Robin: The Low Cost Robotic Lawn Mower Alternative

Owning a robotic lawn mower looks, on the face of it, quite an expensive and time-consuming way to maintain a perfectly trimmed lawn. Even the sub-£500 Robomow RX series is quite a lot more expensive than the average manual mower, and most robot mowers come in at £1,000 plus.

As we reported in a previous article, however, the Dallas startup Robin has a solution that is in line with the usual US practice of paying someone else to cut your grass.

For as little as $15 (about £12 or 13 Euros) per month, Robin will install the perimeter wire using their accumulated experience, set up and maintain a robotic mower, and store it during the winter months. The bonus is that you only pay for the months during which your little helper is actually needed.

Advantages of Automatic Robotic Lawn Mowers

On their automatic mowing service page, Robin claim that being able to do this makes their lawn care cost lower than the more traditional service of sending people out with a noisy, polluting, petrol engine lawn mower, as well as being more reliable.

There is, as we noted in the original article, a certain security risk associated with so many unattended mowers driving around on people's front lawns.

Thus, the modern robotic mowers that Robin deploy include GPS location and extra security features meaning that the mowers can't be used anywhere else, can be located, and are less likely to go missing as people become educated as to the futility of stealing one.

All of this added technology makes the mower a bit more expensive, however. I'd estimate that the Robin mowers are of a class that edges up towards the £1,500+ category.

Based on their rental figures, and allowing for exchange rates and economic differences, a similar UK based service might hope to be able to charge a top-end price of, say, £10-15 per month.

That's about 100 months of payments just to pay for the mower. And, given that the UK and Continental European customers don't have a tradition of paying for lawn care, I would also hazard that the market would be quite resistant.

The Cost of Owning a Robotic Lawn Mower

However, the true cost of ownership, assuming that you plump for a robot mower with some basic security features such as a PIN lock is going to start out with a relatively expensive investment of around £750.

(Note that in a previous article, we pointed out that the Flymo 1200R has been sold for as little as £600.)

The electricity cost is likely to be negligible, even at the 17 hours it takes (per cycle) to charge something like the Robomow RX12U, but consumables such as blades can add substantially to the annual cost.

While Robomow blades seem to be relatively expensive (but long lasting), my own experience with the Gardena R40Li (a Husqvarna model identical to the Flymo 1200R) leads me to estimate that I spend about £15 on blades each season, as long as none get broken by bits of wood, children's toys, or other obstacles.

I've also had to replace the wheels, at a cost of around £20, so all-in all, having bought the beast at the top of the market, price-wise, I've invested about £1,500 in trouble-free lawn care. The lawn looks better (greener), I've got more free time (filled with chores invented by you-know-who), and the dubious pleasure of being able to tell people I've got one.

Over 4 years of ownership, that works out at £15 per month, assuming that it lies dormant for 2 months per year.

Now, assuming the same calculations at today's prices, that falls to about half that for the Flymo, and even less if you have a small, secure lawn, and opt for the Robomow. You can read a comparative article of sorts on this blog.

So, now the question you need to ask is: for £10 per month, do you want to let a robot mow your lawn  for you?

Robomow RX12U The Affordable Robotic Lawn Mower

Unusually for me, I'm going to lead with the price: £499 on Amazon.

I'll just let that sink in.

At that price -- which I'll admit is still a lot of money -- the Robomow RX12U begins to compare pretty favourably with a regular lawnmower.

It looks pretty good, the charging station is low profile, and you even get a natty app so you can talk to it from your mobile rather than having to bend down over a badly lit LCD screen.

Okay, so it won't mow the largest of lawns. In fact, it's limited to something between 150 and 250 square meters of grass.

Part of the reason for this limitation is that it can only mow for an hour and a half before needing a full 16 hours to recharge itself.

And, obviously, with these limitations, it also prefers a squareish lawn without too many complicated turns. Otherwise, it's going to miss areas repeatedly, and result in an uneven cut. The grass, in the growing season, can get quite unruly after only a few days.

Still, the result on a regularly shaped lawn of about 200 square metres is likely to be pretty good. The novel design means that it will go over the edges, too, so you'll get a crisp finish. Just make sure that you follow our Perimeter Wire Tips and Tricks, to get the best results.

Specifications and Installation

For the technically minded, the cut is provided by a single blade, and replacing it doesn't look to be a cheap: going purely on the price of blades for other models (the RM, for example) they seem to cost between £35 and £60. They do, however, look pretty solid, unlike the Indego and Automow (Flymo) variants.

