What Is the Disadvantage of a Robotic Lawn Mower

Last Updated on November 18, 2024 by Duncan

As much as robotic lawn mowers free up your time, as you don’t need to spend time on your lawn mowing, they come with their set of disadvantages. These disadvantages include:

The lawnmowers are expensive

In the United States, the cost of a robotic mower ranges from roughly $800 in the lower pricing range to $5,000 in the upper price range. For the majority of lawns, however, a good robotic mower will cost roughly $1,500.

The size and type of lawnmower you need depends on a number of factors, including:

• Size of property
• Complexity of the property.
• Features on the robotic mower
• Quality of the robotic mower.

The size of the property has probably the greatest influence on the pricing. The larger the plot, the larger and more powerful the robotic mower should be.

You should note that there are robotic mowers that will only mow small areas of up to 200 square meters. Others are suited for larger areas (½ acre or more). Robotic mowers can handle up to 7 ½ acres of land.

The manufacturers’ requirements for area output typically imply that the robotic mower is in continuous operation for 15 hours each day, Monday through Friday. Before you buy your mower, keep in mind that this is usually not possible.

You must be wondering why robotic lawnmowers are that expensive, right? Well, in most cases, this is due to the lithium-ion battery. And the larger the battery, the more expensive the lawnmower is.

Some lawnmowers require more care.

Robotic mowers require more frequent cleaning than standard lawnmowers because they are continually in operation. Furthermore, the blades of robotic mowers with blade discs should be replaced every 1 to 3 months.

To be on the safe side, if anything goes wrong with the machine, you must first correct the problem. For example, the boundary wire may break if you accidently strike it with a shovel.

Installing the lawnmower has a learning curve.

Installing a robotic mower requires some work. Unfortunately, it is a little more involving than simply plugging it in and letting it do its job. The work you have to do also depends on whether you own a robotic mower with or without a boundary wire.

Installing a lawnmower with a boundary wire

Most manufacturers use robotic mowers with boundary wires. In addition to the boundary wire, you need to install a charging station and one or more guiding cables.  You must bury the boundary and guide wires just beneath the grass, which might be complicated.

You also must identify the ideal location for the charging station. You must fasten the station to the ground using the right hooks or screws, which normally does not take long.

You also should properly adjust the robotic mower. Many robotic mowers come with pre-programmed settings that they use to mow the lawn.

While this is the case, you may prefer to employ alternative settings, such as just allowing the robotic mower to mow in the morning. You may also want to switch off the rain sensor for specific reasons. You will then need to configure all of these options.

Installing a lawnmower without a boundary line

Models that run without a boundary wire require less installation work. In this case, you simply set up such a robotic mower on your lawn, turn it on, and off you go.

A grass sensor helps the mower recognize the borders of the yard. The significant advantage of these lawnmowers is that they require little or no installation effort.

In most cases, you only need to make a few minor changes to your garden to allow the robotic mower to operate properly. For example, if you have a pool or pond in your garden and use a robotic mower without a boundary wire, you should always encircle the water surface with a barrier to prevent the mower from unintentionally going into it (the grass sensor is less dependable than a boundary wire).

You may also wish to put a barrier in other areas of your yard for safety concerns, such as preventing the robotic mower from driving over the flower bed.

They have problems mowing steep slopes.

Extreme gradients force robotic mowers to work hard. This is because they are simply not designed for really steep hills. Either they can’t make it up the slope at all, they slip off, or their wheels start spinning, causing damage to the turf. Problems can arise when the grass is moist, the ground has softened, or there are a lot of leaves in the yard.

While this is the case, most robotic mowers can handle gradients of up to 25%. Meanwhile, there is already a large number of robotic mowers that can easily handle 35%.

At this stage, the variety of models available is beginning to dwindle. If your lawn has a steep slope, you need to research and find models that are designed for the steep areas. For example, Husqvarna continues to offer a wide selection of robotic mowers capable of coping with gradients of up to 45%.

If your lawnmower has significant limitations with mowing steep areas, you should get an additional off-road kit that provides even more grip, allowing the robotic mower to handle steeper hills and avoid slipping.

Another option to offer the robotic mower a better grip on steep terrain and protect the lawn from damage caused by spinning wheels is to employ so-called lawn protectors.

You need a complex lawnmower if you have a complex lawn

With a simple, rectangular garden, any robotic mower will do just fine. However, if the yard has weird angles and slopes, with several regions connected only by short pathways, a simple robotic mower cannot guarantee that each area will be mowed on a regular basis. It may fail to reach some locations or become stuck in others.

