We've had our robot lawnmower for 2 years. Was it worth the cost or one giant, expensive mistake?
Hey y'all hey its Ashley Renne and welcome back to my sustainable lifestyle and tech channel.
I regularly post videos about my smart home, my Tesla, and other topics related to sustainability
so if you're into that, hit that subscribe button and turn the notification bell on
so you never miss a new video. Today's video is all about my smart robot lawnmower.
With a robot lawnmower, you in theory will never have to mow the lawn again because
it will do all the work for you! 2 years ago we got the Husqvarna Automower 430X.
I'm going to share the many pros of this device, but also one extremely huge downside.
First the pros. It's quiet, weather-proof, consumes less energy,
and has zero emissions unlike gas powered lawnmowers which emit tons of toxic fumes
into the environment. With regular lawnmowers, the grass clippings collect in a bag that
you must empty, but with a robot lawn mower, you don't need one. Instead of removing the clippings,
they are mulched into very fine pieces and are returned to the lawn. Because the clippings
are so fine, they drop down to soil level as nutrients to the soil for helping the grass grow.
It made for a nice little addition to our arsenal of smart home technology.
Much like our smart robot vacuum, this is a device we could automate by scheduling
it to operate from our phones so it can run on its own. And because it's weather-proof,
it did it's thing every day rain or shine. It even has anti-theft technology to keep
someone from running off with it while it's busy mowing the lawn. And for awhile it was
great - my husband was able to sit back and relax and take lawnmowing off his list of things to do.
It's important to know how this works to determine
if this will make sense for you. The robot lawnmower responds to a boundary wire that
is set up around the perimeter of the lawn. The boundary wire emits an electro- magnetic signal
for limiting the operating area of the mower, which allows it to move
randomly within the boundary wire. The system is simple and mostly reliable as long as that wire
doesn't get cut - which bring me to the main thing that can go wrong for you like it did for us.
Like I said the boundary wire system is pretty straitforward. You can loosely lay the wire out
around your lawn on top of the grass or you can bury it. We had professionals come out and bury
ours - on 3 separate occasions. Why 3 you may ask? The first time was for the initial installation.
The second time, the wire got cut while we were having our lawn aerated. The third time, the wire
got cut AGAIN for reasons we still don't know. It's a mystery to this day. Now in some cases a
cut doesn't necessarily mean you have to re-wire the perimeter. If it's just one cut, you might be
able to easily repair it. In our case, the wire was cut in numerous locations making it necessary
to pay for it to be re-wired. And now, after doing some Landscaping in our backyard earlier
this week, the wire has now been cut AGAIN. It may be an easy cut to fix, but if not we'll have
to pay someone to come out to re-wire it for a 4th time. These fixes are adding up.
So if you're in the market for a robot lawnmower. By all means, get one. They come with a lot of
benefits. But you should also know potential drawbacks before you do and that's been one of
ours. Really it's the only complaint we have about it. If it weren't for the wire getting cut several
times, I'd have nothing but great things to say about it. So what about you? Is this something you
think you can deal with - or is it a deal breaker. Let me know your thoughts in a comment down below.
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videos just like this. I’ll catch ya next week in a new video and until then, stay green y’all.