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The Best Robot Mowers to Take Care of the Lawn for You

Photo credit: Staff
Photo credit: Staff

From Popular Mechanics

Popular Mechanics first covered robotic mowers in detail in the September 2000 issue, in which contributing editor Rebecca Day asked, “Who needs to pay a kid to mow your lawn?” The question is still valid, and the two mowers featured in the article, Friendly Robotics (now Robomow) and Husqvarna, were pioneers in the robotic mower industry and had the nation’s lawns to themselves.

Twenty years later, they’re two of nine players in the growing market. And robot mowers are still a rare sight in America’s suburbs, where the manually operated variety—powered by a gas engine or an electric motor—is still king. But interest in robotic mowers is surging. If you’re considering buying one, read our helpful primer below first. Then scroll farther for reviews of eight of the best models.

Lawn By Robot 101

A robotic mower is a small electric buggy that trundles back and forth over your yard, making an extremely shallow cut as it goes. Its travels are limited by an included boundary wire that you set up, which may buried in the lawn or stapled to its surface. That wire carries a signal from the charging unit, and the mower’s receiver picks up the signal as it approaches the wire. The mower detects the signal and stops, backs up, turns, and heads off in another direction, normally a random one, but some mowers do have relatively primitive programming capability (more on that below). No mower exists yet that can be programmed to mow nice clean strips, nor does one that keeps track of where it’s cut and where it hasn’t. It will traverse some areas multiple times, but over the course of multiple cutting sessions, the whole lawn will be mowed. Some robotic mowers will trim the perimeter before moving into the main area and other mowers can be programmed to cut a V or spiral pattern where the grass is particularly thick.

That brings us to the discussion of run time. Some manufacturers don't list this at all and some provide a rule of thumb, typically in the range of half an hour to an hour. Frankly, it’s less useful than knowing what the manufacturer estimates as the area that it can reasonably expected to maintain. Be realistic about the turf area on your lawn. You may live on two acres, but if the mowed surface is only about 10,000 square feet of grass, don’t buy more mower than you need.

A major difference between these machines and a conventional mower is that a typical gas-engine model swings a massive steel blade to cut a wide and deep swath. Not so with these, which are large trimmers that remove a fraction of an inch from the tip of the grass. Their height range varies by product, of course, but generally, these mowers are capable of cutting somewhere in the range of 3/4 of an inch to approximately 3 inches. Some models may be able to handle a bit more height. When you install the mower, you cut the grass to a normal height then program the mower to cut the next day or the day after—depending on how fast the grass is going—to maintain a consistent length. Unlike a gas-engine mower, which can raise a lot of noise and dust, a robot’s activity is almost unnoticeable.

Under a robot mower’s plastic shell you’ll find the battery. Like with any cordless system, the battery supplies current to moving and non-moving components. It powers a pair of stout drive motors, one at each rear wheel, and other motors that spin two to three swing-blade cutter heads. (Commercial robot mowers may have as many as five heads.) It also powers the machine’s sophisticated electronics, which consist of a variety of sensors that detect tilt, direction, obstacles, and area. These control the mower’s cut pattern, redirecting its path when it approaches the boundary wire or bumps into a mailbox post. The mower automatically shuts off and its blades retract if somebody tampers with it. Some are GPS-enabled, and you can follow their progress on your phone or even track them if they’re stolen.

When the mower’s battery requires a recharge, it steers itself back to the docking station (which needs to be plugged into an outdoor outlet).

Is a Robot Right for You?

Robotic mowers can handle just about any lawn. But they’re best suited for reasonably smooth yards with consistent slopes and minimum obstructions. More intricate areas, especially those with variable slopes, will cause the mower to work harder. A rut or pothole can cause it to get stuck.

If your definition of an attractive yard is one that’s traditionally mowed, with stripes left from sharp blades cutting the top third of the grass, a robotic mower isn’t for you. It leaves a cleanly cut surface, but its random pattern is a different look than the organized rows that you get when operating a mower yourself.

Also, due to the complexity, a robotic mower is more expensive than a manual counterpart of equal size. Keep in mind that when something goes wrong with a robotic mower, the local repair shop may not be able to service it. For all but the most minor issues, the machine will have to go back to the dealer for service.

The strengths, though, are obvious. A robot mower is safe, unobtrusive, and requires little input from you after the initial setup and programming. While it’s cutting the lawn, you can be playing with your kids in the pool or traveling somewhere on vacation. A robotic mower can cut grass in the middle of the night or go about its work during business hours, when the neighborhood is quiet and relatively empty. That leaves nothing but blissful silence during the weekends. To those of us who have spent many sweaty hours walking or driving a mower over acres of turf, the attraction is undeniable.

How We Selected These Mowers

Compared to gas-engine and cordless mowers, there are still few robotic models. Those here represent a thorough cross section of the market, with nearly every manufacturer making an appearance. We picked a range, from mowers suited for the smallest possible yards to commercial tanks large enough to trim a football field or more, relying on our own experience mowing lawns and taking into account specs like the mowing area, battery life, and height settings.


