It’s a scorching afternoon in August 2024, with temps hovering at 101 degrees. I’m flat on my back, sweating under a 1970s Land Rover, trying to rescue a Segway Navimow. It turns out that the first rule of using a robot lawnmower is “don’t let anyone park on your lawn.”
Robot lawnmowers have been around for several decades, and with them the heady promise of spending the summer with your feet up, sipping a nice tall glass of something, while a robot mows your lawn. But it’s only in the past couple of years that they’ve become almost smart enough and cheap enough for me to try out.
In all but a few scenarios, robot lawnmowers still aren’t worth your money
New navigation tech means you probably won’t need to dig a trench around your lawn to lay guide wires (except, it turns out, in my yard), and while you can still spend $6,000 on a mower, you can now find one for under $1,000.
However, after three months of running four bots around my property, my advice is that — in all but a few scenarios — robot lawnmowers still aren’t worth your money.
If you have the right conditions and an endless supply of patience, a robot lawnmower might work for you. But if you are expecting a plug-and-play solution or if, like me, you have a lot of tree cover, hardy grass, sandy soil, and friends and family who like to park on your lawn, then you’ll want to wait for these automowers to get a lot smarter.
The good news is that there are new and improved robot lawnmowers arriving this spring that claim to solve some of these issues. In the meantime, here’s a rundown of what you need to know about robot lawnmowers before buying one. Then, read on for a look at which bot triumphed when I pitted the Navimo Segway i110 , Mammotion Luba 2 AWD , Dreame A1, and Husqavarna Automower 430X head-to-head.
Seven things you should know about robot lawnmowers
1. Robot lawnmowers don’t cut your lawn …
… they shave it. Robot lawnmowers use several small razor blades to cut a set amount of the grass each run (generally between 1 and 3 mm). This means they need to run every day for multiple hours, sometimes twice a day, to keep your lawn trim. The Dreame A1, for example, takes about 24 hours to cut a quarter-acre lawn. (Most brands offer several sizes of mowers, going up in price based on how big a yard they can tackle.)
While in theory, taking all day to cut your yard shouldn’t be a problem — these mowers are battery-powered and, like robot vacuums, can return to their charging docks to power up when needed — the issue I had was getting them to finish their job.
In my testing, too much sand, a big twig, or an errantly parked car meant that about 60 percent of the time they got stuck and just sat outside in the sun to die. Most weeks, I spent more time rescuing mowers than it would have taken to mow the lawn myself.
You also need to start with a mowed lawn (in the same way you need to start with a clean house for a robot vacuum to work well). The good news is that two of the mowers I tested (the Dreame and Mammotion) produced the perfect professional lawn stripe that will make your neighbors envious.
2. You might need to put an antenna in your yard
Two of the robots I tested used a geo-positioning technology called Real Time Kinematic (RTK), which in combination with a camera and GPS, lets them navigate without guide wires. In theory, this should make for a much easier setup; rather than dig a trench for hundreds of feet of wire, you just need to stick an antenna somewhere in your yard.
However, finding the perfect spot that is close enough to a power outlet and has a clear view of the sky was a serious struggle in my yard, which is largely covered by giant oak trees. If you have a treeless yard, you should be fine. However, I spent hours positioning and repositioning RTK stations around my property, trying to find a spot that would let the Navimow and Mammotion navigate my backyard. Spoiler alert: I failed.
3. You’ll have to babysit them
I was not prepared for how much setup and ongoing attention these bots needed. In addition to a fair amount of assembly and hunting around my yard for power outlets and clear views of the sky, I had to physically draw a map for each bot.
I spent more time rescuing mowers than it would have taken to mow the lawn myself.
In most cases, this meant driving them around the perimeter like an RC car, using my phone as a remote (okay, that part could have been kind of fun, but not in 90-degree heat). I was surprised that, unlike robot vacuums, they can’t autonomously create a map of your yard. I also had to manually create any keep-out zones.