Such gardens necessitate equipment with more sophisticated navigation systems. Here are several examples:

• Bottleneck circuit.
• GPS navigation
• Multi zones

Devices with multi-zone circuitry are among the most affordable types, while those with adaptive circuitry are slightly more expensive, and GPS-supported robotic mowers require a significant investment.

You should take time to research and find the units that are best suited for your system.

You need to adjust your lawnmower, especially at the beginning

A robotic mower is a complicated piece of equipment. Due to this, you can’t just start using them after buying them. You have first to set them up.

Many robotic mowers come with an app that allows you to configure the mower. As you can guess, this makes configuration easier than if you had to use a little display on the device.

Many of these lawnmowers also feature presets for things like mowing times that you can change individually.

You should expect some initial adjusting time, which often depends on the complexity of the property, as well as the amount of configuration you need on your device.

You still have to trim the edges.

Many robotic mowers fail to cut all the way to the edge. This is because there is always a significant gap between the body and the mowing unit for safety reasons.

Due to this, there is a foot of grass that always goes beneath the mower.

Because of this margin, the mower must always travel slightly past the edge of the lawn to completely mow it. Of course, this is not always practicable if an obstruction, such as a house wall, flower bed, or hedge, is in the way.

The robotic mower will then collide with the obstacle unless you have put the boundary wire so that it does not collide but cannot mow the lawn all the way to the edge.

While this is the case, you should note that some robotic mowers have edge mowing capabilities. In edge mowing mode, these models travel along the outside of the boundary wire to mow the edge. Because their mowing unit is somewhat skewed, they may mow extremely near the edge.

Another option is to border the grass on the exterior with ground-level lawn edging stones that the robotic mower can drive over slightly. This allows the robot to mow straight up to the edge, even if it lacks an edge-mowing function.

They can sometimes offer more risk to humans and animals

Robotic mowers with sharp blades, like regular lawnmowers, operate beneath a shell and framework that humans and animals cannot penetrate.

Robotic mowers use a variety of safety devices to reduce the hazard potential, but the fact that a revolving blade disc moves around in the region quasi-uncontrolled remains a concern.

The robotic mower can injure children, pets, and other yard residents, such as wild rabbits. While this is the case, this risk can be reduced by scheduling appropriate mowing times.

For example, you can set the robotic mower to mow in the morning when the kids are not home or when your dog and cat are inside. Many small animals are also not typically seen in the yard at this time of day.

The robotic lawnmowers can be stolen.

Lawn robots are expensive gadgets, considerably more costly than a standard robotic mower, and they remain outside on the lawn day and night, fully accessible to anyone with access to the garden.

This, of course, carries a danger of theft. Although robotic mowers are equipped with a variety of anti-theft features, ranging from a basic alarm signal when unauthorized persons lift the robotic mower to GPS monitoring, you are not completely protected from theft.

Thankfully, there are numerous ways to safeguard your robotic mower against theft, such as using theft-proof rolling shutter garages or underground parking lots.

You can’t use them to mow two different lawns.

A standard lawnmower can easily handle two distinct lawns. When you’re finished with one side of the lawn, you simply unplug the mower, transfer it to the other yard, plug it in, and go!

This is not the case with a robotic mower. With a robotic mower, you have a minor issue. Without a connection, the robotic mower cannot move to the other area to mow. You can simply push a robotic mower across without a boundary wire (they require some maintenance anyway).

With a robotic mower equipped with boundary wire, you cannot mow two fully different regions in this manner. The robotic mower must return to the charging station on a regular basis to refuel. This implies you’ll also need a charging station in the second area.

While this is the case, with the robotic, you can’t put the mower at two distinct charging stations simultaneously. This means you’ll need another robotic mower for the second region. As a result, a robotic mower equipped with boundary wire is unable to mow two different areas.

The term “separated” refers to the fact that the robotic mower has no link with which to function. For example, if there is a sidewalk or the like, you can create a bottleneck circuit that the robotic mower will utilize to drive to the other location.

You have to remove toys and garden tools from the lawn

Although a robotic mower contains sensors to detect specific impediments, not everything on the grass is identified as an obstacle. Garden items such as rakes and shovels, as well as yard toys, might be run over.

This can cause harm to both the objects and the mowing unit of the robotic mower. As a result, it is critical to ensure that there are no loose objects in the yard that the robotic mower can run over.