Robot Lawnmowers

[Daniel]

My house has about 2000m2 of grass, got a little ride on and it's an ok job but with two small kids I'm always short of time.

But if I had a robot it couldn't cut the strip of grass between the hedge and the main road at the top of the picture, because someone would steal it?

So I'd still need a normal mower?

 

[Durt Burd]

@Daniel you will still need a mower for the roadside or at least that is what I have and also use it for mopping up any hedge clippings and along the kerbs. I should of cut the hedges before the install so the robot could run closer rather than having to occasionally clean up with the walk behind mower.

 

[24/7 farming]

A house not far away has one and they hav it mowing right up to the edge of an A-road, dunno how it hasn't been lifted.
It does seem to do a good job, but I passed it a few mornings ago early and it was out cutting away wit a dew on the grass, could see its path thru the dew and it does not like straight lines!, I would be partial to the odd stripe meself and I dunno if I could cope looking out at that!! [emoji23]

 

[Spuddler]

That’s sounds like a good idea - the wire is something that puts me off

Can you recall the model ?

The one we tried was a Husqvarna Automower 435x
I think the automower bit is the gps system

 

[Old John]

I've got a couple of Husqvarna Rob 1000's. Two separate areas.
Absolutely wonderful .
No clippings to get walked in.
Lawns are always pristine.
Great fun to watch, whilst drinking a glass of wine, taking bets on which way they will turn next!
No noise, cost virtually nothing to run. I think they may get rid of moles too. Don't quote me on that, but I've had less trouble since I've had them.
Absolute no brainier.
Can't wait for robot farm machines, having had these for a couple of years.

 

[Old John]

My house has about 2000m2 of grass, got a little ride on and it's an ok job but with two small kids I'm always short of time.

But if I had a robot it couldn't cut the strip of grass between the hedge and the main road at the top of the picture, because someone would steal it?

So I'd still need a normal mower?

View attachment 835679

Mine have a pin code on their control panel , without that and the charging station and etc. There's no point in stealing it.

 

[2wheels]

You need to read the Veet for men one on Amazon,

or the picolax one

 

[browny88]

My house has about 2000m2 of grass, got a little ride on and it's an ok job but with two small kids I'm always short of time.

But if I had a robot it couldn't cut the strip of grass between the hedge and the main road at the top of the picture, because someone would steal it?

So I'd still need a normal mower?

View attachment 835679

Doesn't work without the pincode and the GPS geofence will tell you if it goes walkabout unwillingly and track it down from an app on your phone!

 

[steveR]

I have a robot vacuum cleaner which is not a great success so do have serious reservations about this

Probably needs RTK.....

 

[steveR]

You need to read the Veet for men one on Amazon,

I am still ROFLing. but have been thrown out of the living room for making too much noise chortling....!

Popped the one review in below for those who cannot be "arsed" to go to Amazon!


5.0 out of 5 starsVeet for men
25 January 2019
Format: Personal Care
After having been told my danglies looked like an elderly Rastafarian I decided to take the plunge and buy some of this as previous shaving attempts had only been mildly successful and I nearly put my back out trying to reach the more difficult bits.
Being a bit of a romantic I thought I would do the deed on the missus's birthday as a bit if a treat.
I ordered it well in advance and working in the North Sea I considered myself a bit above some of the characters writing the previous reviews and wrote them off as soft office types...Oh my fellow sufferers how wrong I was.
I waited until the other half was tucked up in bed and after giving some vague hints about a special surprise I went down to the bathroom. Initially all went well and I applied the gel and stood waiting for something to happen. I didn' have long to wait.
At first there was a gentle warmth which in a matter of seconds was replaced by an intense burning and a feeling I can only describe as like being given a barbed wire wedgie by two people intent on hitting the ceiling with my head.
Religion hadn't featured much in my life until that night but I suddenly became willing to convert to any religion to stop the violent burning around the turd tunnel and what seemed like the the destruction of the meat and two veg.
Struggling not to bite through my bottom lip I tried to wash the gel off in the sink and only succeeded in blocking the plughole with a mat of hair. Through the haze of tears I struggled out of the bathroom across the hall into the kitchen, by this time walking was not really possible and I crawled the final yard to the fridge in the hope of some form of cold relief.
I yanked the freezer drawer out and found a tub of ice cream, toe the lid off and positioned it under me.
The relief was fantastic but only temporary as it melted fairly quickly and the fiery stabbing returned. Due to the shape of the ice cream tub I hadn'nt managed to give the starfish any treatment and I groped around in the draw for something else as I was sure my vision was going to fail fairly soon.
I grabbed a bag of what I later found out was frozen sprouts and tore it open trying to be quiet as I did so. I took a handful of them and an tried in vain to clench some between the cheeks of my arse.
This was not doing the trick as some of the gel had found its way up the chutney channel and it felt like the space shuttle was running its engines behind me.
This was probably and hopefully the only time in my life I was going to wish there was a gay snowman in the kitchen which should give you some idea of the depths I was willing to sink to in order to ease the pain.
The only solution my pain crazed mind could come up with was to gently ease one of the sprouts where no veg had gone before. Unfortunately, alerted by the strange grunts coming from the kitchen the other half chose that moment to come and investigate and was greeted by the sight of me, arse in the air, strawberry ice cream dripping from my bell end pushing a sprout up my arse while muttering arhhh ooooohhh that feels good ahhh Understandably this was a shock to her and she let out a scream and as I hadn'nt heard her come in it caused an involuntary spasm of shock in myself which resulted in the sprout being ejected at quite some speed in her direction.
I can understand that having a sprout fired against your leg at 11 at night in the kitchen probably wasent the special surprise she was expecting and having to explain to the kids the next day what the strange hollow in the ice cream was didn't improve my status so to sum it up, VEET removes hair, dignity and self-respect.
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[Jack Russell]

