I decided to buy a robot lawnmower because I have better things to do than mow the lawn. I opted for an orange one and stuck googly eyes on it and called it Timothy.
For the technically minded, he is WORX Landroid M WR141E Robot Lawn Mower for medium gardens up to 500m2. The older model that needs a guide wire. But older means cheaper.
Timothy does a good job. He does miss bits and I’ve had to repair the wire where he cut it himself a couple of times until it eventually got absorbed into the lawn.
He has two major challenges:
- Holes
- Apples
As he is powered by his rear wheels, if his front, free spinning swivel wheel hits a hole or mild depression in the lawn, he will either try in vain to get out and carve two trenches or he will assume as he is now 1 degree off the horizontal that somebody has picked him up and he needs to stop. Occasionally he will think he has moved, realise he can’t find the guard wire where he left it and must now be “outside the area” and also… stop.
Apples though are a major barrier to his mowing prowess. He will occasionally partial run one over and then declare he is trapped or will choose one of the random error types such as “I’ve been lifted”.
The app on the phone will warn of these disasters and allow you to run at pace across the partially-mown lawn and rescue the robot hero. But how do you get him moving again?
You can pick him up, put him back on his charger and he’ll reset.
Much quicker though to simply move him or the obstacle and then;
START START START OK
He’ll then head back on his mission.
I’ve not used a manual lawnmower since I got him. I have got the strimmer out to trim the odd bit here or there that he seems to avoid, but the effort of lawn maintenance has certainly reduced.
Must go, Timothy is about to eat another apple.