Once set up, I constantly had to go and rescue them. You can’t expect to go away for a week and return to a perfectly mowed lawn. (You’ll also have to leave your gate open if you want to mow the front and back yard.)
Robot lawnmowers are about a decade behind robot vacuums when it comes to user experience, thanks to poor connectivity options and generally crappy apps. Most people don’t have strong Wi-Fi in their gardens, and while the robots don’t need Wi-Fi to run, without it, they can’t connect to a smart home system or voice assistant, and you’ll have to get into Bluetooth range to change the mowing schedule or start or stop the robot through the app.
Several models offer 4G connectivity, which also enables theft prevention features. However, this may cost extra; Dreame’s 4G module is $229, and Segway charges $32.90 a year for connectivity on its Navimo mowers.
5. Obstacle navigation is a work in progress
Just as most robot vacuums five years ago regularly got tripped up on stray socks or cables, robot lawnmowers today need a smooth lawn and a clear path to complete their job. While some can navigate around larger objects, like soccer balls or wading pools easily, smaller objects like twigs, stray dog bones, and toys will stop most of them in their tracks. And, while this may not be a problem for you — if, like most Americans, you don’t park on your lawn — they will drive right under your car.
Hills and uneven ground can also trip them up. In general, most bots can handle inclines from 30 to 45 percent (up to 24 degrees). If you have steeper areas or sandy soil, you’ll need to look at a bot with all wheel drive and the capability to tackle sheerer slopes. The Mammotion has the highest slope limit of those I tested, at 80 percent (38.6 degrees). However, the area I live in is called the Lowcountry for a reason; I had no hills nearby to test this on and plenty of sandy soil that every bot got stuck in.
Robots attract attention. I met more neighbors in my three months testing lawnmowers than in the 10 years I’ve lived on this street. Everyone who walked past and saw one working wanted to ask about it. Since they run all the time, that was a lot of people. Even my usually all-business UPS driver had several questions (“Is it just mapping your yard? It doesn’t look like it’s cutting anything.”).
On this point, theft is obviously a concern, especially in a front yard if you don’t have a fence. Most mowers require you to enter a numerical PIN on the screen to use it after it’s been picked up, in theory rendering it useless to thieves. Some also sound a loud alarm, and most have GPS tracking, so you can follow your mower if someone nabs it, although you may need to pay extra for the cellular service required to do so once it leaves your Wi-Fi.
7. Do not put a robot lawnmower on your lap
This is obvious, but needs to be stated. These mowers have blades — small ones, but blades nonetheless. At least two of the mowers I tested required a fair amount of assembly. My husband, who is much handier with a screwdriver than I am, was game to help me with this.
As he was fiddling with a tricky part, he picked up the bot and put it on his lap to get a better purchase, which proceeded to shave his skin fairly badly. The moral of the story is that, while a robot lawnmower isn’t going to chop your foot off if it somehow runs over it (which is unlikely as they all have built in safety features that stop the blades as soon as they encounter an obstacle), it can do decent damage to anything that does somehow get in contact with those blades.
Sadly, this was the beginning of the end of my husband’s love affair with robot lawnmowers. He had been so excited by the prospect of a machine that would do his biggest chore for him, but after three months of frustrations and failures, not to mention permanent scars, he was totally over them.
From August through October of 2024, I tested three new automatic mowers against a staple in the space, the Husqvarna 430x, which is its third generation and was launched in 2016. I ran these in my flat, three-quarter-acre, coastal South Carolina yard, with sandy soil, centipede grass, ample oak trees, and multiple hurricanes.
Bear in mind, this isn’t a traditional review or buying guide; it’s a gauntlet. Each bot is judged by how well it worked in my yard, which, admittedly, is challenging. The following reviews focus on what impressed me (and annoyed me) about each bot, and what caused them to be eliminated until I (sort of) crowned a winner.
