What is a robot lawn mower?
A Robot Lawn Mower is a battery powered autonomous lawn mower that will mow your lawn completely automatically. They are very much like a robot vacuum cleaner, although some are far more sophisticated than their indoor brothers. They operate in a boundary usually a wire that is placed around the perimeter of your yard, but it can also be a virtual GPS ‘fence’. They have some benefits like being completely autonomous, operating on a schedule, integration with smart home, predefined cutting patterns and more.
Here are some of the cool features you will find on different robotic mowers.
- Obstacle detection and avoidance
- GPS integration for a prefect cutting pattern
- Grass mulching (they cut the grass clippings very small and leave it on the lawn)
- Wi-Fi or 4G connectivity for management anywhere in the world
- Smart home integration so you can mow the lawn with just a word
- Weather timers and sensors so the mower only cuts in the best conditions
There are many other features and capabilities too, you can learn more about the benefits here.
“When you connect something as simple as a lawn mower
to the internet its amazing what you can get it to do.”
Small Lawn Robot Mowers (Up to 1000sq m – ¼ Acre)
Robot Mowers are arranged primarily by the amount of area they can cover. Smaller units for small yards are much cheaper and have much fewer features. But they are relatively cheap and can be bought for around the same price or cheaper than a normal mower.
The drawback of these models is that they usually lack features like, connection to the internet for remote management and smart features. These smaller ones usually just follow some basic rules like an indoor vacuum cleaner.
Medium to Large Robot Mowers (Up to 4000sq m – 1 acre)
Medium to Large Robot mowers can mow a decent sized residential lawn and have many more features, these range in price from about the same as a decent push lawn mower to a full ride on mower. These are the models that are capable of a lot more. Things like automatic weather sensing, GPS for better cutting, internet integration and better capability to operate on slopes.
Commercial Robot Lawn Mowers (Above 1 acre capability)
So now for the big boys of the robot mower world. These really are the big boys when is comes to robot mowers. The commercial versions of these mowers are capable of areas upwards of 1 acre anywhere up to a group of them working together as a team to mow entire golf courses. They have constant 4G internet connections and GPS positioning that they use to communicate with each other. They also use this link to contact for assistance if any of them gets stuck or needs some servicing.
How do Robot Lawn Mowers work?
Once setup a robot lawn mower will work completely autonomously. At scheduled times, this could be at night as they are very quiet, it will start mowing your lawn. Different mowers have different mowing patterns, some use a method of driving in a straight line until they hit a boundary, or an obstacle then turn and drive straight in another direction repeating this until they complete the lawn. Others use GPS to drive in a pattern or make sure they don’t go over the same part of the lawn multiple times.
If they encounter obstacles they will stop and turn away from them, this includes things as small as kids’ toys left on the lawn.
They mow with smaller faster spinning blades than a normal mower, usually small blades that are more like razor blades that can rotate on the cutting head. This means that if they encounter something to big for them to cut like a branch they will just move out of the way and not break the blades. Some robot mowers do use blades like traditional mowers, but they are still smaller than their petrol-powered counterparts.
Once the mower has finished the lawn or its battery is running low it will find its way back to its charging dock automatically and charge itself up ready for the next cut. Some robot mowers will go back to charge multiple times to charge back up to complete one lawn.
Cutting Quality
Because Robot mowers work autonomously and, on a schedule, they end up giving better results than even the most dedicated gardener. The blades they use cut the grass is a very exact way and to the same height every time. But mainly the repeated cutting on a regular schedule trains the grass to grow flat to create a perfect carpet like lawn.
Benefits of a Robot Mower Over a Classic Lawn Mower
- Quiet, most robot mowers are 8 times quieter than a traditional mower
- Very little maintenance (usually a blade change only once per year)
- Very low costs as they run on cheap electricity instead of fuel
- Completely autonomous, they do not need any human intervention to operate
- Great lawn
- Safer than a traditional mower
- Environmentally Friendly
Drawbacks of a Robot Mower
- Setup can be complicated as a boundary wire usually needs to be placed
- They are not great at mowing the edges
- Can be quite expensive if you want a model with more features
- Potential difficulty navigating some complex gardens
Conclusion
Robotic mowers are the way of the future, they have been getting a bigger and bigger market share ever since their release. With all the benefits and little drawbacks, we think that they will continue to grow in popularity. If you are after some more information the website Robot Mower Center has some great reviews and articles.