Installation looks easier than most, too, since there's no return wire, and the docking station just sits on the perimeter wire. Now, when it comes to fault finding, I'm a big believer in using the return wire to test for breaks in specific sections (see The Perimeter Wire Revisited), but there's no reason that you can't use the perimeter wire loop instead, for small lawn areas.

One key drawback is that there's no anti-theft device fitted on the RX12 series, which will concern some people: especially as it doesn't seem to be locked to the base unit either, like some of the other brands, and doesn't need to be unlocked with a PIN, either.

Robotic Mower Alternatives

So, aside from building an Arduino based robotic lawn mower yourself (by the way, that's not a cheap option, which I'll explain in a future article), what are your alternatives?

It turns out that if you're willing to go with an older generation, admittedly bigger, bulkier (and uglier) than the little Robomow, for £100 more, you can get the Flymo 1200R.

Here's some advantages: the blades are cheaper to replace, there's a full anti-theft device (beeping, PIN codes and coded base station), it has a guide wire, so you can tell the mower to start at a specific place, and it can always find its way home, and it doesn't need 16 hours to charge.

In fact, our Gardena R40Li, which is the same machine, doesn't seem to need much time at all to recharge, and is almost constantly buzzing quietly around the lawn. Okay, so it's based on the Husqvarna Automower 105 style technology, but there's on big advantage that comes with it: Husqvarna invented the mass market robotic mower, and is still probably the market leader in Europe by some margin.

So, if you have a small, enclosed, secure lawn, go for the Robomow. Otherwise, that big orange robot represents a very good alternative, and at almost half price on Amazon may just be an opportunity that's too good to miss!

Replacement Blades for Flymo, Gardena, and Husqvarna Automower Models

Robotic lawn mowers are great, but they, like all mowers, have parts that wear out. As a result of their design, Husqvarna Automower based machines seem to need their blades replacing quite often.

Part of the issue is that they are smaller, lighter, and designed more for fine cutting than longevity. All it needs is a few errant branches and you will find that you need to buy replacement blades several times per season.

Original Blades Aren't Cheap

If you can find them, Flymo 1200r replacement blades (pack of 9) will set you back over £25. That's almost 30 Euros, and at that price, the compatible Gardena R40Li blade pack of 9 at 18.99 Euros begins to look tempting: all you'd need to do is hop over the Channel!

However, even these pale next to aftermarket blades available on Amazon.

For example, for less than £15 (excluding delivery), you can buy the pack on the right: 30 compatible blades, plus bolts, for all Husqvarna Automower models.

The seller is so confident that these are going to be a perfect drop-in replacement that they offer a refund if they don't. I would advise reading the small print, but there's also the suggestion that they would honour a refund even if you open the packet.

But wait! There's more.

From the same supplier, there's another pack of 30, seemingly supplied without screws (bolts), but with a rather fetching titanium coating, at an even lower price.

Now, I take pretty good care of my bolts, and it's fair to say that whenever I've replaced the blades, I've managed to stockpile quite a few of them over the past few seasons.

They're slightly special, as owners of any of these models will know, in that they have a kind of thread-less, slightly oversized shoulder, just underneath the bolt's head, which allows the blade to rotate freely.

So, if you haven't managed to hold on to them, it's worth keeping a note that next time you should do so, if only to give you access to the cheaper range of aftermarket blades.

Again, read the small print, but the manufacturer seems pretty confident that either pack will prove a decent replacement for the originals.

Source	Blade Price	Pack
Flymo	£2.70	9 + bolts
Gardena	(£1.82)	9 + bolts
Genisys	£0.48	30 + bolts
Genisys Titan	£0.43	30 blades only

It's also worth noting that Genisys also has a range of blades and accessories for all the popular makes, including the Bosch Indego, Worx Landroid, and Honda Miimo. If you go through their online catalogue at Amazon, you'll also find smaller sized  packs of blades so you can test out a cheaper pack before you commit.

See the whole range of robot mower spares from Genisys by clicking the link.

Robotic Lawn Mower Trends to 2020

Based on a recently commissioned report by Technavio (via Market Research Reports), the future for robotic lawn mowers looks bright.

Here are some headlines:

• Impressive double digit growth for the worldwide market;
• Market will pick up in the US, where sales have been sluggish;
• Next generation of mowers driven by improved safety and technological advances;
• As more enter the market, and challenge the incumbents prices will fall.

Read on to discover the movers and shakers of this exciting market, based on our own keyword based research commissioned from The Keyword Coach.

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Find out if a robot mower is for you by downloading our 

FREE robotic lawn mower buyer's guide!