―EASY CHARGING―

Ambrogio 4.0 Elite

Claimed Mowing Area: .6 acre | Run Time: 4.5 hours | Mow Heights: .8 to 2.4 inches

An inductive charging kit allows the Elite to get its power by brushing up against the docking station, instead of connecting its electrical contacts. Consider that if you live in either dusty or humid climates, where chances are higher that the environment can foul the mower’s electrical contacts with dirt or corrosion. You can also monitor the Ambrogio’s activity with your phone, turning it off and on, setting it to avoid areas it would normally cut, or even track it if it’s taken. Finally, you can equip it with heavier duty batteries, rare for these mowers, extending its cutting area all the way out to 1.2 acres (more than 80,000 square feet of grass).


—CAPABLE IN ALL WEATHER―

Echo TM-2000

Claimed Mowing Area: 5 acres | Run Time: 1 hour, 50 minutes | Mow Heights: .8 to 3.9 inches

The same Echo that sells string trimmers and chainsaws makes this 156-pound mower. It’s a commercial-duty product with a 41-inch cutting width, five cutter heads, 15 blades, and an appropriately long 87-page service and operation manual. The TM-2000 can run in most weather conditions, because mowing can’t be delayed when you need to maintain something as big as a golf course or park’s multi-acre lawn.


―EASY TO STORE―

Gardena 4069 R80Li

Claimed Mowing Area: .2 acre | Run Time: 1 hour | Mow Heights: .7 to 2 inches

This is the lightest robotic mower, weighing just 16.5 pounds, that we know of. That makes storing it on a shelf during the off season simple. The company even offers an accessory bag to keep the mower clean and dust-free, and you can use the large plastic hood that comes with it to shield the mower outside when it’s not running, such as if heavy rain is in the forecast.


―SEASONAL PROGRAMMING―

Honda Miimo HRM310

Claimed Mowing Area: .4 acres | Run Time: 3 hours, 45 minutes | Mow Heights: .8 to 2.4 inches

A particularly intriguing feature of this Honda is that you can pre-adjust its settings based on the seasons. Like in the high-growth conditions of spring, it can cut more frequently and for longer sessions. And in late summer, when grass grows slower or even goes dormant, it will mow less often. This saves wear and tear on the lawn and the mower. The petite Miimo is rated for a bit more than a third of an acre of grass. That may not sound like much, until you realize it’s about 15,000 square feet, more than enough capacity for small 1/4-acre lots. Another feature that distinguishes it from the rest of the pack is that it can mow a repeating long and narrow V-shaped pattern. That helps it cope with long, narrow rectangular pieces of lawn and is far more efficient than the mower constantly traversing back and forth across the width of the rectangle.


―VERSATILE CONTROL―

Husqvarna Automower 315

Claimed Mowing Area: .4 acre | Run Time: 1 hour, 1o minutes | Mow Heights: .8 to 2.4 inches

Husqvarna has more experience making robot mowers than anybody—it manufactures 10, more models than any other company. As for the 315, it’s not a bad addition to your Internet of Things arsenal: You can use a phone, smartwatch, and Amazon Alexa or Google Home to monitor and direct it. Still more digital sophistication is apparent in the machine’s narrow passage feature. The 315 stores information wherever it cuts a thin area or passes through one piece of lawn to the next and varies its route with every cutting session to avoid leaving tracks.


―GOOD CLIMBER―

Lawnbott LB200EL

Claimed Mowing Area: .8 acre | Run Time: Not listed | Mow Heights: .8 to 2.8 inches

The Lawnbott is a sleek mower, and it provides a bit of extra versatility in how you operate it. Program it to travel along the perimeter wire to mow specific zones at the day and time you choose. That way, you have a bit more control over the lawn’s mowing schedule, prioritizing some areas over others. Its aggressive rear tires allow it to climb slopes most of these mowers can’t: up to 27 degrees. How steep is that? Well, in our manual mower tests, we look for hillsides about that angle to test their hill climbing and sidehill performance. So plenty steep.


―TURBO SETTING―

Robomow RC306

Claimed Mowing Area: .2 acre | Run Time: 1 hour | Mow Heights: 1.3 to 3.3 inches

This is the only robotic mower we know with a special “turbomow” setting for handling lush growth. In turbo, the RC306 travels slower but spins the blade faster to help it cope with the tall, thick grass. And if you purchase the low-cut blade accessory, the mower can cut lower grass heights, down to .8 inch. This makes it especially suited for tough, low-growing southern grass species like Zoysia, Centipede, or St. Augustine.


―QUICKLY RE-POWERED—

Worx WR140 Landroid

Claimed Mowing Area: .3 acre | Run Time: Not listed | Mow Heights: 2 to 3.5 inches

The WR140 is one of the least expensive robotic mowers on the market, but it has some intuitive functionality. First, it operates on the same 20-volt batteries as other Worx power tools. That’s significant in that you can keep a bunch of these batteries charging simultaneously and repower the mower at any point. Next, we like that the horizontally offset blade head trims closer on one side. Once a week, the mower rides the circumference of the lawn to make a specific edge-trimming pass, which lightens your weed whacking load. Finally, it’s among the lightest robotic mowers out there, weighing just 23 pounds. That’s helpful because, like all mowers, robotic types need to be picked up or tipped over for cleaning, service, or storage.

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