Introduction and design
When it comes to menial household tasks that could really use the help of a small, robotic automaton, mowing the lawns is right up there with vacuuming.
While robotic vacuums have become somewhat normal, with companies like Roomba pioneering the market and major technology companies like Samsung and LG joining the fray, robotic lawn mowers represent a much less crowded marketplace.
It's true that robotic lawnmowers have been around for a few years, but the Landroid from Worx is notable for its $1,199 asking price, putting it into an affordable price bracket.
Like other robotic lawnmowers, the Landroid uses spinning razor blades to slice the top of the grass, as opposed to traditional mowers which hack the grass.
The idea is that regular slicing of the grass both reduces the stress on the lawn, and as an added benefit fertilising it with the grass cuttings.
But is it worth it? Does the cost of a $1,200 lawnmower pay for itself? The answer, ultimately depends on your lawn.
Design
The Worx Landroid M is a compact little beast. At 8.5kg, it's light enough to pick up and carry around (not that you'd want to, really).
More importantly though for that weight is the fact it can drive around on your lawn after a downpour. Where a traditional mower, with its big heavy blades and metal body, gets bogged down in the moist earth, the Landroid's lightweight body practically glides across as it slices.
The compact 55 x 37 x 26cm frame means that the Landroid stays fairly discreet while it's doing its job. It's small enough to work its way around narrow passages, although that does depend on just how narrow the passage is.
From the outside, the most notable aspect of the mower is the massive "Stop" button towards the back. Above it, a weatherproof casing covers the Landroid's main controls, which include dedicated buttons for Start, Power, finding the charging base and a numeric keypad, among others.
A small LCD screen also sits here, giving feedback on how much charge is left, as well as letting you program everything about the mower's performance.
It does act as an additional safety feature though, as the blades are nowhere near the edges of the mower, making it nigh on impossible to lose a digit if you try and pick up the Landroid mid-mow.
The traditional Worx orange and black colour scheme works well, making the mower highly visible. Of course, that's not going to make too much of a difference if you have it running at night, but at least it doesn't look terrible.
The other major component of the Landroid is its base station. The black plastic base isn't going to stand out as the highlight of your lawn – it has a weird handle on the side which seems kind of pointless given the plate is screwed down into the earth.
Cleverly, the mower can back up and change angles if it doesn't come in right first time, so keeping it charged generally isn't a concern.
Set up and Performance
Unlike robotic vacuum cleaners, which bounce around the inside of a house off walls and furniture, the Landroid isn't just a plug and play device. Unfortunately, you need to do a bit of manual labour to set it up before you can hand off the task of lawnmowing to our robotic underlings.
The main task involved is laying the boundary wire around the perimeter of your lawn. For the review, I just hammered it down with the supplied pegs on top of the grass, but Worx actually recommends you bury it just below the surface.
This approach would have the benefit of removing any indication that the boundary wire is actually present, as well as taking away any chance the mower might accidentally slice the wire should it not be pegged down properly.
The downside of this is that it means you'll still need to run a whipper-snipper around the edges of your lawn to keep things properly tidy. So the dreams of a perfectly manicured lawn with zero effort are still just dreams, at least until Worx comes up with a robotic line trimmer.
There is a danger, unfortunately, that you can lay the boundary wire too close to the edge of the lawn – especially in corners – which will result in the mower being unable to return to the base and getting stuck.
I had this problem in one such corner location, and while I could easily move that corner peg to adjust the mower's path, it meant a bit of slack in the wire that required me to pull the cable through the entire boundary again.
The point here is that for you to get the absolute benefit out of the Landroid mower, you need to prepare as much as possible. Setting up the boundary wire before you lay fresh turf would be a great idea, but you need to ensure the mower can navigate around the full boundary before you bury the wire under fresh grass.
While we're discussing the base plate, it's worth noting that it plugs into a standard wall plug, and comes with a fairly long power cable. If you need that length you're in luck, but if you have a powerpoint in close proximity to where you'll store the base, ensure it's not going to run onto the grass where the Landroid's razor blades can run over and slice through.
Should you lose power, the boundary wire won't be found and the Landroid won't work, so keeping it connected is essential for operation.
Performance
The Landroid is capable of trimming your lawns to a height anywhere between 20-60mm, using a large dial under the weatherproof control cover.
If you're starting on longer lawns, the manual recommends you start the Landroid at a higher setting, and gradually lower it down to your desired height so you don't stress the grass too much.
