite a busy garden, does it not do a decent job of bumping its way around without the ACS?
 
I would say it's 50/50. I stood in front of it and it swerves sometimes. Other times it will hit me. It does not need to encounter much / any resistance before it realises there's an object and it will reverse and go off in another direction.
 
john_smith said:
The turf was laid with the stripes, there's no stripes now with the mower unfortunately. The ACS, and mower, came from Amazon.
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I'm thinking of buying the cheapest striping solution I can and doing it once per week. It should hold for a while as the mower itself shouldn't remove them?
 
Stripes don't last very long really. As soon as the blades of grass stand back up they're gone.

Rolling grass is about more than stripes. It essentially breaks the blades of grass at the base to encourage a new blade to grow thereby thickening the lawn.

Excessive rolling (or rolling at wrong time e.g. wet ground) can lead to soil compaction and harm your lawn.

If you do this, you really need to have a proper lawn care regime including aeration.
 
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