Product Description
Amazon.com
The Robomower is convenient, easy, robotic, and clean--and it transforms the world of yard work! Set up (once), turn on, and the Robomower cuts the grass on almost any surface--all by itself. Getting the system set up in your yard can take most of an afternoon, but the well-written manual makes the job easier. The biggest part of the set-up task is stringing the perimeter wire around your yard, marking the boundaries the Robomower will stay within. Once you're set, and the mower is on, the machine simply senses the perimeter wire and uses three mulching blades to cut down everything inside the wire. Thanks to the onboard computer, the Robomower can even learn parts of your yard as it mows, making it quicker next time. The mower is quiet, automatic, and the mulching blades mean that when it's done you don't need to bag or rake.
The Robomower is outfitted with safety features. It won't run at all if it's flipped over with the blades exposed. Likewise, it turns tail and backs off if its soft 360-degree bumpers encounter any foreign object (like a pet or toy or favorite rose bush). A theft deterrent system keeps the unit safe. The Robomower is very quiet compared to other lawn mowers, although because it takes longer to get the job done than a human with a walk-behind mower, what noise there is lasts longer. The mower works best on level yards smaller than 3,200 square feet, with the grass reasonably tame to begin with. It does not work well on hilly or overgrown yards. While it takes a full day to recharge the battery, a full charge is enough to mow most lawns. (The mower is definitely no lightweight, either; it takes two people to remove the machine from the box when it arrives.) The Robomower is definitely a smart idea for folks with physical conditions that make strenuous activities like mowing difficult, but it's also a great product for anyone who feels like there's always something better to do with a weekend afternoon than lawn mowing. Rechargeable power pack comes included.--Brian Trinen
Product Description
The green colored Friendly Robotics Model RL850 Robomower - Fast is a fully automatic lawnmower designed to mow your lawn entirely by itself. Just press the button, and it begins circling your yard, cutting and mulching the grass. This can handle any lawn, regardless of shape, slope, and obstacles. The Robotic Lawn Mower mulches the grass as it mows and creates a more healthy lawn. It travels on the lawn in a systematic criss-cross pattern, covering the lawn several times from side to side to ensure that the entire yard is covered and the grass is cut from several angles. This safe, quiet, and environmentally friendly Robotic Lawn Mower does not require gas or oil and provides the highest quality of mowing. It features solid construction and comes with everything needed to set up safety features like sensor-equipped bumpers, mower lift detection, and child lock.Customer Reviews
| By | J. Beacher "Programmer" (Atlanta, GA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME) |
RoboMower erased all my fears. Would it take too long to mow since it would cut a random pattern? No, RoboMower methodically cut my almost-square front lawn row by row, just like I would have done. Would it lack enough power to cut front and back lawns, about 600 feet of perimeter? No, it can do both on one battery charge! Would I need the rapid charger? No, charging over night works OK since it cuts faster than I expected. Could it handle my still wet grass without clogging? Yes, it cut fine with no grass build-up under the blade areas. Could it handle the slope in my back yard? No problem!
Things the manual didn t tell me that I wish it had:
1) On sweeping curves the wire needs to be placed closer than the supplied ruler and instructions indicate. I moved it 3-4 closer to the edge, otherwise the RoboMower makes turns too wide. The tighter the turn the closer the wire needs to be. Plan on tweaking wires on curves a lot when testing!
2) When you place the wire down the first time, lightly place the stakes, as I found I moved about one in three. When you move one, at that point you ll have either too much slack or not enough. To adjust slack you ll need to pull the wire through many stakes. Don t expect to tug wire through several stakes at once the insulation will split on a snug stake and you ll have a bare spot! Carefully work slack under each stake. Be sure to leave enough spare wire at BOTH ends of your loop so you can provide slack on either side as needed. If only one side has extra wire, you may have to pull slack through almost all your stakes.
3) You want stakes loose when testing to adjust slack, but if you leave the wire too high off the ground and turn the blades on by mistake you ll cut the wire.
