Robot lawn mowers

Which wireless grass-cutters will serve you best?

- Words: Derek Adams Photography: Neil Godwin

Robot lawn mowers are nothing new; in fact they've been around since 1995 - a full year ahead of the ubiquitous robot vacuum cleaner. However, what began as a relatively simple niche concept - robots guided by buried boundary wires - has rapidly evolved into a sophisticated and increasingly popular ecosystem of autonomous wire-free machines equipped with cutting-edge GPS and camera navigation, app connectivity and, in most cases, the amazing ability to cut grass in perfectly straight lines.

The best of today's robot lawn mowers utilise a variety of modern navigation systems, including GPS with Real-Time Kinematic (RTK) correction, autonomous V-FSD camera systems, laser-based LiDAR sensors, HDR cameras, Artificial Intelligence and neural networks. This mind-blowing nav tech allows the modern lawnbot to operate completely autonomously with centimetre-level accuracy, while giving it the ability to 'see' and react to its environment, avoid obstacles, identify terrain variations and even recognise lawn edges with remarkable precision. And all without a boundary wire in sight.

Robotic lawn mowers - like the three state-of-the-art models we're looking at here - are silent in operation and can be scheduled to automatically mow a series of lawns several times a week.

Okay, robot mowers are still not as 100% efficient as a human with a push mower but, by Jove, once you've tried one there's no going back.

1 Mammotion LUBA Mini AWD

This cutting-edge robotic lawn mower features all-wheel-drive and is a perfect choice for complex gardens up to 1,500m2. With its intelligent obstacle avoidance, ability to scale slopes up to 80% and superior navigation using either RTK GPS or Mammotion's proprietary Wi-Fi and 4G iNavi system, the LUBA Mini AWD is one of the most popular robot lawn mowers out there.