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Robotic Lawn Mower Brands

According to our research, the leading brands worldwide are:

• Husqvarna
• Worx / Landroid
• John Deere
• Bosh
• Honda
• Flymo
• Viking

Together these brands account for about 59% of all search traffic, with Husqvarna and Landroid leading the pack.

It's worth pointing out that Husqvarna is something of a pioneer in the marketplace, and has previously sued Worx for patent infringement (source: GreenIndustryPros.com) Meanwhile, they also manufactured for Flymo and Gardena -- or at least there is more than a passing resemblance between Husqvarna's mowers and the Flymo 1200R and Gardena R40Li models.

While Flymo has about 6% of the market, Gardena has less than 2%, based on the research conducted around search terms for robotic lawn mowers in the 12 months up to March 2017.

Robotic Lawn Mower Features

When it comes to features, most search users seem to be looking for the 'best' robotic mower.

This is backed up by the countless references to reviews, versus comparisons, and other phrases that indicate some kind of pitching brands against each other.

However, it's also worth noting that 12% of searchers were looking for mowers that don't rely on a perimeter wire to delimit the mowing area.

At the same time, there is interest in using solar power for robotic mowers, as well as those that are fitted with GPS. The latter interest might have been sparked by reports in the media of robot mower thefts.

While most results across UK/US/World followed a general trend, it is interesting that the UK seems more interested than the US in kit built mowers, and the US market seems more interested in GPS equipped mowers than any other specific feature (excluding 'best').

The Rise of DIY Robotic Lawn Mowers

An interesting result of the search analysis that wasn't expected was the number of searches using words associated with building your own robotic lawn mower:

• Arduino had the same popularity as Honda;
• Raspberry Pi has the same popularity as Gardena...
• ...as does "Open Source Robot Lawn Mowers"!

It seems that this sector has some interesting times ahead; for retail, kit, and DIY mowers that use advances in modern technology to make cutting your lawn easier, and greener, than every before.

Half of Dallas Startup Robin's Robotic Lawnmowers Got Stolen!

Sorry for the sensationalist headline, but according to a recent piece on the Dallas News website, titled "Robots are coming to cut a lawn near you...", that's exactly what happened when the startup robotic lawnmower rental service trialled 12 devices during market testing.

European robot lawnmower owners will probably find that number a bit disconcerting. After all, uptake has been brisk,and I know plenty of people who have, or are looking to buy a robotic lawnmower as a replacement for their old gas guzzler.

Robotic Lawnmower Security Features

It's worth noting that there are essentially three kinds of robotic lawnmower:

• Grass sensing;
• Perimeter wire;
• GPS trained.

As pointed out in "The Perils of a Robot Lawnmower with No Perimeter Wire" one of the issues of the first kind is that they can be easily stolen and re-purposed elsewhere.

The GPS trained mowers have the advantage that, if stolen, they can be tracked. However, this also requires that they are communication enabled, too, which usually means a privately monitored service (such as those available for newer cars) or effectively giving the mower the robot equivalent of a mobile phone.

(It's worth noting that the article points out that recovery of several of the mowers was down to the fact that they contained GPS locator units -- expensive, but worth the extra cost.)

A perimeter wire solution, however, also ensures that the mower can't be used anywhere else, and is a relativity standard and cost-effective solution to the problem of both limiting the mowing area, and securing the mower.

In addition, most mowers come with PIN codes and alarms, plus a sticker that warns would be thieves that the device is protected. Stealing one would cause the alarm to go off, and it would be useless without the PIN, and doubly useless without the coded base station which is very hard to remove once set up.

The fact that 6 out of 12 robot mowers were stolen in Dallas would seem to indicate that there is a certain lack of education in the market around just how secure these devices are. The article itself seems to agree, citing a Robomow representative's experience that "robotic mowing companies are still educating American customers and answering questions."

Security was one concern, but other factors cited in the piece include the statement that "installation can be a headache"; something that readers of this blog will disagree with -- after all, it's just about preparation and research, something which the mower companies need to spend a bit more time on.

Having said that, we have our own Robotic Lawn Mower Buyer's Guide FAQ which you can download for FREE, and which will help you decide which mower to buy, how best to install it, and all the questions you need to be able to answer (and ask!) before you buy and install your mower.

The Perils of a Robot Lawnmower with No Perimeter Wire

I get a lot of questions directed to me about installation of a perimeter wire and the reason why all of the major brands (Bosch, Worx, Husqvarna, Flymo, Gardena, etc.) rely on this technology. The fact of the matter is it wasn't always the case, and it's also still possible to buy robot lawnmowers that don't rely on a perimeter wire to delimit the mowing area.

But, is that a good thing?

