Robot Mowers on cool season turf

[Hammbone81]

It may seem this post belongs in the equipment section, but hear me out...

I've always been a staunch gasoline powered mower guy. I ran the zero turn when I had an acre, mow the Super Recycler on my 1/3 acre.

But I'm becoming more and more intrigued buy lawn bots. I already mow every 2-3 days and sometimes I'm still breaking the 1/3 rule at that. It seems if a bot was mowing my KBG daily it would keep on top of this.

I spent some time yesterday researching these and got into paralysis by analysis mode.

A) It seems like I want to be able to go up to 3.5" cut height. -this really narrows the playing field.
B) Husqvarna seems to be the only company who offeres a product with thos higher HOC.
C) Some new bots seem to be GPS guided without guide wires. This sounds great in concept but I can see that not being super precise.
...okay, I could go to Z with thoughts and questions.

Here's the big question: most people I see giving reviews (aka YouTube) are lazy people with crap lawns. Does anyone here with a nice lawn have good experiences with a lawn bot?

Lazy is not my MO. I do enjoy mowing, I'm a very busy person and it's getting more and more difficult to stay on top of things. I'm also going to have to travel a lot this summer and my wife isn't going to be able to stay on top of the mowing (plus, shes only mowed 3x in 18yrs of marriage). Also, it seems like a bot could be better for the turf in the long run.

...now I'm rambling. I want this to make sense, I'm not sure where to go from here. Any input would be welcome.

[turf_toes]

Morph has been using a robot mower for years. He’s going to be the guy to listen to on this subject

[Hammbone81]

Morph has been using a robot mower for years. He’s going to be the guy to listen to on this subject

Hopefully he sees it and chimes in.

BTW - how do I get status to friend and PM people like we used to he able to do 10+ yrs ago?

[turf_toes]

Those features are turned off. There are no immediate plans to turn them back on for anyone.

[MorpheusPA]

Chime. Lately, I'm using Olivia, a Landroid WR155. I like her, but she does have her limitations. https://www.worx.com/landroid-l-1-2-acr ... wr155.html

Height of cut, 3.5". She runs most days during spring, summer, and fall, except for Saturday, Sunday, and Monday during the morning (see the thread, "Olivia died" for more data on that--the waste company paid for the first Olivia).

My property is actually smaller than the half acre, particularly when one removes the house, gigantic gardens, and wall of Thuja from it. This keeps the battery alive a lot longer (and the mower itself is designed to gently use the battery; it doesn't discharge it deeply or charge it over 4.0 volts).

The wire they send with her isn't that great. I spent for 14-gauge solid copper core high grade wire. It won't fit the charger so I had to do a splice just before that, but at least then I know where the breaks are as opposed to hunting them down every 2 months when something gives way on the property and me needing to find it with an AM radio. You're also going to need more pegs, but you can get generic ones off Amazon much cheaper.

They recommend changing blades every 2 months or so, but I resharpen every month (they're razor blades, quite easy to pull and sharpen) and they last all season. They'd go longer, but they're so cheap it's probably best to pitch them at that point anyway to assure one's not passing diseases around. Although I could soak them in 100% ethanol for a while, I guess.

Edge programming can suffer a bit. She used to fall off the curb occasionally, but that's stopped with the latest update. We'll see what this season brings. Time was, I had to rescue her two, three times a day. Lately, towards the end of last season, it was once a week, maximum.

[Hammbone81]

Thanks Morph.

I like the idea of constantly mowing. I mow every 2-3 days spring, summer, and fall. I have an irrigation system so growth doesn't slow "that" much in July/August.
I rotate my push mower 45° every mow as to not develop a pattern or ruts, but with mowing so frequently it still happens.

My biggest concerns are
A) Mowing next to curbs (I'm on a corner lot)
B) Mowing next to mulch beds (I keep a live edge with no boarder that requires re-cutting periodically)
C) Mowing thick grass.
D) Cut quality. Traditional rotary mowers create lift to stand up the grass before it gets cut. With these robot mowers not creating lift, how well does it work? Specifically at the 3.5" height?

Also, as I mentioned, my lot is just under 1/3 acre, but I only have about 0.22acre of grass. I've been looking at thr Husqvarna's. Would it be crazy to grossly oversize the mower. Based in their specs and my calculations, their 450XH could mow my lawn in one charge in about 4.5 hours. That would allow for it to run in the evening when its cool and not interfere with the morning irrigation schedule... and it could run every day.

Thoughts?

[MorpheusPA]

Well, today is President's Day. It's incredibly quiet for some strange reason, and we're not off.

