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What was once the preserve of utopian sci-fi movies, is rapidly becoming as mainstream as iPhones, or Netflix. Gardeners all over the world are ditching their traditional lawnmowers, and entrusting their green spaces to robotic lawn mowers that do most of the work for them.
There’s not a massive amount of work to get a robotic lawn mower up and running either, simply plug the charging station in, set the boundaries of your lawn and let the machine take care of the rest. Most robot grass cutters also “re-dock” themselves when they’ve finished working, or need to re-charge.
The Ultimate Guide to Picking The Best Robotic Lawn Mowers
Are you keen on gardening but traditional lawn mowers do not seem to be ideal enough for your situation anymore? Well, there is this robotic lawn mowers range available in the market nowadays which can make life a lot easier for you. If you have a larger mowing area and its always been a hassle for you using traditional lawn mowers that required more effort from your part, then consider that to be a thing of the past as there is better stuff available now in the form of robotic lawn mowers.
When the season falls, every household engages in gardening at all levels. While some may simply be after a way to make their gardens and lawns appear tidy and decent, others would want to take things to a whole new level by beautifying their lawn and backyards which they could use to spend most of their time at. Whatever your situation, robotic lawnmowers would perfectly suit your needs.
Don’t I Need a Square Garden For The Best Robotic Lawn Mowers?
There was a time when robotic lawnmowers couldn’t cope with anything other than a square (and flat) patch of garden. Thankfully, many of today’s lawnmowers can cope with everything from curves, gradients and oddly shaped lawns. They can also cope with obstacles within the lawn, like hedges or raised flower beds. Modern robotic lawn mowers also have the capacity to evenly mulch and spread the clippings back into the lawn, meaning less waste.
What Can I Get for My Money?
- Best Robotic Lawnmower For Smaller Lawns
The cheapest robotic lawn mowers come in at a shade under £1000. For that, you’ll be in the market for something like the Robomow RS635, which can keep 500 square meters of lawn trimmed to perfection. Other robotic lawn mowers fall into this price bracket too, such as the Flymo Robotic Lawnmower 1200 R, an extremely quiet robotic mower that you won’t mind working away in the middle of the night. Run time of this mower is 65 minutes, and takes 50 to charge to full again.
At this price level, you’ll do without some features, and your mower might not be able to cope with huge gradients; however, for small and standard lawns they’ll work fine.
- Best Robotic Lawnmower For Medium Lawns
Moving up in terms of cost, you can pick up the Bosch Indego 400 Connect for about £1050. It doesn’t have the running time or capacity of the Flymo, yet it offers some clever features like an iPhone App to track its progress, plus parallel blades and section mowing.
If you’re paying more money to gain additional capacity, then the Worx Landroid M 800 is worth a look. It takes a bit of setting up, yet once done it boasts a working capacity of 800 square meters, and can manage gradients as high as 35%. It also comes with some helpful features that allow it to bypass narrow paths, and tell the difference between your front and back garden. It also understands when it’s nearly out of battery, and will duly return to its station for a top up.
If you live in a dry climate, and need to keep your lawn watered via sprinklers, then the Gardena Smart Sileno+ could be for you. This robotic mower can cut 1300 square meters at a time, has a runtime of just over an hour, plus it can tackle gradients of 35%.
This robot mower can communicate with Gardena Smart Sprinklers, allowing the lawnmower to cut your grass when the sprinklers are not on. It’s also smart enough to tackle oddly shaped lawns and complex areas where it will need to navigate carefully.
You’ll pay a bit more for all this functionality, it will set you back just over £2000.
- Best Robotic Lawnmower For Large Lawns
At the higher end of the price range, things become eye wateringly expensive! The Husqvarna Automower 450X, can mow an outrageous 5000 square meters of lawn, plus it boasts an epic 260 minutes run time. Of course, you’ll pay for all this capacity, literally in this case because it costs over £4000.
Still, the fact it can cope with 45% gradients, has a huge range and is extremely well put together, should see it mowing many expensive suburban homes.
To compete with the Automower 450X, the Ambrogio L300 Elite R, not only sounds like something Ferrari might make, it looks the part too. With a maximum capacity of 6000 square meters, 5-10 hours runtime and a host of rather fancy features for the larger home, it’s certainly aimed at those with large homes (and larger pockets). Once again, you’ll pay upwards of £3000 for one of these.
Anti-theft Measures for Robotic Lawn Mowers?
Right now, robotic lawn mowers aren’t nearly as popular as traditional ones; however, that will change over the next 5-years, making one of these grass munchers a prized target for thieves.
Some manufacturers are already taking this seriously, by adding pin codes and features to “lock out” the robotic mower once it realizes it’s been stolen; however, many models on the market aren’t protected nearly as well.