Husqvarna. Figure out where you want the charging station and don’t take the installers inability to think out of the box for an answer. We run three mowers on various lawns and they work fantastically. On the s,Allen lawns with flower beds etc we still have to mow the edges to keep it looking neat but when we are busy in harvest it’s not a big job to whip round the edges. It’s also good when you go on holiday and you know the lawns are being done. Keep the blades changed reasonably regularly and it generally always looks tidy. Only times ours looks untidy is when leaves are dropping off but because it’s always cut short they seem to blowoff easier.

 

[HolzKopf]

I know I have said in the past I didn't like them because they don't do stripes ......................... but I'm sick of mowing lawns! especially when the weather creates delay and a major job when it does come dry enough
so whats the best on the market, please?

My neighbour's got one. It makes an irritating 'click-clack' noise when I walk past their yard with the dog at crack of sparrows. Nearly as irritating as they are. I'll get it for you if you like. You pay the postage

 

[Steevo]

Mine have a pin code on their control panel , without that and the charging station and etc. There's no point in stealing it.

Could be a bit late by the time some opportunist has already nicked it...if they find it doesn’t work I doubt they’d return it.
The sad thing is plenty of people steal things there’s no point in stealing...or things that have no real value to anyone else.

 

[Steevo]

Doesn't work without the pincode and the GPS geofence will tell you if it goes walkabout unwillingly and track it down from an app on your phone!

Would be handy if it was auto-tracked, without needing to trace it. It almost becomes like cctv.....you know something has been nicked, but that’s about all you do know.

 

[Steevo]

Does the mower still operate randomly or in sort of organised pattern with the gps. Would save a massive amount of run time

Makes a lot of sense. It seems crazy to go over the lawn in 101 different directions covering it 3x or more in total just to cut it once. It’s almost like they’re trying to sell you a bigger machine....or needlessly wear out the batteries lifespan quicker!

Even the GPS ones do random pattern I think (no experience I admit!) Bosch do claim to do up/down/up.

 

[Durt Burd]

Makes a lot of sense. It seems crazy to go over the lawn in 101 different directions covering it 3x or more in total just to cut it once. It’s almost like they’re trying to sell you a bigger machine....or needlessly wear out the batteries lifespan quicker!

Even the GPS ones do random pattern I think (no experience I admit!) Bosch do claim to do up/down/up.

The reason it is random is to prevent it creating tracks in the lawn by constantly travelling the same path as it does with the boundary. The random driving also helps keep the moss down which doesn't like traffic. You could create a small offset on each pass to overcome this but the haphazard driving is not much of an issue.

 

[stroller]

Is the boundary wire just plain wire or is it a circuit linked to the base station?

 

[Steevo]

The reason it is random is to prevent it creating tracks in the lawn by constantly travelling the same path as it does with the boundary. The random driving also helps keep the moss down which doesn't like traffic. You could create a small offset on each pass to overcome this but the haphazard driving is not much of an issue.

I wonder whether this is a marketing spin more than anything. i.e. it's cheaper/easier to do it random, so let's convince them that we designed it like that for the customer's benefit. After all, you're actually creating 3-4x extra wheelings from random pattern. After a few days the whole lawn has probably been driven on as much as just the wheelings of straight "tramlines".

A straight line system that swapped the direction it worked in or such would achieve the same effect of avoiding identical wheelings, but hugely increasing efficiency.

 

[Durt Burd]

@Steevo we have a tramline around the boundary where the mower follows the perimeter wire to return to the charge station and/or head to a designated launch point. If you mowed in straight lines then you would have the same tramlines all over the lawn unless you offset on each pass. Our mower currently goes out three times per day, every day. I could probably reduce that now growth rates are slowing down.

 

[jamj]

Seen one on holidays, at the hotel.
It was moving in its random pattern, but there was one stalk of a dandalion sticking up in the middle of the lawn, that had been missed multiple times!