I spent most of spring and a good chunk of summer turning my backyard into a parking lot to test the best robot lawn mowers. In the process of doing that, I learned a lot about their benefits and their shortfalls. One of the biggest lessons was that, like most forms of automation, they can be a real pain to set up initially, but once they're ready to go, they save you a ton of effort and time compared with regular electric lawn mowers.
I didn't expect that initial annoyance going into that project but I think it's important to document those pains so you can avoid them in the future. Here are some of the lessons I learned about the obstacles you'll have to overcome if you decide to pull the trigger on a robot lawnmower.
Way more wires than I expected
The wires running through my yard for the robot lawn mower. It's not the most attractive sight. Adam Doud
The 800-pound gorilla in the room for robot mowers comes in the instructions that every mower company sends along with the robot. First, there are a ton of wires. You might need to run power to the base station or to the RTK beacon or both. If you’re unfamiliar, RTK stands for Real-Time Kinematic, a beacon that corrects a mower's coordinates to improve accuracy. The beacons are all wired, meaning you may need to run lines all around your yard.
The mower companies tell you not to place the mower within 7 feet of a building or under a tree. They also tell you not to run wires through the grass. But if you're not supposed to place the base station under a tree or within 7 feet of a wall, where exactly are these wires supposed to go? If you have a yard like mine, that doesn't leave you with many options.
One of my RTK beacons was damaged when an animal chewed through the wire. Adam Doud
I also ran into an issue where an animal chewed through a wire to an RTK station and I had to drive 70 minutes (one way) to a service center to get it repaired. You'll want to protect your wires where you can. Burying them is one way of doing this, though that'll damage your yard. Because I had to run them around a garden, I ran them through pool noodles instead to keep them protected. It's crude, but effective.
I had to use a pool noodle to hide the wires. It's not attractive but it works. Adam Doud
Not all yards will work well
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