Robot Lawnmower vs Cordless Manual Mower?

n30_mkii

n30_mkii

n30_mkii

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Alfreton,Derbyshire
I've got two lawns at my property, one which is around 100 sqm which is curved and edged with a raised metal edging. It has a couple of trees planted in it too. The second area is to the side of the house and only 20 sqm but its on quite a slope.

I'm looking at moving away from my trusty bosch rotak to a cordless makita 36v (2x18v) potentially as mowing the lawn with a cord is a pain as it constantly gets snagged and ends up in your way due to the lawn layout. Whilst looking at this I thought I should at least entertain the option of a robotic one. My current concerns are

1. That the tech for navigating and reliability still doesn't look great. Lidar looks like an improvement but is expensive.
2. Due to the way the blades work the robot would never be able to trim the edges against the raised edging strips
3. There doesn't seem to be many capable of dealing with a slope

What are your thoughts and which direction would you go?
 
I've had a Husqvarna robot mower for 7 years and it's been the best things ive ever bought.

The latest Husqvarna ones do edge cutting, i've not seen them in person though. Mine even being an older model will handle fairly big slopes, way steeper than the official specs tell you it can.

I wouldn't even entertain having any form of manual mower ever again, it'd be like going back to a horse to do the commute or candle light for the house.
 
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sovietspybob said:
I've had a Husqvarna robot mower for 7 years and it's been the best things ive ever bought.

The latest Husqvarna ones do edge cutting, i've not seen them in person though. Mine even being an older model will handle fairly big slopes, way steeper than the official specs tell you it can.

I wouldn't even entertain having any form of manual mower ever again, it'd be like going back to a horse to do the commute or candle light for the house.
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Thanks, the cost seems to be in excess of a grand by the looks if it. Do you mind if I ask how much you paid?
 
n30_mkii said:
Thanks, the cost seems to be in excess of a grand by the looks if it. Do you mind if I ask how much you paid?
Click to expand...

Mine was £1800 but i have half an acre to mow, it's offset the costs quite a bit over the years compared to a ride on or push mower in servicing and fuel costs.

Not sure what the cheaper end of the market is like but even if i had a small garden i'd defo get one myself.

Lawn always looks perfect no matter what the weather, its been raining and windy for 2 weeks straight? no worries garden still looks perfect for the 1 day of sun so you can just get out and enjoy the garden rather than faffing around getting a mower out and wasting an hour cutting it before you can enjoy it.
 
There's a big house on the way into Elgin that has a large lawn and he also has a Husky robot mower that keep the lawn looking immaculate. No matter the weather or time of year the lawn is nice and neat. He even made a little garage for it to go to when it needs a charge.
 
If I had a bigger lawn I’d be all over a robot mower, I saw a recent ad for one and it looked pretty impressive. Especially now they don’t need a perimeter wire. Some even have a collection box now that can pile up the cuttings in a location of your choosing, amazing.
 
I've got an eco vac goat and it's literally the best thing I've bought for the house so far. You map out the garden or you can let it do it automatically. It does the edges ok however I tend to go round every couple of weeks and do the edges with a trimmer. But as other posters say - the lawn looks amazing every day of the year! Had a few issues at the start with it diving over the edge of the lawn but it's fixed now. It's also got a function to basically drive to a second lawn and mow that one.
 
swillsy said:
I've got an eco vac goat and it's literally the best thing I've bought for the house so far. You map out the garden or you can let it do it automatically. It does the edges ok however I tend to go round every couple of weeks and do the edges with a trimmer. But as other posters say - the lawn looks amazing every day of the year! Had a few issues at the start with it diving over the edge of the lawn but it's fixed now. It's also got a function to basically drive to a second lawn and mow that one.
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Thanks, which model? and would it deal with a slope?
 
I've the the G1-800 however the new model uses lidar. The thing to consider is you get two posts in the box for the older model and new posts cost £80 each. I ended up needing 4 to get round my house so probably should have just got the newer model. They are great once you have them setup properly and everyone who comes round the house always asks me about them.
 
Another thing i would say is don't be put off by a model that uses a guide wire, people seem to have a real aversion to them for some reason as if its a massive hassle or drawback and really outdated but it's a proven technology that 'just works'.

But in reality it takes an hour or so to lay down initially and then you'll probably never have to touch it again, no need for GPS repeaters or whatever.
 
We got a gardener after my Honda packed up. No mower at all now and I don't have to do anything, can spend my time on other productive, enjoyable or fee earning tasks
 
i just bought a Gardena Smart Sileno City 600 Lona, its a rebadged Husqvarna Automower Aspire R4.

Pretty much the smallest size you can get for my 500sm lawn/garden.

