The Best Robotic Lawn Mowers

Check out our robotic lawn mower comparison guide below. This will enable you to make a direct comparison between the features of the best selling robotic mowers currently on the market

The comparison table has  6 columns:

• The model name/manufacturer and picture
• The working area in square metres
• The cutting width in centimetres
• Other unique or special features
• Price guide – Based on the approximate current selling price from Amazon. The prices change frequently depending on availability and special offers. Generally speaking £ = Under £950, ££ = £950– £1000, £££ = £1000-£1200, ££££ = £1200+
• Rating – The average user rating from Amazon UK reviews. This gives a good indication of how satisfied people are with their purchase.

Manufacturer and Model	Working Area (m²)	Cutting Width	Special Features	Price	Rating
Husqvarna Automower 105 – Robot Lawnmower	600	17	Low energy consumption	£	4.5
WORX WG790E.1 Landroid Robotic Lawn Mower	800	18	Automatic charging, simple user interface	£	4.0
Bosch Indego Robotic Mower	1000	26	'Logicut' cutting system. Automatic charging	££££	3.5
Flymo Powered Robotic Lawnmower	400	17	Automatic charging system. Random Navigation	££	4.0
McCulloch R1000 Robotic Lawn Mower	1000	17		£	4.0

As we near the end of the second decade of the millennium the march of technological development shows no sign of slowing down. In fact every walk of life continues to be touched and enhanced, whether through improvements in battery technology, connectivity, or processing power. Even the most mundane of products are being improved thanks to technological advances, and even the world of gardening, usually a sanctuary from the unrelenting buzz of modern technology, has seen its fair share of development in recent years.

Championing this advance in almost every regard is the robotic lawn mower, a veritable poster child of state of the art technology, powered by the latest lithium ion batteries, and controlled by advanced micro processors. Some models even offer connectivity to an app on your mobile phone to provide you with data on lawn mowing activity.

As impressive as all this is of course, the question remains, why would you want a robotic powered lawn mower? Well in truth, until prices become more attractive, the simple answer for most people is that you probably wouldn’t. However let’s suppose for a minute that money is no object.

With a robo mower in your garden, never again will you need to worry about spending that hour every Saturday afternoon, forced into the ritual of pushing the mower up and down, stopping every few minutes to empty the grass box, having to clean the mower afterwards, and of course getting sweaty and covered in little pieces of grass in the process.

Instead you’ll get a consistently uniform cut, and a mower that cuts the grass far more frequently than you would ever wish to. Want it to mow every other day? No problem, a robotic lawn mower isn’t about to complain that you’re working it too hard, it will head off in all weathers, manicuring your lawn to perfection.

Other pros include:

• Great for people with allergies. For some just the thought alone of being around a load of grass trimmings is enough to bring them out in a sneezing fit. By employing the services of a robotic mower you can stay within the sanctuary of your house whilst the lawn is being cut, and only venture outside once you’re sure the ‘dust’ has settled
• No grass clippings to contend with. Robotic mowers work on the principle of cutting ‘a little and often’, so like a mulching lawn mower, they only produce very small pieces of grass clippings during a mowing session, small enough that they can simply be discharged onto the lawn
• Able to cut during the night, leaving the lawn looking great for you in the morning, and ensuring that you get the garden all to yourself throughout the day. Most robotic lawn mowers operate very quietly, so you don’t need to have any concerns about being awoken by yours in the wee hours
• More cost effective than the next best thing, a ride on lawn mower. Ride on lawn mowers are what most people with larger garden usually opt for, but at over £1000 they are expensive, and they come with all the headaches involved with maintaining a petrol engine, not to mention that you need a large place to store them. Robotic mowers are, small, clean, completely hands free and typically cheaper than a ride on mower

The Downsides…

As discussed above, Robotic lawn mowers are expensive, as a minimum you can expect to pay around £900. For this sort of money you could buy 2 decent sized self driven petrol lawn mowers, so you might argue that you don’t get a lot for your money.

Other cons include:

• Fiddly to set up. The most advanced robotic mowers might be ‘plug and play’ as far as taking them out of the box and letting them get on with it goes, but most require the set up of a perimeter wire to define their working area. This takes a bit of time to get right, although in theory once it’s done you won’t have to do anything else
• Repairing them is both difficult and costly. It’s one thing to be able to sharpen a blade, replace a spark plug, or even carry out more specialist engine repairs, but dealing with some of the more specialist issues you might face with a robotic mower could be an entirely different matter. In particular, were you to have software related problems you’d need someone with pretty unique expertise to diagnose it. Whilst this expertise is hard to come by at the moment, it probably won’t be a few years from now
• Potential safety issues. Though most have features built in to mitigate the likelihood of accidents happening, you might still think twice about pets and children being around when a robotic mower is doing its thing, just to be on the safe side.

Conclusion

Essentially, if you’ve got the money and you prefer doing things with your time other than mowing the lawn, robotic mowers are a great investment. Yes there’s a way to go before things like perimeter wires and batteries are completely flawless, but for the most part you’ll find robo mowers to be reliable bits of kit. On the other hand if you’ve got a smaller garden, a young family or pets, you might want to think twice, not least because of the cost and potential safety issues, but because your garden is likely to be so well used and abused that the finesse of a robotically manicured lawn might well be overkill.