Hey, what's up? Sami here.
Today I'm going to be reviewing the Conga (G1)
This one.
This is not a turtle.
It is an AI-Powered Autonomous Robotic Lawn Mower.
Yeah, that's it.
So how "AI" is it? And what's special about it?
Let's take get started! Shall we?
Alright, first things first, I want to start off by saying that the unit we were testing was a prototype
and because we only had limited time to test this machine with one moderate-sized 240㎡ lawn,
some features like the “Multi-zone mowing” that they mention in their official video
I was unable to test and tell you how it is.
But be assured, I guarantee you this is an informative and honest review video,
and as always I’ve put the pros and cons at the end of this video.
Please stick around to the end for that.
The first thing you will notice about the Conga Lawn Mower is its streamlined design,
which looks high-tech to me.
They told me that it was inspired by that Venom movie.
OK, at least not by a turtle or something.
Anyway, on the back of the outer shell, we have five buttons
that include emergency Stop and Start keys, etc.
We’ll get to that later.
Below are the indicators for Wi-Fi, Working Modes, and Battery status.
Moving to the front, it sports 3 HDR Cameras.
Two lie on the side and one on the front,
that’s the key features where this Conga outperforms others,
it uses these 3 cameras to visually map surroundings
and avoid objects in front of it.
There are two LED lights on the front,
which they use for improved night vision, though I haven’t tested that at night.
I mean who would want to mow their lawns at night when it’s just such an enjoyment
to watch or to play with it in broad daylight?
We can also see the comb structures in front of the Conga,
which should be able to handle thick and tall grass easily.
The Conga has two main off-road tires,
which should be enough to deal with most of your lawns.
There are a further two more small wheels under the bottom as well.
Then is one of the important parts of this machine, the blade system.
The height is adjustable, so you can adjust it according to your grass length.
The blades are also swappable and they are actually safe
because if they hit something hard, they just retract.
The distance between the blade and the edge of the mower body is 8cm,
which abides by safety regulations.
Lastly is the power switch key and also a handle.
Regarding usability. Turn on the power switch, you will hear a beep,
the indicators will light up. Then you can start the machine by pressing the Start key on the APP,
we’ll get to that in a second,
or press the Auto key, you see the mode indicator flashes,
and then the Start key on the Conga to let it start.
Unlike most other robot lawnmowers on the market today that may need you to install some sort of
boundary wires first in your lawn in order to prevent it from wandering to your neighbor’s lawn,
the Conga doesn’t need to.
First I was skeptical about that but you know the lawn we were testing
was beside a small lake. I mean if it falls to the lake,
then much less work for me as I don’t need to make this video.
That didn’t happen though. To my surprise, it just did what it said.
As you can see from the video, it first mapped out a lap according to
the perimeter of my lawn and it just did that accurately.
Somehow it magically managed to
differentiate the boundary between the lawn and the sidewalk.
Not only that,
it knows how to walk along a corner whether it’s right-angled or curved,
turn around when it detected a rock, or whatever obstacles my mom put there.
The Conga just nailed it.
If I wasn’t there I wouldn’t believe it could do such an amazing job!
After the first lap, the machine confined the working area
and then started to cut the grass in a Zig-zag route,
exactly like many modern robot vacuum cleaners that I’ve tested.
I am so glad it didn’t run randomly like an idiot.
The first time I saw their official video I was kind of worried about the gap between each line,
but you don’t have to, it did a fairly good job and you don’t need to concern yourself
about it being lazy and unable to cut the grass between the lines,
the lines are quite dense.
All robot mowers don’t have bags. They mulch the grass which is fine
because it allows them to keep mowing continuously.
But what’s cool about this Conga
is you can actually cut from 0.98 inches all the way to 3.3 inches tall,
that’s very unusual for robotic mowers to cut that high as mostly do only around 2.5 inches,
but the Conga was able to do that by making the mechanism itself rise out of the mower.
But the million-dollar question is: Is the Conga any good?
How is the overall cutting ability?
Well, if you think it’s going to cut your lawn like a conventional backpack lawn
mower or something, you are totally wrong!
