“There’s a robot for that” is swiftly becoming the new “there’s an app for that” when it comes to home maintenance. First it was vacuum cleaners, now mowers, window cleaners and pool cleaners. Of course, being a well-known brand in the robotics space, Ecovacs was among the first to launch a mower. Now, a few years on, the brand has a range that extends from the simple Goat O600 RTK (which uses real-time kinematic positioning to know where it is, guided by base stations and satellites), to the LiDAR-enabled A2000.
I’ve been trialling the two robots for a few months now, and the Ecovacs Goat O600 RTK is by far my favourite for smaller, more simple lawns.
First impressions
The Ecovacs Goat O600 RTK is much easier set up compared to previous generations of the brand’s robotic mowers. I constructed its little charging house, followed the instructions to prepare and set up the mower, put the RTK station in a spot where it could see the sky, but not get in the way of the mowing, and then started mapping.
One of the big headline features of the new Ecovacs Goat mowers is that they can do the mapping themselves, much like a robot vacuum cleaner can. I set the Goat O600 RTK to map my dad’s small, enclosed courtyard. It’s a very simple yard with two lawn patches, a BBQ on the pavers, and two trees.
The Goat O600 gave it a red hot go. I was impressed by how hard it tried. But it was far too timid to get up close to the bricks of the raised garden beds, so I ended up having to map manually using the app as a remote control. Not the most painful experience ever, just not as frictionless as I had hoped.
Ecovacs Goat O600 RTK specifications and price
| Navigation technology | RTK + Camera (TrueMapping 2.0: Multi-fusion RTK Navigation) |
| Obstacle Avoidance | AI Camera |
| Cutting height and width | Height: 30mm-80mm Width: 19cm |
| Battery | 4,000mAh Lithium-ion (works out to around two hours working time before it returns to charge) |
| Station dimension (mm） | 706 x 430 x 285mm |
| Mowing area | Up to 600m² |
| Water resistance | IPX6 |
| Price | $1,299 |
| Warranty | Three years in addition to your Australian Consumer Law rights |
| Manufacturer’s website | Ecovacs Australia |
Mowing
I really love watching this little mower work. It’s just so cute. It’s relatively quiet, and it just goes out and does its thing. I had (incorrectly) assumed it would just focus on mowing the grass and would be able to sense when it was transiting across paved pathways, but it cannot. The mower’s blades keep spinning, even when on pavers, which doesn’t cause any issues; it just takes a bit longer to complete mowing while it moves up and down the paved areas.
It takes around 2.2 hours to mow 226m², which is pretty good.
While it is able to get quite close to the edges of raised garden beds and whatnot, it still can’t get quite close enough to eliminate the need to whipper snipper, which I can live with.
The Goat O600 is hardly an all-terrain vehicle, but it does do quite well with the uneven ground near the large tree roots, which is nice. I also really appreciate the rain sensor, and it’s great that it’s able to go back to its little house and wait out the rain before going out again. I wish it also had a moisture detector for the ground, so it could get less grass caught in its undercarriage.
It’s also really annoying that there’s no capacity for the charging dock to get mud out of the wheels. It would have been nice if there was some more corrugation on the base to get the bulk of the mud out of the tread of the wheels for when it does mow wet ground.
Maintenance
This is where things get a bit annoying. While the Ecovacs Goat A2000 LiDAR in the back garden is constantly throwing up errors and needing assistance, the O600 quietly drowns. It’s gotten caught on a few fallen sticks and plaintively called for help, which is good. But there have been multiple times where it’s needed a PIN after a software update, or needed a PIN after having a mow ended early (via the app, which shouldn’t require a PIN input), and it just hasn’t told anyone.
I have these mowers helping my 80-year-old dad maintain his property while we wait for it to sell, so I’m not always there to check that they’re doing their job. I imagine a lot of adult children will be buying these mowers for their older parents to help. Checking in the app and discovering it hasn’t mowed for more than two weeks because it didn’t tell anyone it wanted a PIN input is just annoying. Forcing a PIN input after an automatic software update (without a notification) is also annoying.
Aside from that frustration, the main maintenance required is to occasionally remove grass and mud build-up from the undercarriage (which you can use a hose to do), and replace the blades as needed (roughly every 85 hours of mowing). Replacement blade packs cost $29.90.
Reliability
In a simple, flat yard with minimal obstacles, which rarely has small children running around in it, the Goat O600 RTK is excellent. I like it so, so much more than the A2000 LiDAR, even though the A2000 can do more and is more powerful.
Is it because the O600 RTK is better? Or because the A2000 is in a more complicated operating area (there’s a wombat that’s put some dents in the lawn and there are some gentle slopes), which it struggles with? I have no doubt that the O600 RTK would also struggle in a more complicated lawn environment.
But, because it’s in the least complicated lawn, and has a good view of the sky, the O600 RTK is the second most reliable mower I’m currently testing (with the $3,999 Mova LiDAX Ultra 2000 AWD being the best).
Who is the Ecovacs Goat O600 RTK for?
This is such a great, simple mower for people with simple lawns (up to 600m²), who do not want to mow them. In this situation, the Ecovacs Goat O600 RTK is the absolute best choice of robot mower available.
The Ecovacs Goat O600 RTK thrives when presented with a flat lawn, and given access to humans willing to clear branches and put in the PIN when required. Those with more complicated lawns, or who are surrounded by high rise buildings, would do better with a more high-tech option.
It’s not quite set and forget; however, with occasional input from you, it means you’ll never have to manually mow again, and that’s the dream.
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