A few years ago, I said goodbye to my loud, smelly, environmentally unfriendly petrol lawn mower and replaced it with a cordless electric lawn mower. Given that it usually takes me an hour to mow my lawn, I was nervous about the upgrade. Since then, I’ve never looked back. I love the convenience and quality of the cut, not to mention it starts every time. Enter the Worx Landroid Vision robot mower.
When asked to review the autonomous mower, I wondered whether it was up to the task. Being a robot vacuum convert, I also considered how much time I could save. Quite a bit, it turns out, especially if you have a flat lawn.
Worx Landroid Vision robot lawn mower review
- What is a robot lawn mower?
- Features
- Specifications
- Testing the robot lawn mower
- Would I buy a robot lawn mower?
- Who is it for?
What is a robot lawn mower?
Let’s face it: mowing involves monotonous backward and forward motion across your yard, so why not use a machine to automate this task?
Imagine a lawn mower that cuts your grass on its own, like a tiny robotic vacuum cleaner for your yard! That’s what a robot lawn mower is. It’s a nifty machine that keeps your lawn looking neat and tidy without you needing to break a sweat.
Generally, there are three ways robot lawn mowers navigate yards:
- Boundry wire: You set up a boundary wire around your lawn. This wire acts like an invisible fence for the mower, telling it where to stay and where to mow.
- GPS: Some mowers use fancy GPS mapping technology to navigate your backyard.
- AI camera: A camera is used to recognise where the grass is and learn the orientation of your yard.
Once the robot gets its bearings, it’s time to mow! Using its specific technology, the mower moves in a specific pattern until the whole area is trimmed. Afterwards, or when the battery gets low, the mower scoots back to its charging station to power up and prepare for its next mowing adventure.
Robot lawn mower benefits
- Free up time: You can spend those weekend afternoons relaxing instead of pushing a mower around.
- A consistently neat lawn: These mowers can cut your grass more frequently, keeping it looking freshly cut and healthy.
- Less work, less noise: No more wrestling with a heavy mower or enduring the loud engine roar.
Robot lawn mowers come in different sizes to handle small yards or sprawling landscapes. They also have varying features, like the ability to handle slopes or rain. Consider your lawn size and needs when choosing a model.
Worx Landroid Vision features
The Worx Landroid Vision is an autonomous cordless mower designed to cover 600 square metres, using an AI camera for navigation and obstacle avoidance.
It is almost noiseless, with just the faint sound of its whirling razor blades. Rated IPX5, you can leave it outside in the rain without trouble. However, it will not mow during rainfall by default. You can also safely use a hose to clean grass buildup underneath the robot. Cutting height is also manually adjustable between 3 and 6 cm.
Unlike some robot mowers, the Landroid’s setup is minimal. Beyond positioning and powering the base, you do not have to run boundary wires or teach the mower your yard. It does come with a special boundary magnetic wire, which can be used to stop it from going to or mowing a certain area. For example, if your neighbour’s lawn is unfenced, you could stop the mower from going next door.
Another advantage is that the mower can move between lawn areas. Assuming you have a clear route for the mower to travel on, an RFID beacon can be placed on each section of the lawn, and the mower will move from one section to the next.
The mower runs from a removable 20-volt 2 amp hour battery, which can also be used on other Worx cordless tools. The battery charges back to full in around 80 minutes. There is space to put a larger battery, but due to the process of essentially running most of the time, I see no advantage. For those of you who want to show off to your dinner guests, you can purchase an option LED headlight light kit and have your mower working through the night.
The mower is controlled via both an LCD screen knob and button or via an app on your smartphone. In the unlikely event of an incident, the mower has a big red stop button on the top of it. The mower is designed to have Wi-Fi access at least to its home position, so this should also be a consideration for you as part of the set-up.
As you would expect it has regular software updates, its schedule can be adjusted and you can even input additional information to improve the cutting process like grass species, soil type and if you have an irrigation system.
Worx Landroid Vision M600 specifications
| Coverage: | Up to 600 square metres of lawn |
| Location positioning | AI camera |
| Dimensions | 63 x 27 x 46cm |
| Price (RRP) | $2,999 |
| Website | Worx |
| Weight | 14.4 kg |
| Warranty | Two years, plus an additional year by registering online |
Using the Landroid vision robot lawn mower
My back garden is large, has coarse buffalo grass and is on a slope. So, it is possibly the hardest environment to test in. Challenge number one was to extend power to the charging base. I do have an outside power point, but the cord did run over a deck and up some stairs. In the long term, I would require a safer option to conceal the cable.
The correct procedure is to tell the mower to explore its boundary. This procedure lets it work out essentially what your lawn area looks like and gives it reference points to mow by.
Unlike a conventional mower, the Landroid does not mow the entire lawn on one battery charge. Instead, it may take multiple recharges to complete a cut. In my case, it took about four goes. The first impression is that it looks a bit of a mess, but after a few days, you realise the Landroid does an excellent job and always keeps your lawn looking tidy. No more looking out the window, thinking the lawn needs mowing.
We have chickens roaming in our yard, and I can assure you they are all alive and well because the Landroid avoided them. The chickens tend to dig small troughs in the dirt in which the Landroid gets stuck. A flat-level lawn with no divots would suit a Landroid.
The other major issue I had, unfortunately, was that my garden beds had a low sandstone irregular border. The Landroid kept getting its tail stuck on these low walls, eventually shutting itself down when it couldn’t remove itself.
At one point, our fig tree dropped large leaves on the lawn, which the mower avoided, which was both good and bad as they were seen as obstacles.
I could not test the cut-to-edge feature as my lawn does not have any straight edges. Looking underneath the mower, it does appear it would get within centimetres of the edge. However, this will not remove the need for a whipper snipper. I wonder how long it will be before we see a robot whipper snipper on the market.
Would I buy a robot lawn mower?
I want to buy one. I do not want to mow my lawn anymore. But! Although I am ready for a robot lawn mower, my backyard is not ready for it. I would need to redo 100 metres of garden edges, stop my chickens’ digging holes, and install a more suitable power solution to the charging base.
So, until I can easily overcome this, the robot lawn mower will continue to be my dream. All, however, is not lost as this autonomous mower continues to learn from all the mowers that are network-connected and regular software updates are issued. I believe software will probably fix my challenges.
Who is the Worx Landroid Vision for?
If you dabble with smart home robot vacuums, you will have confidence in robot lawn mowers. Suited to reasonably flat lawns with well-defined edges, the Worx Landroid Vision robot lawn mower will save you many hours each year.
At $3,000, it is a large outlay, considering cordless manual mowers cost much less. However, considering the 30-40 odd hours a year it will save you in mowing, it could pay for itself in a year.
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