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Your lawn’s Roomba • How they work • Analyze your lot • App use • Features to consider
Self-propelled, rechargeable robotic lawn mowers not only cut grass and distribute clippings evenly for healthier turf, these Roombas for your lawn also ditch the gas and are far quieter than power mowers.
If you’re ready to throw in the towel on mowing but hiring out isn’t in your budget, a robo-mower could be the answer. This diminutive lawn guy will work almost every day to keep your grass manicured.
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“Robotic lawn mowers can make a physically taxing chore significantly easier,” says Jodhaira Rodriguez, expert product tester for the Consumer Reports Rapid Response Team. “With a robotic lawn mower, there’s no need to spend hours in the hot sun listening to the constant, loud buzz of a traditional mower.”
You don’t have to be home at all, thanks to apps that let you set the robot to mow on a schedule.
What to expect from robotic mowers
While models from several manufacturers are available, most robot mowers work similarly. You or a professional installer set up a boundary wire around or a few inches below the lawn to define the mowing area. This prevents the machine from straying into your garden, a neighbor’s grass or the sidewalk.
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As with a robot vacuum, a robot mower’s onboard sensors detect obstacles, such as trees, and it navigates around them. Side guards on the machine protect you and pets from contact with the blades.
Wireless mowing. A new crop of mowers uses GPS satellites or onboard cameras to operate without a boundary wire. Most are battery powered, so the autonomous lawn mower drives back to its base to recharge and in most cases returns where it left off once it’s juiced up.
If you like being a supervisor, you can control your robotic lawn mower from inside using your smart speaker or a smartphone app through Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. Or you can tap the start and stop button on top of the unit.
Quieter cuts. You’ll notice the difference between the electric machine and your old gas-powered mower just by listening. Most models run between 60 and 70 decibels (dB), the equivalent of normal conversation.
Power mowers top 100 dB, and measuring decibels isn’t linear. Each 10 dB spread doubles the volume, so 100 dB is eight times louder than the noisiest robotic mower, and 16 times louder than the quietest. People who spend all day using power mowers or listening to them up close risk hearing loss.
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