TBH i doubt these model numbers and styles match UK and Sweden. :P

anyway If you have a simple London 100m by 10m terraced garden you could literally get anything and let it bounce around the garden.

Even the ones from Lidl and alike will easily do the job, you might have to lay a cable in the lawn permitter but honestly its a hours job and not a big deal. Modern mowers avoid all this but at 2 or 3x the premium price.

I'm not particularly happy with this new mower and am considering returning it and getting a more premium model
It was 50% sale here and while it has a ton of good features its struggling to navigate my bumpy lawn...
im looking at a Mamotion LUBA mini... 4wd GPS can cut patterned lawns etc....

So no advice on a particular model But dont spend much at the end of the day a budgetboi will probably do a great job too.

​

 
I picked up a used Worx Landroid S300 a few years ago for a 70-80m2 garden and it's been great. This model doesn't do the very edge but it only takes 10 mins to zip round with a strimmer every now and then to tidy it up. It isn't as smart as some of the more modern robot mowers in that it just picks a direction and goes until it gets to the boundary wire or bumps into something before turning around and picking another direction but having said that, it's done an good job of navigating around my daughters swing/slide set. I was considering just adding a loop into the boundary wire so it could avoid it but honestly it's been working fine without it.

It was relatively cheap and has freed up more time for me at the weekends to spend on other things which was the goal.

My only criticism is that it doesn't do to well if the soil is damp. Much of my garden is clay and it really does hold moisture in after winter or a real good downpour. If the mower goes out after this you can see it spinning its wheels looking for traction. I keep considering changing the wheels; seen plenty of STL files I could 3D print as well as spiked metal rings to fix to the side for better traction. Obviously not sure how well other mowers would also do here but I can only assume the bigger and better would fair better too
 
cokecan said:
I picked up a used Worx Landroid S300 a few years ago for a 70-80m2 garden and it's been great. This model doesn't do the very edge but it only takes 10 mins to zip round with a strimmer every now and then to tidy it up. It isn't as smart as some of the more modern robot mowers in that it just picks a direction and goes until it gets to the boundary wire or bumps into something before turning around and picking another direction but having said that, it's done an good job of navigating around my daughters swing/slide set. I was considering just adding a loop into the boundary wire so it could avoid it but honestly it's been working fine without it.

It was relatively cheap and has freed up more time for me at the weekends to spend on other things which was the goal.

My only criticism is that it doesn't do to well if the soil is damp. Much of my garden is clay and it really does hold moisture in after winter or a real good downpour. If the mower goes out after this you can see it spinning its wheels looking for traction. I keep considering changing the wheels; seen plenty of STL files I could 3D print as well as spiked metal rings to fix to the side for better traction. Obviously not sure how well other mowers would also do here but I can only assume the bigger and better would fair better too
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I got some of those metal spiked rings which you screw onto the outside of the wheels for my mower, they work really well. A bit too well for mine as sometimes now when it's going up a steep slope it'll pull a wheelie and then stop as it thinks its upside-down..
Efour said:
i just bought a Gardena Smart Sileno City 600 Lona, its a rebadged Husqvarna Automower Aspire R4.

Pretty much the smallest size you can get for my 500sm lawn/garden.

TBH i doubt these model numbers and styles match UK and Sweden. :P

anyway If you have a simple London 100m by 10m terraced garden you could literally get anything and let it bounce around the garden.

Even the ones from Lidl and alike will easily do the job, you might have to lay a cable in the lawn permitter but honestly its a hours job and not a big deal. Modern mowers avoid all this but at 2 or 3x the premium price.

I'm not particularly happy with this new mower and am considering returning it and getting a more premium model
It was 50% sale here and while it has a ton of good features its struggling to navigate my bumpy lawn...
im looking at a Mamotion LUBA mini... 4wd GPS can cut patterned lawns etc....

So no advice on a particular model But dont spend much at the end of the day a budgetboi will probably do a great job too.

​

Click to expand...
From being in a few FB automower groups it does seem that those of us with the more old skool ones which just blindly bounce around the lawn have far less issues than the newer ones with GPS and boundary wire free setup :(

Like you say, in a normal garden the wire takes no time at all, even for my 1/2 an acre with lots of funny bits like an enclosed orchard it only took a couple of hours then its years of hassle free lawn mowing.
 
I kept mine in the end too much faffing to send it back "unused" it was already scratched after 48h testing.

Its very old skool but just a few basic features (that are honestly BS) bolted on top.

Its not as good as my previous model i can say that straight away. Although i do much prefer the lower profile and it cant easily go in under bushes and overhanging stuff.
It really struggles with any dips because its chassis/shell is so much lower to the ground, and it just bottoms out.
PROBABLY perfect for city lawns but not my hideous swedish tundra/wild grass. :P
 
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