Let's look at a few of the options available to manufactures using today's technology.

Robot Mower with Sensors

Mowers like the LawnBott Spyder, for example, don't use a perimeter wire. In fact, according to the LawnBotts web site, this is hailed as "a new beginning for robotic lawnmowers."

However, I would dispute this, as I have a friend with a sensor-based mower that pre-dates my own Husqvarna/Gardena R40Li, which he inherited from a family member who I assume had upgraded to a better version.

A quick question and answer session later revealed that while there are issues with sensor based mowers, largely my friend was well satisfied with the performance of the mower. However, there were a few basic flaws.

The first is that without a ground wire, the mower has to way to find it's way "home" for recharging. Therefore, it has to be charged indoors.

In fact, the mower has no way of knowing where it is, or where it has been; it's a dumb mechanical device, with none of the intelligence built into more modern models.

The way that they work is simple: they have sensors facing down which detect grass, and bump sensors to prevent chopping up the family pet. The lawn sensors rely on moisture detection, and the ability to tell the difference between mildly damp grass and, say, concrete or gravel.

My own feeling is that this is fine for most regularly shaped, enclosed areas, but as soon as you add a pond, or something that can become overgrown and poses a threat to the mower -- either damaging it, or allowing it to 'escape' -- I wouldn't feel personally comfortable relying on a few sensors to keep it in check.

Then there's the security aspect: one can imagine that stealing a plug-in to recharge mower that doesn't rely on a coded perimeter wire signal is a bit more of an attractive option than one which relies on a fully wired-in installation.

However, there are other options.

Robot Mower with a Virtual Perimeter Wire

These fall into two categories:

• Roomba style transmitters;
• Remote control / smartphone control plus learning.

In 2015, iRobot secured the go-ahead from the FCC to develop and deploy the same kind of technology that is used for their Roomba robot vacuum cleaners for outside use. This would allow them to create an iRobot lawnmower. Because it is guided by localised positioning using radio waves, however, it sparked anger amongst radio astronomers.

Of course, since then, their flagship technology has moved up a gear, and now uses all kinds of visual cues and smartphone interaction to "map and adapt" to the task in hand, rather than using navigation pods. Perhaps this move away from the older technology explains why we haven't seen the iRobot lawnmower as yet.

That leaves remote control or smartphone control plus learning. In fact, SmartMow has pinned their hopes on this approach, and have patented "Virtual Boundary Technology" which they explain as the ability to "Just walk SmartMow around the perimeter of your yard".

I'm actually looking forward to reviewing the SmartMow, because it appeals to me on a number of levels, including some exciting technology for connecting to it via a web portal.

The idea seems to be that the mower will learn where the perimeter is by being "shown" it, and then left to its own devices. Of course, the mower also has the regular sensors to allow it to avoid unexpected objects, but because the solution is software rather than hardware, my reservations re: ponds and robots going mad (as in the movie Short Circuit) still hold.

Robot Mower with GPS

Everything from farm machinery to those massive machines that rake the pistes in the Alps use GPS, so why not home robot mowers?

Husqvarna's Automower does just that. It even has its own app to help you fully take advantage of the set and forget nature of automatic robot lawn mowing.

(By the way, these are at the expensive end of Husqvarna's range -- the affordable models still use a perimeter wire... as do the ones with GPS!)

But here's the thing; it still uses a guide wire, presumably for security reasons.

In fact, aside from this experimental design from 2016, I was unable to find an example of a commercial automatic lawn mower that relied 100% on GPS for its perimeter detection and mowing capability.

So, all in all, it seems as if the good old perimeter wire is here to stay: sometimes lo-tech is really the best tech! If you're still wavering, read our Perimeter Wire Tips & Tricks Post; I'm pretty sure you'll agree that it's still the easiest, safest and most reliable method of keeping your robotic mower in check.

Robot Lawn Mower Perimeter Wire Tips & Tricks

Based on the last few years of robotic lawn mower ownership, I have a number of trips, tricks and tools for setting up and maintaining my robot lawn mower perimeter wire, as well as some recommended products.

A key point to remember is that while some of these parts are compatible (pegs and connectors, for example) many of them are not. At the same time, for some of the more basic installation and maintenance tasks (extending the perimeter wire, for example) regular off-the-shelf third party components can be used.

Robot Lawn Mower Perimeter Wire Installation

The first tip is to be prepared to move the wire around after it has been installed. For this reason, I recommend laying the wire on top of the grass, rather than digging it in.

Figure 1 : Poor Return Wire Installation

My first attempt at laying the perimeter wire wasn't exactly a triumph (see Figure 1).

