What are the pros and cons of owning an electric robotic lawnmower? How much time and effort does it really save?
I've never mowed a lawn in my life and don't care to start, but I don't want to pay $200+ per month for someone to mow and edge a half-acre lawn. What percentage of the work does an electric robotic lawnmower really do?
Answers ( 2 )
Dear Husband looked into them for our little bit of green; we live in the real-deal desert, and pampered green grass is seen as nearly a luxury, but even our, oh, 200 square feet of lawn (which is actually more like a free-form border around the nearly regulation gravelled front yard) is a whole lot of work, so he was looking for an edge.
His conclusions? They just aren't worth it for the price.
They cost around $2k or so- and you can get a decent riding lawn tractor for that- and the set-up is time consuming, with "invisible fence" wire and the computer programming. You also have to be able to keep it and its battery charger stationed on the lawn, so when it's time for it to go, it just goes- blades a-whirring- not out of the garage door, around to the yard, now start cutting-- and, the lawn looks best, according to the salesman, if you program the robotic mower to do a little bit every day until it is done, then start over.
Rather like trimming your mustache a quarter at a time four days in a row, then start again.
But, they are quiet, and only cost a battery charge every use, and, best of all here in the desert, no more sweating in the ferocious sun just to get 200 not at all square feet mowed once the rains start during monsoon season.
Outside our little oasis inner yard, we have about four acres of desert. For that, we have a 48" Husquvarna lawn tractor that has withstood everything thrown at it. Takes DH about 3.5 to 4 hours to cut it, and that includes the nascent mesquite trees and horrible baby tumbleweeds. There is no way a robotic mower could do it- it'd bump into a baby tumbleweed, bounce off and go in the other direction only to immediately hit another baby tumbleweed- or rock or snake or--
Half an acre is easy to do with a regular gas mower with about 20 minutes sweat; it's too small for a lawn tractor, but just about right for the robotic mower- plus new tech is always fun. I would expect the robot to be a great deal like the first home computers from Tandy were like: A whole lot of work on your part that eventually did something neat and time-saving.
I would imagine robot mowers are similar in experience to robot vacuums, except several generations behind. Our own experience with robot vacuums has been sub-par at best. While they provide solid suction when they are actively vacuuming, they tend to get stuck on ledges or table stands. Sometimes they get stuck underneath furniture. And this is all if you can manage to keep your house clean and clutter-free. With a 2.5 YO and a 6-mo old, that's an impossible task.
My only real experience with robot mowers is the one our neighbors have. My wife and I laugh and make fun of them each time we walk by their yard because it's always stuck somewhere in the middle of the yard, or even on the edge of the yard. The grass looks unevenly cut as well. You'll obviously never get those nice lines that a real lawnmower leaves, but it should at least look nice after an attempted cut.