Robot lawnmower

Anyone use one? If so, what make/model and what’s good or not so good about it? Approx what area of grass does it mow?

If you have a passage between two lawned areas that it must navigate, is there a minimum width between guide wires for successful regular transit? Ditto route to its charging point?

Do you leave it out permanently? If yes, does that include winter?

Have not got one myself but we have a staycation at a lodge where the owner has a Husqvarna on a plot of 1/3 acre………he raves about it. He has 5 holiday lets to look after on the property and for him thats one job he never has to worry about. Sorry, cannot answer the details in your question, but if i need a new lawnmower that is what i would buy.

Again not a user but I did some work for a client with 2 Husqvarna robots,
1x in a large complex garden setting ( multiple central beds)
1x “roaming free” on probable 1/2 acre plot including fairly steep slope.
He said he wouldn’t be without them now.

From my observation over a week working there, grass always looked neat but if you like a strippy lawn then you will lose that feature of manual cutting.
Quite a big body so may be obtrusive relative to size of garden.
It may have been a blip / setup problem but a couple of times its nose had fallen off the lawn and was stuck in exactly the same place.

My client did say that one of its many good feature was that it automatically shuts down and is unusable if the naughty boys with swag bags remove it from your garden.

I’m sure other forumites will have first hand experience

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Tasty😉

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My lawnmowers on loan from local farm. Plus I get the manure.

Before and After


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I have a Robomow RC304 Pro.
This is the second one, the first one I had was the same model, but a very early version. It had several weak areas that broke within 2 years (warranty) and was a hassle, so the dealer exchanged it for a later version where these had been addressed by the manufacturer, and this one has been working fine for about 4 years now.

If you have iOS, the app should be fine. It’s a bit poor on Android with frequent Bluetooth connection issues (depending on phone I guess)

My lawn shape is rather simple (two rectangular areas with a connection strip) but wire setup was not. Some areas (entry to the narrow connection strip and around the base station) where the wire distances and configuration must be just right for it to work, and this is not obvious the first time you set it up, and then to find out what the cause is if the mower gets confused.
I had to route the wire around the base station in a way that is not in the manual but the dealer instructed me. (The routing from the manual made the mower collide with the base station and occasionally it rode up onto the station and got stuck)

I made it work eventually but would recommend to have a dealer set it up instead. (When I bought it, there was no dealer near me, so was not an option). You can bury the wire a few cm deep, but it is not really necessary, it disappears on its own after some time. If you do want to bury it, do this only after you have ensured that everything is working 100%. (On my first attempt I was too eager and buried it right away, because “how hard can it be” - a mistake)

Mine is rated for 200 sqm or so, but I have 60. It is better to have some headroom, this gives you shorter mowing times and if the battery gets weaker over time it does not have to return home all the time.

The minimum width for the connection strip overall is 1 meter, I think 70cm between wires. But as mine is an older model, don’t know if it is the same for newer ones.

Mine has a metal blade, that’s cool as one new blade per year is enough. But if you have kids or small animals you may want to consider the plastic versions.
I liked the metal as it can also deal with stronger weeds than grass, and I have an area outside the wire that I mowed only twice a year by remote control. However, they had to remove the remote mowing option due to security regulations in a later app update, now you can remote control it only for traveling, mowing is then turned off. So now borrowing the neighbor’s regular mower for that.

I leave it out all year, it is set to mow on automatic schedule. But in winter I move it to the basement, as is recommended. It is recommended to be sent to service in winter, which I do every 2 years, costs 70 euro or so, plus 30 postage

Gazza & VinoVeritas, thanks for your posts. My interest was originally piqued when a came across one at a hotel on holiday a couple of years ago, nosing around the lawn like a rather cute pet hunting for grubs. I almost expected it to look up and came over to see if we had anything for it! The lawn certainly was very tidy, much better tgan my lawn at home other than just the first few dats after cutting.

As I hate striped lawns, always varying my cutting to minimise any such effect, that aspect is a positive one!

I am now actively looking into them with an intent to buy: with imminent retirement one intent is to spend more time travelling - but leaving the lawn for more than a couple of weeks during the growing season, even a week at peak times, results in a bigger job and Poorer visual appearance (alternative of course would be turn it into a wild meadow!). We could hire someone to do it, but that could well cost more in even the medium term, and would have the added negative factor of someone potentially intruding on us when we’re at home.

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We were in the Cotswolds last week and Sudeley Castle had a couple of robot mowers in use. They were some distance away but were bright orange.

