The summer and its rabid heat is here and i still have a lot of lawn that hasnt been replaced by gardens yet (work in progress) and grows super fast
Im trying to get better and decouple myself from cloud services, but my searches for what robotic lawn mowers are self hostable/dont require wan isnt giving me confidence
I might just deal with the heat and get a push mower and deal with it, but if anyone has experience with a good local-only robotic lawn mower, or which ones to avoid - id love to hear it
there are a couple of projects I’ve seen, and surely people will fork off one of the open robo-vac projects to spin knives.
Robot mowers are in this grey area where if you have a big enough area to mow that you cant walk it in 15-30 minutes with a push mower, you could get a small riding mower for the same price, and now you also have a handy tractor too.
I like them, but that’s because i’m a lazy tech head, but just like high end robot vacuums they seem like one of those things that you spend good money on, they work reasonably well for a while, then break and are unfixable and the company behind them doesn’t help.
that said… there is a decent crossover in the region of “lazy tech head” and “enough disposable income” that would use a robot mower on a small lawn.
My front yard takes over an hour with a push mower and the terrain is too complex for a ride mower. I’d be curious if I’d be the exception, unless the robot mowers are terrible at landscape changes like a robot vacuum would be. Including some boulders… But maybe still cheaper to hire some kid if I get that far on the lazy scale.
Mine runs really well in my somewhat complex yard. I have a firepit with an angled bench, a dugout trampoline, a swing set, several randomly placed trees, and currently an aboveground pool with solar heater in my yard. None of these things are mapped out, I only mapped the edge of my yard with it. It also handles my driveway which is partially covered in grass and accessible through a narrow gate (~10cm on either side of the mower when it passes through). For ~800€ I think it performs really well, and everything is fairly cramped in my 400sqrm yard, so lots of narrow passages for it to navigate.
Edit: I did modify it slightly by printing a larger disc for the knives so it cuts closer to the edge of the mower body.