I grossly oversized Olivia with the 155 for the reason that a) the mower would be overbuilt for the size, giving it better durability (on average) and longer lifespan, and b) better battery life on the same property size. I do find that during high-growth periods, it does need up to 30 hours a week to mow the lawn, but YMMV. I'm a sticker for not having blades out of place.

A) Might be a problem with any mower. Proper setting of the wire will always be critical; I'd recommend a more-temporary placement with fewer pegs before finalizing it so you can move it easily for the first few weeks. I certainly did. The recommended placement was OK, but some revision by the Township on my front line left me with a dip at the edge for around 50 feet that didn't play well with the mower. Some revision was required.

B) That's called an Edge Cut. Every mower I reviewed has one. Olivia does a gorgeous job of edge cutting twice weekly because I've asked her to do it Tuesdays and Fridays. If I wanted her to do it daily, she could. Again, wire placement is the key here, and every mower has a wire guide to tell you where to place the wires. However, this is probably the thing to concern yourself with least. Even island gardens in the middle of the property are fairly easy to handle.

C) Not generally an issue. I've got incredibly thick grass, it simply drains the battery faster and Olivia will return to her charging station faster for another charge.

D) It works fine. They rely on the stem of the grass to grow enough to bring the blade up. Here's a July image (I was still figuring out how the timing worked, so it's a bit shaggy here and there).

[Hammbone81]

Thanks for sharing your experience and thanks for the photo! Your lawn looks amazing.

It looks like Husqvarna and Toro are both coming out with bounday wire-less options this year. I guess I don't have an issue with a boundary as long as i can get one that doesn't interfere with my invisible dog fence.

I also see Husqvarna has their commercial grade units that are completely GPS controlled and can be programmed to mow patterns. There are models that can mow 6, 12, or 18acres. These come with a staggering price tag for a homeowner. I'm sure it makes perfect business sense in some commercial applications.

The thing that excites me the most about automating the mowing is I can spend what available time I do have to focus on nutrients and other lawn maintenance items.

[Green]

I'll wait HOCs over 3.5 inches, no boundary wires needed, better security features, and programmable week-to-week adjustments for no-mowing windows (e.g. due to frost) and ability to only mow certain areas.

Morph,

It doesht mulch leaves/suck up debris, right? Also, if you have a disease and need to bag mow? And how do you handle sticks? Seems they would dull it fast and mess with the cut quality. Normally I pick sticks up manually before mowing.

Do you still have to use a push, mower at times for such purposes?

[MorpheusPA]

She actually does a good job at mulching so I really don't have to worry about it much, although I do keep an old Toro around that's now about 22 years of age for touch-ups and whatnot. She'll shred small sticks, but larger ones are simply rolled over. Very rarely, one may get fouled in the blades and cause a stop and a call to the app to tell me to go free it.

Security-wise, I have her WiFi-locked. She leaves my WiFi, she's useless. She also calls for help. There's an optional "Call Me" GPS module for her as well which will let you know where she is if stolen. Currently, the app reads, "Manual Stop" as that's the last-detected state in November when I hit the stop button and took the battery out.

I don't know of plans to go over 3.5" HoC. Even my Toro is height-limited to 4". Although I did use an optional set of spiked wheels for Olivia that push up the cut height by about a quarter inch.

[Green]

Interesting. 3.6-3.75 in is my preferred height. Sounds you you got there with the "spiked" wheels.

[YEM]

I'll wait HOCs over 3.5 inches, no boundary wires needed, better security features, and programmable week-to-week adjustments for no-mowing windows (e.g. due to frost) and ability to only mow certain areas.

The current Greenworks Optimow has a 4” max HOC, but I haven’t seen many reviews or posts about it online. I don’t think it’s very popular/widely adopted. They’re supposed to release the wire-free version this spring, but I haven’t seen any updates since it was displayed at CES. It’s definitely got my attention. At some point I’m probably going to post on the Automower Reddit page to see if anyone has real life experiences with the current model.

The upcoming Toro wire-free mower also caught my attention when it was first announced, but it looks like 3.25 will be max HOC.

[MorpheusPA]

I know very little about the wire-free versions, but...I have questions. The accuracy of GPS is ≤0.006 m/sec over any 3-second interval, with 95% probability. That's...not very good (yes, yes, the distance is great, it's the p of 5% of being wrong that's terrible when the mower travels a meter in three seconds).

There are also places where GPS doesn't work well, or at all. Next to the house, in the corner by a shed...things could get a little dicey. But they (and by they, I mean hopefully 80% of manufacturers) thought of that and have a basic "Get Outta Dodge" algorithm for that.

That's the satellite detection error, nominal, and says nothing of user calculations in the software. So I'd really read the reviews--particularly the negative ones--carefully.

