GoKawiilI’ve never enjoyed cutting the grass. For years, I struggled with an old inherited gas mower that refused to die but often refused to start. Then I had a cheap electric mower with a cord that I had to keep shifting around. When I got the chance to try a robot mower, I jumped at it, picturing chilling on the deck with a cool drink, watching a robot mow my lawn. Sadly, the reality was somewhat different.
Early robot mowers were incredibly bad. I'm talking churned grass, rescue messages blowing up my phone as one robot mower after another got stuck in a flowerbed, and large strips of long, untouched grass all around the edges. Sometimes they'd try to cut the grass in the rain and just get covered in the stuff. Sometimes they'd spend hours trying to line up with the charging dock and somehow keep missing.
But the best robot lawn mowers are actually good now. If you're willing to drop some cash, you can eliminate mowing the lawn from your to-do list and maintain a lawn pristine enough to satisfy the most demanding homeowners association. Cheaper variants, well, not so much; they mostly still suck. But if you’ve been on the fence about a robot mower, it might be time to climb down.
Photograph: Simon Hill
Photograph: Simon Hill
Photograph: Simon Hill
Photograph: Simon Hill Chevron Chevron Save to wishlist Save to wishlist Husqvarna Automower 450X EPOS (410XE Nera) $5,900 Husqvarna
The Garden Path
The first few robot mowers I tested had real trouble with pathfinding, often got randomly stuck along borders, and didn’t always make it home before running out of battery. Robot mower navigation is getting better. Since I started testing robot mowers three years ago, their ability to reach the designated cutting area, mow it, and return to the charging base station has improved enormously.
Here’s the evolution of robot mower navigation technology.
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