Navigation: 3D vision and RTK antenna (wire-free) / Yard size: 1.25 acres / Cutting height: 2.2” to 4” cut height, 15.7” cutting width, 80 % slope / Theft features: Lift alarm, GPS anti-theft / Weatherproofing: IPX6 / Connectivity: 4G (purchase separately, $49.90 a year), Wi-Fi, BLE. Works with: Alexa and Google / Price of unit reviewed: $4,009
The Luba 2 I tested was a seriously impressive, seriously expensive machine, with really bad software. The good news is that Mammotion has since released an upgraded version (linked to above) that’s cheaper and, according to the company, has better mapping and more reliable navigation.
I really hope that’s the case, because when this beast actually mowed, it did an amazing job, creating perfect lines that made the lawn look like a professional landscaper had cared for it all summer. Its huge wheels and big body could tackle almost any terrain, and its obstacle recognition tech was superb; it also had the range to manage my entire backyard.
But it’s the first to be eliminated in this battle because, on the model I tested, the combination of an unusable app, complicated software, spotty GPS, and an almost constant need for updates meant it was nearly impossible to get it to run reliably and autonomously. Also, those perfect lines that it created? Those were in my neighbor’s yard.
Because my ample tree coverage blocked its view of the sky, the Luba couldn’t create a complete map of my yard, which meant it wouldn’t mow. After weeks of trying to get it to work, I had to give up and ask my neighbors, who have fewer trees than I do, if I could mow their lawn for a week. In their smaller, more open front yard, the Luba was able to create a map on the first try.
However, even with a map and its RTK antenna in a position the app deemed acceptable, the Luba required nonstop attention. I had to visit it multiple times a day for everything from software updates, docking help, or reconnecting its RTK station to the app — which, despite a Wi-Fi connection, only worked when I was standing right next to the mower. I got so many mosquito bites from these trips that I nicknamed it the Mosquito Mower.
Sadly, after its first few runs, which created some lovely lawn stripes, the Luba began to stop a few feet away from its base and just go round in a circle. This created a huge sand pit, which it repeatedly got stuck in. At this point, my neighbors asked if I would please take it away. Eliminated.
As mentioned, the company announced an upgraded version of the Luba 2 at CES this year, which is available now. Mammotion says it has improved navigation, even under trees, can automatically map your yard, and it’s about $1,000 cheaper. It also comes with a built-in 4G module and a year of cellular service; I plan to test it soon.
Reliability isn’t everything
Navigation: guide wire / Yard size: 0.8 acres / Cutting height: 0.8 to 2.4 inches / Cutting width: 9.45 inches, 45 % slope / Theft features: lift alarm, PIN code, GPS anti-theft / Weatherproofing: IPX4 / Connectivity: BLE, built-in 4G (free for 10 years) / Weight: 28.7 lbs / Price of unit reviewed: $2,499.99
One of the original automowers from a Swedish company with a long history in lawn care, the Husqavarna 430X is a reliable workhorse with a dialed-in app experience and basic features. It ran on time every time, navigated my tricky terrain smoothly, almost always making it back to the base, and it cut the grass very well. But its guide wire required digging a trench around the perimeter of my lawn, and its lack of obstacle detection meant it kept getting stuck under cars.
While Husqvarna has a line of wire-free RTK-enabled robots that use its Exact Positioning Operating System (EPOS), and include Wi-Fi connectivity and obstacle detection, those models, the 450X and 450XH EPOS, cost nearly $6,000 and require professional installation. Husqvarna also advised that my trees might cause issues if I tested one of these, and said the 430X, which uses a boundary wire, would be best for my setup. Outside of the lawn parking, they were right.
I installed the 430X in my front yard because the back yard is huge, and that was just too much wire. While digging a trench for the wire was hard work (says my husband), it was one of the simplest setup processes we went through — if not the fastest; wires don’t complain about where you put them.
We ran the wire all around the lawn, which, while it made sense at the time, turned out to have been a bad idea. In our neck of the woods, people park on your lawn. When we had plumbing work done, the mower — which has bump sensors but no ability to see obstacles — wedged itself under the wheel well of the plumber’s van. When the plumber left, the mower got squished.