Our lawn mower is the excellent Husqvarna 105 / Flymo 1200 / Gardena R40Li, and I followed the instructions to the letter.

What I forgot, however, is that something the size of a robot mower doesn't easily pass through a gap in a fence.

In addition, the design of the mower actually gives you a way out -- in the form of the return wire (the blue line in Figure 1). How it works is this: the mower leaves the charging point (on the right) and mows the lawn at random.

When it runs out of power, it will look for the return wire, and follow it back to the charging station.

The trouble is, when installed as above, the mower will (a) rarely make it into the top-left, and (b) once it's there, it will run out of power looking for the return wire, which it almost never finds.

There are a few solutions to this. The simplest is to to carry the mower to the top-left, and then remembering to get if back again once it runs out of juice.

However, the saving grace comes from the mower's design.

Figure 2 : Better Return Wire Installation

Reading through the instructions it transpires that there is a way to get the robot to follow the return wire at the start of a mowing session.

This led to the solution in Figure 2. The black line shows the new location of the return wire, designed to help the mower find its way home.

At the same time, once set up correctly, the mower will, occasionally, start from the end of the return wire.

One last note: since I had already installed the blue wire, I didn't want to uninstall it, so I added a box that enables me to switch between the two. I'm cautious like that.

To achieve this, I used some kit from the following section.

Lawn Mower Perimeter Wire Maintenance

Although tough, perimeter wires can be broken. Especially if, like me, you've scrimped a bit and bought some lesser grade wire to extend the length of that which has been provided.

Figure 3: These are not the connectors you are looking for...

Here's a first hint: buy the wire that is recommended by the manufacturer. It's just better.

But, it's not indestructible, and so it helps to have a few bits of kit that can help you when the worst happens and someone cuts through it with a spade, or a rodent chews through it.

Or, more likely, one of the little terminal blocks that you used to connect two bits together fails.

These are not good connectors. They are not waterproof, and, over time, will fail you. In my case, it took about 18 months to 2 years before the first one failed. I've now replaced all of them.

The replacement connectors are hugely expensive. Luckily, I've found a place where you can get a selection of waterproof wire connectors for use on the perimeter wire, all very inexpensive.

My absolute favourite, though, is the damp-proof wire splice connector available through Amazon, pictured here in Figure 4.

Figure 4 : Better Wire Connectors

Firstly, they're not 100% waterproof, but I've found that this doesn't really affect them too much. Certainly not as much as a simple terminal connector.

They're also reasonably priced, and because you have to crimp them, they do hold better than some of the other solutions.

Finally, they're a 2-way and not a 3-way connector, so are less bulky when you have to partially bury them. The 3M ones that came with the mower tend to stick up and risk being sliced on the lowest blade setting.

With the connectors sorted out, there's just one item left: what happens when the lights go red?

Perimeter Wire Emergency Kit

The most common thing that happens is that one of the plugs at the back of the charging station pops out, breaks, fails, or otherwise needs replacing.

Figure 5 : Spade Connectors

Sometimes, it's enough just to push it back in. However, on occasion, they actually need to be replaced. Luckily, they're just spade connectors, and easily found on Amazon, for very little money.

In Figure 5, there's an example. For connecting to the Husqvarna / Flymo / Gardena base station, you'll only need the bit that crimps to the wire (perimeter / guide wire) and the other end 'plugs into' the base station.

However, these connectors also form part of my Perimeter Wire Emergency Kit, and can be used with any of the popular makes.

It's worth mentioning that any robot lawn mower with a perimeter wire needs a way for you to locate a break in the wire.

Typically, this requires connecting a 'flying wire' to the base unit (charging station) and then connecting it at various points around the perimeter wire to see where the break occurs.

But this is very troublesome if you need to go around breaking the wire and connecting a 3-way block to the perimeter wire before plugging in the flying wire. 

Figure 6 : Self Stripping Connector

Much easier is to use the self stripping connector type, as shown in Figure 6.

All you need to do with these is place them around the perimeter wire (with flying wire connected) and gently press the cover closed just enough to make the connection, but not enough to seal the connector.

If you press too far, don't panic, just leave it where it is.

These connectors are so cheap that you can afford to leave them in place -- and if you mark where they are, the next time you need to investigate a break, you just need to march up with your spade connector on the end of the flying lead, and plug it in!

One last tip: the flying wire need not be the best quality, but is must be long enough to run to the most distant point on your perimeter cable, as measured from the charging station.

So, those are the current robot lawn mower perimeter wire tips and tricks, from a few years of robotic lawn mower ownership. Feel free to add your own solutions in the comments below!