I’ve been using this robot mower for a year, and can’t go back to a manual lawnmower

ZDNET’s key takeaways

• The Mammotion Luba 2 3000H is out there for $2,499.
• Constructed to deal with uneven terrain, the Luba 2 is an all-wheel-drive (AWD) dependable robotic mower with a GPS-powered perimeter that’s surprisingly straightforward to arrange. 
• The Mammotion app is just not very user-friendly and may get buggy after a firmware replace.

Mowing the garden is certainly one of my favourite chores. It lets me concentrate on an uninterrupted activity that satisfies my OCD, with the bonus of finishing my train ring on my Apple Watch. However although it is a chore I take pleasure in, it nonetheless steals a few hours away from my all-too-short weekend.

That is the place the Mammotion Luba 2 is available in. Think about the scene: you are taking the canine out for a stroll and are available residence to a wonderfully mowed garden regardless of it being an overgrown mess simply an hour earlier than. Whilst you had been gone, the robotic mower took care of the unruly grass and left a lovely checkered sample in its wake. I am glad to say that this dream turned a actuality with the Luba 2, and though it has its quirks, it handles the chore of garden mowing with effectivity and ease. 

Once I acquired the Mammotion Luba 2 for assessment, the one wire-free GPS robotic mower I would beforehand used was the EcoFlow Blade. As you possibly can learn in that assessment, organising the Blade was dreadful. It occupied hours of my Sunday afternoon, leading to bickering between my husband and me and repeated explanations to the children that no, we can’t be using the robotic across the yard. 

This time, organising the mower fell to my husband on a day after I wasn’t residence. I deliberate on serving to him with the setup upon my return, however I used to be pleasantly stunned to search out all of it completed after I returned. In actual fact, he had nothing however reward for the Mammotion’s straightforward setup, because it was accomplished in underneath two hours — from unboxing to up and working within the yard.

In distinction, organising the previous robotic mower, the EcoFlow Blade, was a tedious, two-person job as a result of it could not get a ok sign regardless of the place we positioned the GNSS antenna in our yard. For the Mammotion Luba 2, we hadn’t even put the antenna within the yard—it was nonetheless propped up on the deck—but it was already related to the mower and dealing superb.

We had been so cautious about the place we put the EcoFlow antenna due to the sign points through the set up course of, and right here, the Luba 2’s antenna seamlessly related by itself from a random place on the deck. If that does not let you know it is a extra superior RTK-GNSS system, I do not know what does. I am going to replace my assessment of the Luba 2 as soon as I set up the pole completely, add the Storage, and do a few months’ price of testing. 

Mapping is straightforward and fairly enjoyable. You simply stroll behind it, steering it round your yard utilizing your smartphone with the Mammotion app as a distant management. After you full the mapping course of, the Luba 2 mows the route independently. The app additionally permits you to give the mower a reputation, so naturally, I named it Andretti because it resembles a Method 1 automotive (and in addition so I can ask my husband whether or not Andretti has completed its runs at this time).  

We have been getting quite a lot of rain currently, which has made the grass develop like loopy. This quick development has ensured Andretti’s work is minimize out for it and helped me collect many hours of testing over the previous couple of months.

All through testing, I’ve discovered the Mammotion Luba 2 able to navigating uneven terrain with out affecting its map. For instance, when different robotic mowers slide down a slope sideways, it usually disrupts their mapping, and as a substitute of correcting their place, they proceed from an incorrect spot. This ends in missed patches and the mower winding up outdoors the protection space. In my testing, the Luba 2 by no means fell sufferer to this glitch. Though it did slide down a number of instances, it at all times righted its positioning and maintained the identical map. 

Sadly, the Mammotion app is not very intuitive; altering settings would require some menu searching and trial and error. Nonetheless, it’s loaded with options. You should use the app to vary the mowing sample from stripes to checkered and extra, arrange totally different zones, together with no-go zones for swimming pools or backyard beds, prepare the trail order, and regulate the mowing peak. 

When mapping, the perimeter you stroll with the Luba 2 is similar that will likely be adopted when the robotic is out mowing. It is a bit difficult to stroll and steer the robotic in a wonderfully straight line alongside the perimeter of your property, so I want you possibly can straighten boundary strains within the app after creating the map. 

The Luba 2 proved irreverently constant when mowing alongside the perimeter. I can see the robotic mowing alongside curved strains that I mistakenly made throughout mapping, nevertheless it does it the identical means each time.

Although the Mammotion Luba 2 appears to be like just like the Ferrari of mowers, it does the laps across the garden at its personal tempo. It is not gradual in comparison with different robotic mowers, however do not anticipate it to reside as much as its appears to be like and turn into a turbo turf-tamer. 

My Luba 2 drifted from its path six instances throughout testing. A type of instances, it ended up in my neighbor’s yard, which is way lower than superb as they’re very explicit about how they mow it, however this seems to have occurred throughout positioning and never when the blades had been engaged, fortunately. One other time, it failed by going underneath the deck and dropping its sign. It wasn’t ever purported to go underneath the deck, however I suppose it was taking a shortcut to the pole place (I’m actually sorry about that one). 

You may also steer the robotic within the app to manually mow over robust areas the place you assume it might drift away – that is additionally a very good characteristic for touching up areas that want it. The Mammotion app additionally gives first-person view (FPV), so you possibly can test the place your robotic is at any time if it will get stranded and you are not there to see it. 

ZDNET’s shopping for recommendation

I am conscious these GPS-powered robots make errors as this new expertise remains to be being perfected for accuracy, so I usually do not thoughts these hiccups. However I do discover the Mammotion Luba 2 is way much less liable to errors than the EcoFlow Blade. I can rely a lot on Andretti following its map that I really feel okay letting it mow the unfenced entrance garden, even the choosy neighbors’ facet, one thing I might by no means let the Blade do. 

Lastly, I really like how quiet the Luba 2 is. One of many strangest issues about having a robotic mower is that it takes care of the garden so quietly that it might probably escape your discover. Total, I like to recommend the Mammotion Luba 2 for anybody who needs to reclaim a number of hours from the garden on their weekends.