Unfortunately, it’s not easy to redo the wiring, and there’s no option to set virtual keep-out zones on the 430X for temporary objects in your yard — like parked cars or paddling pools. If you have a wide-open lawn with no delicate obstacles, the 430X is a good choice, but it’s just not smart enough for my yard. So, somewhat reluctantly, it was eliminated.
Husqvarna’s new Automower iQ series, which features obstacle detection, RTK navigation, and starts at a more reasonable $3,000, is coming this Spring. I’ve got more details on this below, and I plan to test it soon.
Navigation: RTK antenna and vision navigation (wire-free) / Yard size: 0.25 acres / Cutting height: 2 to 3.6 inches / Cutting width: 7.1 inches, 30 % slope / Theft features: lift alarm, PIN code, GPS anti-theft (with 4G module) / Weatherproofing: IP66 / Connectivity: Wi-Fi, BLE, Built-in 4G ($32.90 a year) / Weight: 24 lbs, Works with: Alexa and Google. Price of unit reviewed: $1,299
The Navimo is the cutest robot mower of the pack and also the cheapest by a wide margin. Despite a more plasticky build, it was sturdy enough to survive a run-in with a (stationary) Land Rover, and it moved very smoothly, navigating around obstacles nimbly (when it sees them).
The Navimow’s best feature is its app. It’s the easiest to use of all the mowers I tested, had the most features, and worked the most reliably, although, as with most of the others, it had frequent connectivity issues. It allowed me to schedule mowing in multiple zones and create virtual paths so the mower could move between the back yard and the front yard — no, it can’t open a gate.
The Navimow’s random bump-and-roll style of mowing left several spots untouched.
However, it kept complaining that I must have moved its RTK station, which I hadn’t. This is presumably a symptom of the tricky GPS coverage in my yard. And I had to install it in my front yard, as it couldn’t find any area in my back yard where it could get a signal. (Unlike the Mammotion, where placement was trial and error, the Navimow can recommend the best spot to place the RTK antenna.)
The Navimow ran reliably and rarely got stuck in the sand or on twigs. However, running in my front yard, it had less of those to deal with than those that ran in the back.
The mower uses a “vision-enhanced RTK GPS,” meaning it has a camera to navigate within its boundary if its GPS signal is weak. But it refused to go past the keep-out zone I placed around my large oak tree, to the grass on the other side, and its random bump-and-roll style of mowing left several spots untouched.
The camera also allows for obstacle recognition, which was fairly effective, as long as the obstacle was directly in front of it. It didn’t detect the underside of a car and wedged itself stuck under my husband’s 1970s Land Rover multiple times.
It also doesn’t have a rain sensor, which is a big issue in a South Carolina summer, with frequent and fierce storms. Instead, it relies on Wi-Fi-fed weather data to determine if it needs to stop mowing. In my testing, this was not accurate — it kept running during several major rainstorms. This, combined with it not being able to reach my entire yard, means it was eliminated.
Segway launched a new mower series this spring. The Navimow X3 series starts at $2,299 and goes up to $4,999 for the X390, which can mow 2.5 acres. I plan to test this soon.
Simple and sleek, but not a beach bot
Navigation: 3D lidar (wire free / no antenna) / Yard size: 0.5 acres / Cutting height: 3 to 7 cm / Cutting width: 22 cm / Slope: 45 % / Theft features: lift alarm, PIN code, GPS anti-theft (with 4G module) / Weatherproofing: IPX6, 50 to 95-degree operating temp / Connectivity: Wi-Fi (2.4 GHz), BLE, 4G (with $229 module) / Weight: 26 lbs / Works with: Alexa and Google. Price of unit reviewed: $2,500
The Dreame A1 is the default winner here because it actually worked in my tree-covered back yard and didn’t require installing a pain-in-the-ass RTK antenna or laying boundary wire.