And I just don’t think any smart and compact lawn mower
on the market can ever do that now or even in the future. That’s just not going to happen.
But if you think it as a light maintenance machine for your lawn and you want it to cut
your lawn every now and then and just enjoy your life, the Conga has done a great job.
We shot the review around noon, but we can still see clear stripes when it’s cutting through the lawn.
That means it has a fairly decent amount of power to really cut the grass
that is just impossible for many other robotic lawnmowers.
I’ve got to be honest with you that though it’s my first time to review this kind of machine,
I’ve watched many other review videos of other brands,
even for those more expensive and big name brands, they just don’t compare to the Conga.
One thing you need to pay attention to is clearing most of the small objects
like thin wood plate or small tree branches away first. It’s good for the blades as well.
This is exactly the same as a robot vacuum cleaner, no matter how advanced they are,
you always have to remove wires or small toys on your floor before you use them.
Another thing you may be concerned about is safety and it’s actually pretty good.
The Conga has a few features that make it a lot safer.
First you’ve got a giant Stop button on the top so
if anything happens that you don’t want at any time, you just reach over and press that button
and everything on the mower stops.
But the better and more important one is the automatic mechanism.
It has great object avoidance ability that I’ve mentioned before,
it doesn’t even need to bump or touch the object to avoid.
It works just great if it runs into a person or even a small object.
The Conga also offers an “Anti-theft” feature. Once it detects it has left the area,
it will sound an alarm.
Your phone App will also pop up a message to remind you of that.
Speaking of the App, though it’s still in its early stages,
I’d like to give you a quick glimpse of it. You can start the machine,
or check out the map from the homepage, you can either choose to load a map or create a map.
Here one of the fun things is you can switch to the manual mode, so if you want to have
a bit fun with it, you can. It’s like a giant RC car. It’s responsive and accurate actually.
Schedule a date. Choose the blade height etc.
For other features, the Conga has auto-recharging. Oh, speaking of that, let me mention the battery life.
The battery on the Conga we were testing was 4.4Ah,
theoretically, it will cut 700㎡ on a single charge.
The lawn we were testing was around 240㎡ and I never ran out of battery.
The battery is swappable as well.
You can even swap to a bigger 5.2Ah battery,
which mows an area up to 850㎡ on one full charge.
That’s crazy.
IPX6 waterproof. There’s actually been very little grass buildup
after our day-long testing. I’m happy it’s easy to maintain.
Another thing is the machine also works on a max 30° slope of the lawn. Though I’m
unable to test that the official channel did put a video about that.
To conclude, the Conga did a great job, it didn’t just get the grass cut, it really looked good and
I didn’t have to do anything the whole time it was running.
Personally, I always love this kind of smart robot.
I have five robot vacuum cleaners at home, even a swimming pool cleaner.
Because I never liked cleaning work, and if you are like me and just want to spend more time
enjoying your lawn and less time working on it,
I found this Conga is a smart, easy-to-use, and practical robotic lawn mower for you.
There is no need to mess around with boundary wires here and there
and that smart visual AI technology gives you the best mapping and obstacle avoidance.
Great grass-cutting ability.
And the best part is the price.
Starting at $799, for this world’s first Vision AI Mapping lawn mower,
it is unprecedented, a game changer.
If you check those much more expensive smart lawnmowers,
you have to add this kit or that accessory to be “smarter”.
Now the Conga is a great value and gives you a lot for the money
and the machine is actually practical.
I think that’s quite affordable. Because if you are
paying someone to cut your grass each week, and surprisingly, this could actually pay for itself.
Of course, I always point out the cons when reviewing a product. If I have to mention one then
is the Conga is a crowdfunding product, as much as you want to get this product to mow your lawn, you
will still have to wait for a few months to get it delivered. But good things are worth waiting for,
aren't they?
Alright, that's the video. I hope you enjoyed watching it as much as I enjoyed using it.
If you are interested in this Conga Lawn Mower,
please find out the link in the description and back the project now!
Thanks for watching. I'm Sami and I will see you in the next one!