A word from the editor
Doyle Pemberton — Editor. Doyle spent ten years in the service department and then on the sales floor of an outdoor power equipment dealer in Michigan and Ohio, fixing mowers in March and explaining them in May. When the first wave of robotic mowers arrived he found himself installing them, and learned how much of the result is decided by the wire, the slope and the first week’s settings. He writes LawnBot Guide for homeowners who would like their weekends back.
Why this site exists
Robotic mowers are sold as a way to stop thinking about the lawn. That promise is largely true once one is installed properly, and almost entirely false during the first weekend, when the boundary wire is in the wrong place and the mower has found the one steep corner of the yard.
Most disappointments are decided before the box is opened, by whether the lawn suited the machine and whether the installation took the yard’s awkward spots seriously.
Who it is for
Homeowners with a lawn between roughly a quarter acre and an acre who would like to stop mowing every week and want to know what it takes to get a robotic mower working reliably.
Everything here lives in one category, Robotic Mowers: how robotic mowers navigate, whether your lawn suits one, sizing it, installing it, and keeping it running through the season and the winter.
Our boundaries
Blade and safety work. A mower blade is a hazard even on a small machine. We tell you to follow the manufacturer’s manual, which sets out how to power the machine down before handling it, and we do not publish our own procedure.
Electrical work. Mowers charge from a low-voltage transformer plugged into an outlet. Adding an outdoor outlet or any new circuit belongs to a licensed electrician.
Pets, children and wildlife. We describe how mowers are designed to detect obstacles, but we do not promise that any machine is safe around a particular animal or child. Follow the manufacturer’s guidance and use your own judgement.
How we work
- We explain how it works before we compare models. Knowing how a mower finds its way home tells you what will confuse it. A list of recommended models does not.
- We give ranges and name the variables. Mowing capacity, slope ability and battery life depend on your grass, your yard and the weather. We do not repeat a manufacturer’s best-case figure as if it were a promise.
- We say plainly when a robotic mower is the wrong tool. A yard with many steep banks, a tangle of narrow passages or heavy shade may be better served by something else.
- We name the failure mode. Every system fails in a particular way. Each article says how, and what you do about it.
- We update rather than repost. Navigation technology is changing quickly. When it does, the original article is revised and the change noted.
Funding and independence
LawnBot Guide is free to read and is supported by display advertising, plus affiliate links on some pages. If you use an affiliate link and buy something, we may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. Advertisers do not see our articles before publication and have no influence over them; ads are placed automatically by third-party networks. Affiliate commissions do not decide our recommendations either — a good deal of our advice is to fix the one steep corner of the lawn before buying anything, which sells nothing. The full disclosure is on our Disclaimer page.
Corrections policy
Models and navigation systems change, and we make our own mistakes. If something here is wrong, send it through our contact form with a source. We will verify it, correct the article, and record what changed and when.
Contact
Questions, disagreements and topic suggestions are welcome through our Contact page. We cannot survey your yard remotely, but we can usually tell you what to measure and which two questions to put to a dealer.