I just bought a £160 Lidl parkside robot mower. It is probably the most basic mower there is, but it does the job splendidly.
My garden is on a 15% slope and has no issue going up even when the grass is wet.
It has no app and it runs on a wire boundary. You don't appreciate not having smart features until they start failing

I would tie a little red helium balloon to one, strap a speaker playing horror music and only send it out at night 😂😂😂

Just "installed" one in my daughter's "garden". She and her husband were never going to mow their grass, and it was always left up to me! The Navimow I gifted them works superbly and whilst it is early days I am confident the lawn will eventually improve after nigh on 4 years of partial neglect. Very versatile and scheduled to do its bit every Friday at 12.00 when no one is home. It still needs strimming on the edges, and I guess I'll be relegated to do the necessary so even now no escape!

I’ve had a Husquvarna Automower for 10 years.
It cuts randomly so there are no stripes. Use it constantly-say half the day-and it is shaving a mm of grass at a time. No clumps of grass. Your lawn improves. Moss disappears

I bought a Mammotion Yuka Mini last May and it’s the best investment I’ve ever made.  I now enjoy my garden as I potter about, trimming, weeding or just “smelling the roses”. No more stressing about the need for two dry days in a row to get the grass dry enough to mow, No more putting strain on my dicky hip and knee. No more having to maintain compost heaps for the cuttings.
The lawn itself has benefited greatly from the constant mulching and the moss is fighting a losing battle,
Oh and  if Flossie were to be stolen, I get an instant text warning that it has been lifted up, another to say it has left the designated area, and then one from the AirTag bolted into its frame showing where it is.   Not anyone else can use it as it automatically powers down and needs the PIN to reset it.

I had a pair of parkside boundary wire mowers, worked very well for a few years, but I upgraded to a mamotion mini 1500. I really don't like the fact that the max mappable area of the different models is just a software limit, but that is a matter of principle, it works great.

Stuart - great explaination and all - great video
I just thought - why do you not just raise the bottom ledger of your fence a few inches and robot mower could go straight under - nothing more to mow :-)

All good points. Some mowers will expand the cut area automatically. Nor do they all need to be manually driven around the perimeter. The phone /PC App shows the map and the position of the mower. No need to monitor it at all. Live view from the mower's own cameras. GPS tracking in the event of theft. It's all available from mid-price models. The transformation of most lawns by robot mowers is simply amazing. From fields, to large commercial grounds, schools, to tiny lawns. They all seem to improve dramatically. You have to see this to understand the change from ANY other form of mowing.

There's an advert running on youtube about a cloth that removes car scratches do you think you could test it for us.

Cheers in anticipation.

If you are still unsure and don't want to commit large sums to a robot yet,  may I recommend you prove their worth by buying a Lidl Parkside mower first. Only £150, but you'll soon see the benefits. Admittedly, it does need a wire, but once that is set up, you don't need to do more ongoing than you would with an expensive mower. I did this last year and this year upgraded to a Mammotion Luba 3 in March, safe in the knowledge that it wouldn't be a waste of £2400!
One justification you can use to convince yourself to spend so  much, especially if you mow a large area, is that a decent robot mower will cost a lot less than a ride on mower to buy...plus maintenance is a doddle!

Recently purchased the LawnMaster Ocumow 16 for under £300 quid, no app, no wires, just charge and insert battery, cuts for 4 hours. Ideal for small to medium size lawns…..GREAT vid 👍

Think I will stick to my good old mount field petrol mower and do it myself 👍

Thanks for the video. I’ve had a robot mower for six years and am largely pleased with its performance. It’s a Husqvarna and cuts about a quarter of an acre. I have it serviced annually and it’s been completely reliable. I change the blades frequently and cut frequently. The mower takes such a small amount of grass off each time there are no cuttings. So programmed frequency is key to overall lawn care.

Not being able to cut to the edge is an issue, but I don’t know of any machine that solves that issue.

We go away for extended holidays and Bob (the mower) handles the lawn perfectly, which was my main reason for wanting a robot mower.

I don’t mind about a boundary wire, once in its non issue unless you want to deeply scarify the lawn.

My advice would be stop watching it, programme a schedule and let it get on with its job. That’s the point isn’t it?

Ha! Flashback to 4 years ago when you did your unboxing of the Kellet mower! Told ya then to get an automower!😂

i prompted/hinted enough times when you were fawning over your reel mower to get a robot mower. Glad to hear you stuck with the robot long enough to see the idea behind it.
I'm now on season 6 of owning one, still occasionally watch it for an hour or two. Never gets boring.

to folks reading, you can start at the £400 with a worx landroid with an offset cutting disc that'll cut to within 5cm or so of the edge of your lawn. And contrary to what Stuart said, many of them allow you to change the map shape after the fact...possibly his experience in this is more related to the mower he..got. Theres also side entry/exit systems, so your mower doesnt do a 180deg turn when leaving the base.

I'll add, one more time...its not so much mowing...as clipping. Use it daily, it takes the new growth off..1mm..2mm? maybe 5mm? ...easy peasy, easy on the battery, no clippings visible, fully mulching.
They really should not be used in the fashion of a traditional mower, where you may leave the grass for two weeks then try lop off 10cm in one go. Not only isnt it good for the grass, you'll have to run the robot a few times for it to achieve what you want and then you'll be left thinking its rubbish.

Send it out everyday...I think I worked it out at 20p/day in electric for 3-4hours of mowing....just send it out everyday and your lawn looks the same, everyday, and you even forget about the bad old days of hurting your back lugging grass clippings about.

lastly, a cheaper, smaller robot is also a lighter robot. Which means it doesnt get stuck in the mud so much. If youre into dropping 4k, then you can now get 4wd ones...but if youre sending it out december and its a bit muddy and theres leaves about and you have dogs who make trails as they run about, you'll appreciate the lightest mower you could afford that'll still mow all your grass without getting stuck on a random stick thats fallen while trying to execute a turn.

I bought the entry level WorX Landroid with the boundary wire last year. Brilliant. A pain to put the wire down to begin, but bought another bag of pegs and used 1 peg per 30cm instead of the 60cm in the manual. 2 rectangular sections of lawn.
The edge bits that get left just get a wizz around boundary 10 minutes once per month with strimmer or proper lawn mower.
Sceptical at first but now would not go back. Just give it a rough cut after winter once at the beginning of the season. You can get some protective mesh to put on the high wear bits of lawn. The grass grows through and the mesh is invisible after a few weeks.

Let the strip grow under the fence I say. I think it will look quite good

I checked your Blix mower after the last video you did about it. It was horribly expensive. I have since purchased a mammotion YUKA (£550 on amazon in December). Its fantastic for a fraction of the price of your blix and you can edit mowing areas in the app.

Why don't you turn you base station 90 degrees ? let it come out on the patio

Loved that, thanks Stuart. Hopefully as it proves itself to you, like all good employees, you will lose the need to micro-manage it! I like that it’s quiet - have lost track of the number of times I sit in the garden to enjoy the sunshine only to quickly go back inside to escape the endless cycle of various neighbours’ mowers, strimmers, leaf blowers, hedge trimmers, jet washers...