Even I only gave the Landroid 3 stars out of 5, and the manufacturer wasn't all that happy about it (I don't tend to overinflate reviews; 3 out of five is "good, not great or stellar, but good.") The later version, post the Great Accident, really deserves 3.5 or 4 stars--I didn't really have enough time to fully evaluate it--as the hardware seems to perform much better.

Overall, it's far more convenient than mowing it myself...but it could be better.

[YEM]

I know very little about the wire-free versions, but...I have questions. The accuracy of GPS is ≤0.006 m/sec over any 3-second interval, with 95% probability. That's...not very good (yes, yes, the distance is great, it's the p of 5% of being wrong that's terrible when the mower travels a meter in three seconds).

There are also places where GPS doesn't work well, or at all. Next to the house, in the corner by a shed...things could get a little dicey. But they (and by they, I mean hopefully 80% of manufacturers) thought of that and have a basic "Get Outta Dodge" algorithm for that.

That's the satellite detection error, nominal, and says nothing of user calculations in the software. So I'd really read the reviews--particularly the negative ones--carefully.

Even I only gave the Landroid 3 stars out of 5, and the manufacturer wasn't all that happy about it (I don't tend to overinflate reviews; 3 out of five is "good, not great or stellar, but good.") The later version, post the Great Accident, really deserves 3.5 or 4 stars--I didn't really have enough time to fully evaluate it--as the hardware seems to perform much better.

Overall, it's far more convenient than mowing it myself...but it could be better.

I’m almost positive the Toro & Greenworks will be using cameras to map the yard, rather than GPS. The residential Husqvarna ones being released this spring use GPS (they’ve had commercial mowers using it for a bit).

In general, I’d love to know more about these boundary free models that are supposedly coming out in Spring 2023, but there just does not seem to be much marketing/education out there for them.

[R2k]

Morph,

I'm probably getting the WR155 too. Couple of quick questions:

1. Can you schedule zones? (i.e. front yard has a higher risk of theft, so being able to control the timing of when it enters that specific area would be nice.) I assume this is not possible, but looking to confirm.

2. What tips would you give to have the best experience (upgrades, expectations, etc.)?

2a. Wire upgrade to 14 gauge solid wire - has this solved all your wire-cutting issues?

2b. Tell me about the wheel spike upgrades. Why did you do it and how's it working out?

3. Is the WR155 still your top pick today? I don't think much has changed in the last year or so.

Thanks!

[R2k]

Also...

4. I have two areas in my front yard. A 500 sqft area and a 1000 sqft area with a tree that has a live edge. Roughly, how long would it take the WR155 to cut each of those areas based on your experience? Just looking to roughly gauge how long it'll be visible in my front yards.

I looked into the next-gen Landroids. You still need to lay down "magnetic strips" which cost $99 per 33 feet to block the next-gen Landroids from neighbors' grass. Additional $1000 cost for the same cutting area plus however many magnetic strips you need. These next-gen Landroids are supposed to be released this month, so I might wait and see how well-received they are by real users. I saw Toro has a vision-based solution coming out too, but details are limited (2023 spring release).

Thanks again!

[MorpheusPA]

1) Yes. I don't allow mine out on Monday mornings because of the Great Accident with the trash company. She starts at noon on Mondays. While I have my entire lawn set as one huge zone, if you do it zonally, I'm pretty sure you can set time per zone. Even if not, simply disallow mowing when theft is at higher probabilities.

2) Add two scuba weights to the back of the mower atop the battery case to add weight to the mower. It works better if it's heavier. I've added 4 kilograms (about 9 pounds). At the moment, I have the spike wheels off, and that's working fine. Don't expect it to do a stellar job on soaking wet soil, it'll get stuck a lot.

2a) Yep. No more problems with the better wire!

2b) I did it for traction, combined with the added weight, and I've been experimenting with combinations. So far, weights on, no spikes, works well on dry lawn. Weights on, spikes on, works best under all conditions--but does tear up the corners a bit. Without the spikes on, in wet conditions, she'll get stuck sometimes, which can be highly annoying during a rainy week.

3) Insufficient data. A lot of people lean toward the Husqvarna. I work from home, so ducking out to rescue the mower isn't a big deal for me. If I didn't...I'd probably wish I had something else.

4) It should spend about 1.5 divided by the total thousand square feet of the lawn in the front yard, fractionally speaking; it bounces randomly. If you specifically tell it to go do the zone, it's very much not like a regular mower. It bounces around, does the edges, canoodles...you may actually want to not allow it to do the front and do that manually if it's a real concern.

X) I haven't seen the magnetic boundary (the older Landroids have it as well, just as an additional feature, which I did purchase). It's great for ringing trees that are in the middle of things. It seems...pricey...compared to simply laying a wire.