Robot Mower

s_glover

Does anyone here have any experience of automatic robot mowers?

We are considering one for our fairly large garden (with sloping areas).

We have had a local business complete a survey and give a quote. Just looking for any helpful information from anyone who has experience.

Apodemus

No personal experience, but every garden that I have seen that uses one looks good. It’s difficult not to anthropomorphise with them, though! It becomes like a pet slowly working away, doing its thing in the garden, needing fed (recharged) every so often, getting stuck in the bushes or corners. I’m not sure I could cope with the sense of bereavement when it eventually reaches the end of its life!

s_glover

Apodemus wrote: »

No personal experience, but every garden that I have seen that uses one looks good. It’s difficult not to anthropomorphise with them, though! It becomes like a pet slowly working away, doing its thing in the garden, needing fed (recharged) every so often, getting stuck in the bushes or corners. I’m not sure I could cope with the sense of bereavement when it eventually reaches the end of its life!

Definitely. When we visited the workshop and asked about them, one of the first things said to us, was everyone gives theirs a name! :rotfl:

baggins11

I would advise you not to name your machine if you buy one as it is a slippery slope.

I have a much loved family member called Rodney (robot hoover). I talk to him regularly and apologise if I get in his way. My husband jokes that one day I will leave him for Rodders. We both laugh but secretly we both know it is a possibility.

On a serious note the technology is amazing and I am sure it's the same for lawn mowers as vacuums. The only thing I would want to check with a lawn mower is that you have no areas that he could get stuck. I imagine the company checked for this when they visited.

The problem I have with Rodney is he always gets stuck on a particular chair base. It's too high for him to get over but not high enough that he doesn't try. And this is something he doesn't learn unlike room layouts so he does it time and again. Same would apply to a lawn mower.

Silvertabby

Next door neighbours have one, and I would say that it just 'nibbles' the grass.

Don't faint when you get the quote - fitting includes embedding a stop wire all around your lawn, to stop the mower from trundling off into the wild blue yonder!

forgotmyname

Damn there goes my idea of a trail of silicon chips to lead your mower to the dark side.

s_glover

We have the quote and had the company bring a similar model out last night to try in our garden and see how it would cope, given we've quite a slop in places. it didn't surprisingly well, especially given our grass in pretty long at the moment. We know it won't do 100% of the grass but even 90% would probably make our lives significantly easier.
As our old lawnmower was retired before we moved last year, we're borrowing a lawn mower this weekend to see just how much effort it would be to cut it all by hand.

s_glover

Just thought I would add a little update. We decided to opt for the robotic mower. Knowing he (no name yet!) would cover at least 90% of the area is going to save us a lot of time and potential backache. Installation was completed at the weekend, with 3 separate areas and so far he doing a great job. A couple of minor issues with the boundary, which may mean we need to tweak it a little but he's coping very well with the slope.