4) When I first tested, over a straight stretch of 30 feet I tried just one stake at each end, pulling the wire taught to the ground. That didn t work the mower can still swish the wire left or right an inch or two and not run the course you intended to test. You ll need the wire snug enough so the mower can t shift it. A stake every 10 feet or so solves that.
5) None of the literature or their website tells you RoboMower comes with only two perimeter wire connectors so you can create only two zones. If you need more you need to order the connector accessory kit.
6) You may need more wire than you think. I had carefully precalculated I would need only 450 feet, so I didn t buy extra wire from Amazon in advance. Turns out on mowing day the 500 foot roll wasn t enough (curves gobble up wire!) so I was running around town searching for more. I tried Sears who sells RoboMower but has no wire. Sears sent me to Home Depot saying any 18-22 gauge copper wire would work. Well, HD doesn t have wire that small!. I finally found it at the Hoover Store, since Hoover stores service RoboMower (and will soon sell the to-be-announced Friendly Robotics Vacuum.)
My front yard is 1800 feet, almost a rectangle with three sweeping curves. RoboMower cuts that in 35 minutes row-by-row from house to curb, like I would in one pass, in a methodical manor perpendicular to the street leaving no uncut areas between rows. But the mowing pattern it uses on my 3600-foot rear yard is quite different. First it cuts at a 45-degree angle leaving uncut areas between the rows it cuts. When done with this first pass, it shifts 90-degrees to cut across the first rows, catching some uncut spaces but not all. Then it shifts again, hoping to catch more uncut areas. This behavior means some areas are cut repeatedly so it needs about two hours to mow the rear yard.
Mowing efficiency has a lot to do with where you train it to leave the edge to start mowing inside. When it starts mowing, it seems to ponder about what kind of area it is within. If started in a small leg off your main lawn and it keeps bumping the wire time and again after a short distance, it does into a different behavior than if it starts within a very large area and encounters the wire infrequently. However it starts seems to be how it will continue to mow, seemingly choosing the pattern it thinks fits what it first encountered. So, I m experimenting with the learn perimeter function to teach it exactly how far to trim the edge before turning inside the lawn. My theory is if I start the mower in the same spot each time, and teach it to leave edge trimming in the correct place, it will always choose the better pattern for my lawn. If you start it in a different spot each time it may mow less efficiently at times. So, like a child, RoboMower needs a little advice.
I d rate this among the most fabulous purchases of my lifetime. The biggest problems: feeling guilty because you re doing no work and dealing with your neighbors who stop to watch you watching your mower at work.
| By | Cave Arnold (Zachary, LA USA) - See all my reviews |
While researching the RL800, I was always looking for practical details on the size of yards that had been successfully mowed by the RoboMower. For any who are interested the details of my yard are in the next paragraph.
I have a large yard 22,749 sq. ft., which is mostly centipede grass although near the fence line there are a number of weeds and Rye that grows pretty thick and tall (4-5 inches in some isolated areas). I subdivided this into 5 zones each approximately 4,500 sq. ft. I live in Louisiana so the land is flat, but there is a 10-15 degree incline along about 30' of the rear of the house. The RoboMower handles it like a champ. I was a bit concerned about some tree roots that protruded from the ground a bit less than 1", but no problem. I have the RL800 set to mow at 1.5" and the rear wheels at their highest setting and it goes right over the roots of a few large pine trees. I was also concerned about pine cones, even though I pick these up before mowing sometimes I miss one or one will fall if it is a windy day. The RL800 has hit only one in the first ten zones it has mowed, but it chewed the side off of it and the blades are still sharp. I do not recommend that you do not try to pick up stray sticks and pine cones, but if you happen to miss one the RL800 seems resilient enough to take it and keep on going. I ordered the sped charger and another battery at the same time I ordered the RL800, but have not received them yet. Currently, I mow a zone a day (or night). When I get home from work if it is dry I pick up around a zone and start the RL800 about 5:00-5:30. I have it set to max run time, but usually it does a good job after 3 hours of work and I go out and stop it and take back inside the shop to recharge. When I get the fast charger I will post another review to say how that affects the over all efficiency of mowing with the RoboMower. ...