The other reason to do this is the fact that the Landroid doesn't collect the clippings for you to mulch down the track. Instead it leaves it lying on the grass, fertilising as it goes.
But if the cut grass is too big, you're likely to end up with unsightly collections of dead grass lying around your lawn. It will sort itself out eventually, but initially may not look the best on your newly maintained lawns.
The Landroid mows by randomly roving around your yard, eventually covering it all via sheer robotic tenacity. Thanks to some sensors in the lawnmower's body, it simply works around obstacles like trees or dogs or feet.
The sensors aren't perfect though. If you have any low obstacles that don't firmly block the front of the Landroid – like the base of a trampoline, in my case – the Landroid won't stop. Instead, it will power over the top, get stuck, snap a razor blade and beep when it can't move.
It will also mow straight over the top of anything left on the grass. Not so much an issue for things like missed dog poop (although you probably want to try and avoid having that stuff sliced by the mower) but a plastic cup that blew out on my lawn overnight ended up in a thousand bright blue pictures when the mower went over it in the morning.
There's also an issue with the boundary. Because of the size of the mower, the boundary wire needs to be at least 35cm from the edge of your lawn when you install it. But this leaves about 20cm around the edge of your lawn that just doesn't get mowed at all.
If you have an awkwardly shaped yard, there's also potential for some mowing challenges. To get between two sections of our test yard for example, the Landroid needed to find its way between a gap that's about 90cm wide.
While it easily fit through that gap physically, the fact that there was only about 15cm between the boundary wires meant the mower didn't get into that section very often at all over the testing period. (To be fair, Worx recommends a gap of about 2 metres)
And on occasions it did get through the gap, it often didn't have enough battery power to do the whole section before it had to return to the base.
This becomes slightly more problematic if you want the Landroid to mow both front and back lawns, or two separate sections of a yard. It's certainly possible to lay out the boundary wire to do this, but the only way the mower will be able to return to the charging base is if you pick it up and physically move it.
If the battery is flat, there's a good chance the alarm won't work. If someone pinches the mower they won't be able to get it to work (unless they guess the PIN code).
In any case, it does add a level of inconvenience and insecurity to the general simplicity of the Landroid system.
Verdict
The automation of menial tasks is what robotics is made for, and nothing is more menial than mowing the lawns. Well, maybe vacuuming, but that's neither here nor there.
The Worx Landroid isn't the first robot lawnmower to market, but it does have plenty to offer. Once you get yourself over the initial set up, the mower just does its job fairly effortlessly.
It's not perfect – you'll invariably have to rescue it from itself at some point, but it will generally get the job done with minimal fuss.
We Liked
There's something reassuring in watching an autonomous vehicle wheeling around your yard, slicing your grass without any interaction from you.
The section of lawn that it cut during the review period never looked better maintained. It even started to green up a couple of dead patches that had struggled thanks to the presence of a trampoline.
The fact the Landroid is lightweight and easy to setup is great, and there are some other smart design decisions – like being able to use the blades in four different positions for maximum value for money – that really pay off.
We disliked
Frankly, the fact you still have to manually maintain the edges is a bit disappointing, especially when those sections of your lawn look so overgrown compared to the area the Landroid does take care of. Even a week shows a drastic difference between where the mower cut and didn't.
The fact the mower can't avoid obstacles lower than 15cm is also concerning, especially for houses with things like trampolines or trees with exposed roots.
While you can work around tree roots by laying the boundary wire around it, trampolines are a slightly bigger issue, as they aren't fixed in place but are too large to constantly move around the yard while the Landroid mows.
And while the setup is essential, and isn't really something we "disliked" per se, it does highlight the importance of preparation in the set up process.
Final verdict
Having a robotic lawnmower autonomously keeping your lawn well manicured is an amazing experience. It frees up your weekend to focus on more important things.
The Landroid does a solid job of keeping your lawns in shape. With no interference whatsoever, it ensured that the test section of my lawn was kept in shape.
But it's the things that it doesn't do that makes you question if it's worth the $1,200 asking price. Like leaving overgrown edges around the yard, or not being able to avoid low obstacles like trampoline bases.
Overall, there's a lot to like about the Landroid. But whether you invest in one will largely depend on two things – just how easy it is to set up the Landroid's boundary wire in your yard, and also just how much you hate mowing the lawns.
from http://bit.ly/1wQPSvy