Our advice, would be to only consider a robotic lawnmower in a garden that’s protected from opportunistic thieves. Just as with car theft, it mostly occurs when an opportunity arises for a thief to grab something valuable quickly; it makes sense keep your robot lawnmower safe in a similar way.
- Use a robot lawnmower in a garden not easily viewed from public roads/paths.
- Keep your garden gates locked at all times.
- Follow good garden security rules in general, they’ll help your home stay safe too.
Normally, we would also advise bringing your mower inside when going on holiday; however, this defeats the purpose of having a robot take care of things whilst you’re away. In this case, we would suggest having a friend, neighbor or relative keep track of your mower, and to check nobody has been attempting to access the garden in your absence.
What About Child Safety?
This is one area where manufacturers have focused on hugely as far as robotic lawnmowers are concerned. Almost every lawnmower on the market today has safety sensors on board that halt the mower if it senses movement. Some models also have an on-board siren that alerts those around when it’s due to start mowing.
Of course, nothing beats old fashioned teaching when it comes to safety, so our advice would be to teach your children to stay clear of the mower when it’s in operation. It’s also worth setting your mower to come on during the evening, as many are so quiet you’ll hardly be able to hear it.
A Step Closer To Eliminating Manual Work All Together
Robotic lawnmowers are very beneficial in any type of lawn. It not only eliminates the effort and physical strain of mowing the lawn but also allows one to save precious time. There are two types of robotic lawnmowers, namely, electrically powered or mechanically powered. Each has its advantages and disadvantages. Electrically powered robotic lawnmowers can run for several hours on just a single charge, whereas, mechanical lawnmowers need to have an extra source of power. Also, each type has its own limitations such as maximum speed, distance, and power consumption.
An automatic lawn mowing machine is basically an unmanned robot used to efficiently cut grass lawn in a specified space within a limited time. A typical robotic lawn mowing machine needs the owner to install a border rail around the entire lawn to define the area to be grassed. The robotic mower then uses this rail to find the defined boundary of the grassed area and in some instances, also to find a pre-determined recharging station. If the owner does not find a station, the mower will move on to the next area.
Some owners prefer robotic mowers because they do not require too much physical effort. Therefore, one does not have to worry if they have left the charging station, especially if the lawn is large. However, it needs to be ensured that the robot mower batteries are fully charged before it starts working. If the batteries are not fully charged, the lawn will become cut short and may even get into trouble. This problem can be solved by ensuring that the robot mower is put on a regular recharge cycle. One has to ensure that there is sufficient charging station to start the robotic mowing process as well.
Robotic lawn mowers are equipped with a smartphone app which allows the owner to program the lawnmower to perform specific tasks. In the case of the robonomic app for Robotic Lawn Mowers, the owner has to enter a number of parameters which the bot will use to mow the lawn. For instance, the owner can specify the number of times the lawn should be mown per day, the size and height of the grass, the total area that require to be treated and also the number of people allowed to use the mowers. When these parameters are entered, the app will calculate how many hours the robot has to wait before it is able to start mowing the lawn. This calculation will be used by the app to decide on the charging schedule for the robot. As such, it will determine the optimal number of hours the owner has to put in using the Robotic Lawn Mowers.
All modern electric lawn mowers have a feature that allows the owner to remote control the motor. The owner can do this by either pressing a button on the controller or reaching into the hand grips. At present, only a few robots have this additional function, and this is not available with all models. It is important to make sure that your model has this option, because it will allow you to change the direction of the motor from anywhere in the vicinity of your lawn.
Some Robotic Lawn Mowers have a charging station built right in their design. This charging station is designed to hold the batteries that the motor needs in order to operate. As such, all you need to do is to plug in the charging station into a power outlet, and your robot mowers will be ready to mow the yard in just a matter of hours. Since the charging station is located right at the base of the lawnmower, this is not a problem for people who want to take their lawnmower with them for work or other reasons.
Robotic mowers come in different sizes, styles and functions, so you can be sure that there is one out there that suits your needs. For example, some models have cutting heights that are adjustable. If you need to get closer to the top of a trellis, for example, you can set the cutting height to the precise height that you need to get to the top without straining yourself. This feature is great for people who like to do trimming their own lawns, but do not want to have to bend over as the machine is mowing. If you like having a more hands-on approach to lawn care, but still want a cutting height that is adjustable, the robot model will suffice.
There are plenty of other features available on lawn mowers today, and all of these features can make your lawnmower more user-friendly. For example, many models have wire wheels, so you don’t have to get a new lawn mowing area or separate power cord. Additionally, most models have programs that will run while the lawnmower is on, so you can concentrate on other things such as maintaining your grass.