Instead, like Dreame’s robot vacuums, this lawnmower uses lidar navigation. But the Dreame is far from perfect. Its little plastic tires struggled in the sandy areas of my yard, and while it largely blew through leaves and branches following hurricanes, it would invariably end up stuck in a sand pit in a corner of the yard or get a twig wedged in its wheel well, and I’d have to lug it back to the base station. It’s not light.
The Dreame is one of only two bots I tested (the Mammotion being the other) that can create those perfect lawn lines — because it uses a programmed U-shape approach to mowing, as opposed to the bump-and-roll method. Its 3D obstacle recognition is very good, and it nimbly dodged pets, lawn furniture, and large twigs. But small twigs and sand regularly derailed it. I didn’t test this in the front yard, however, so I can’t comment on how it deals with cars.
After finding it beached in the yard with a twig stuck in its wheel for the gazillionth time, we fired up the riding lawn mower.
Its built-in rain sensor means it reliably took itself home when it rained and started up again when the rain stopped. The Dreame app is slightly more polished than some others, as it uses the same one as its robot vacuums. But it’s still not a great experience; there’s a lot of waiting around for something or other to download every time you open the app.
The app lets you adjust the cutting height and mowing angle, which gets you those perfect stripes, and allows you to set different cutting heights for each zone. It also enables scheduling, editing the map, starting or stopping the robot remotely, and even spot and edge mowing.
However, after finding it beached in the yard with a twig stuck in its wheel or buried in sand for the gazillionth time, it went back in the box, and we fired up the riding lawnmower.
It should get better — even with trees
Since I started testing mowers last summer, most of the companies featured in this article, along with several others, have announced new models that are available now or will be shortly.
Many of these address a lot of the issues I had, including bringing more reliable navigation, automatic mapping, and better maneuverability over sandy soil and thicker grass. Here’s a brief look at what’s coming next. The grass is growing again, so I’ll be testing these this summer.
- Husqvarna’s new line, the iQ Series, which is available for pre-order starting at $3,000, is the first one the company has built that’s “truly designed, engineered, and tested for North American lawns,” according to Husqvarna’s robotics lead, Scott Porteous. It’s a big performance and technology update, he says, built to tackle all the problems I had— rough terrain, sandy soil, thick grass, and obstacles. The mowers have larger wheels, a higher chassis to aid navigation on slopes and around obstacles and paths, and they can handle inclines up to 70 percent. The iQ series uses Husqvarna’s EPOS RTK technology and can also work with wires — meaning I could wire up the areas of my yard that are under tree cover and have the freedom of GPS navigation everywhere else.
- Another robot vacuum company, Ecovacs, has a new automower, the GOAT 3000 (great name). This $3,000 robot doesn’t use wire or RTK positioning; instead, it navigates with lidar, like the Dreame A1. It also features front-facing and fisheye cameras and can autonomously map your yard. Like Ecovacs’ robot vacuums, it has AI-powered obstacle detection, and it also boasts fast charging, claiming 15% to 80% in just 45 minutes, which should help it get around your yard faster.
- Eufy’s first automower, the Eufy Robot Lawn Mower E15 and E18 (starting at $1,799.99) claims to work with no boundary wire or RTK station required, instead using full self-driving technology, including visual recognition, AI algorithms, and 3D sensors to avoid obstacles, and identify lawn edges and paths. The company also says it can automatically map your yard for you. Its onboard camera can also be accessed remotely, essentially serving as a roaming outdoor security camera.
- Segway’s new Navimow X3 series, starting at $2,299, claims to be faster than the competition, capable of mowing one and a quarter acres in 24 hours (the Dreame A1 can only do a quarter acre in that time). The company says it uses a more advanced navigation system that combines RTK, vSLAM (visual simultaneous localization and mapping), and Visual Inertial Odometry technology (a combination of motion and vision tech). On-board cameras give it a 300-degree field of view for obstacle avoidance, which should help it see car undercarriages.
Photos by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge
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