I couldn’t work out any logic to the pattern they were mowing to but the grass did look even, neat and tidy.

Thanks @Suedkiez - some useful info there!

I note your observation re metal blade: one assumption I’ve made is that near constant trimming means weeds like dandelion can’t grow big, so hopefully would not thrive.

I found one website that seems to be a mine of useful info when it comes to planning and installing, including details about crossing paths, locating charging point, etc: robolever.com [Link]

I haven’t looked into if enough yet to know if it is truly random, or if they learn the area then plot a ‘random’ pattern and follow it. Perhaps different machines do in different ways.

If tgere are two, I wonder if they interfere with each other’s patterns, or if they are mapped to different areas -I suspect the latter. And do they fight or mate if they meet?

True, if you have a lawn that is regularly being mowed, so that you only have to cut grass, the non-metal blades should be fine. And indeed, the regular cutting does not leave the other weeds much chance. Occasionally I pull out a seedling of dandelion or what have you, but that’s all the work I have to do

I have this wilder patch I of meadow I mentioned that I last grow higher with flowers and weeds, just 10 sqm, and I thought the metal blades would take care of this as well, without needing a separate mower just for that. Which worked until the remote control mowing was taken away …

There is no logic, they work like the older Roomba vacuums: go straight until you encounter an obstacle (the guard wire in this case), then turn for some random amount and repeat. Eventually the whole area is covered by random chance.

The newer Roombas have an idea of the room layout by scanning it with lasers, so they can follow a neat pattern. But outside, the surroundings are probably too messy for that (and there is no ceiling to act as a guide), so I guess mowers will use the random approach for longer. In the end it makes no difference (except that it means that robo mowers can’t do neat football field stripes yet)

I guess you could create 2 separate areas. But for larger installations there are serious pro mowers, too, think golf courses for instance, so I would not be surprised if these could communicate.

Loving your last question, a new field of research for HH maybe :slight_smile:

Friend of mine has a robomower which he really likes. However, he has had to stop it from running at night as it has an unfortunate habit of killing hedgehogs

A wild meadow sounds nice - but i suspect dependent on size of area would entail it’s own maintenance commitments.
We have a small front lawn that is not flat in any direction - so we planted various shrubs and other plants around the edge and an Olive tree in the centre. We bought a round patio flooring set and put the circle around the tree with grey slate in the middle.
This year we have not mowed it at all - a surprising number of wild flowers have been evident. have also put in wild flower plugs ready for next year and transplanted a number that have self seeded into my wife’s flower pots (including Yarrow and Coltsfoot).
I have strimmed a small path from top down to and around the Olive tree - just having the contrast conveys it is intentional and not just laziness…

Very popular down here in Normandy seem to be the norm here for big gardens. Noticed one garden had two Husqvarna going about their business. Actually quite fun to watch.

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I’ve Husqvarna 310 which works very well and seems pretty random to me. Check any slopes carefully, I had to fit wheels with extra long tread for one area. It navigates corridors easily but I can’t tell you except measurements, you would need to check the website. If you have a very complicated garden don’t go for the base model - software improves with price! I leave it running all summer but in very wet weather find it needs a clean half way through - put it into store and give a good clean at end of season, although it can be left out they say. The 310 allows control by iPhone (bluetooth not via internet - that would allow control if you are away from home but is only on much more expensive models. which works fine for me - I had a 310 and a 305 at one point as demos and they were totally separate, separate passwords etc, no cross communications. Also factor into your cost maintenance, especially if you buy Husqvarna - virtually impossible to update the software yourself and Husqvarna try to force you to use their dealers and a service is pretty expensive and needed to keep up the guarantee, although basic maintenance like blade changes etc is easy. That said, the time saving is well worth it for me.

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I thought it would touch and recoil from a hedgehog - do they really kill them? We have hedgehogs, which we know from their calling cards sometimes traverse the lawn…

Yes I know - we planted a small one around our bees and fruit trees, but it rapidly reverted to the preferred weeds! We don’t really want the lawns tall as they work well at lawn height.

Husqvarna 310. Mows 500 m2 no probs 3 days a week. Not at night, due hedgehogs. Winter is stored. I live in scotland and grass doesn’t grow during winter. Also it’s not designed for snow! Also battery doesn’t like sub zero temps much.

It travels through a 2 m wide passage no probs and has a guide wire to get it to a difficult area and back to charging station.

It’s great, and does a great job. However, I do find I watch it working from time to time. Albeit with beer in hand… :+1:

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