Mowing the garden is certainly one of my favourite chores. It lets me deal with an uninterrupted activity that satisfies my OCD, with the bonus of finishing my train ring on my Apple Watch. However despite the fact that it is a chore I get pleasure from, 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’re taking the canine out for a stroll and are available dwelling to a superbly mowed garden regardless of it being an overgrown mess simply an hour earlier than. When you had been gone, the robotic mower took care of the unruly grass and left a gorgeous checkered sample in its wake.
I am pleased to say that this dream grew to become a actuality with the Luba 2, and though it has its quirks, it handles the chore of garden mowing with effectivity and ease.
After 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 may 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 cannot be using the robotic across the yard.
This time, organising the mower fell to my husband on a day once I wasn’t dwelling. 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 achieved once I returned. In actual fact, he had nothing however reward for the Mammotion’s simple setup, because it was accomplished in below 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 adequate sign irrespective 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 linked to the mower and dealing superb.
We had been so cautious about the place we put the EcoFlow antenna due to the sign points in the course of the set up course of, and right here, the Luba 2’s antenna seamlessly linked by itself from a random place on the deck. If that does not inform you it is a extra superior RTK-GNSS system, I do not know what does. I will 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 allows you to give the mower a reputation, so naturally, I named it Andretti because it resembles a Components 1 automotive (and likewise so I can ask my husband whether or not Andretti has achieved its runs in the present day).
We have been getting plenty of rain recently, which has made the grass develop like loopy. This quick progress has ensured Andretti’s work is lower 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 leads to 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 couple 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 need to use the app to alter the mowing sample from stripes to checkered and extra, arrange completely different zones, together with no-go zones for swimming pools or backyard beds, prepare the trail order, and alter the mowing top.
When mapping, the perimeter you stroll with the Luba 2 is identical that might be adopted when the robotic is out mowing. It’s kind of difficult to stroll and steer the robotic in a superbly straight line alongside the perimeter of your property, so I want you would straighten boundary traces 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 traces that I mistakenly made throughout mapping, nevertheless it does it the identical manner each time.
Although the Mammotion Luba 2 seems just like the Ferrari of mowers, it does the laps across the garden at its personal tempo. It isn’t sluggish in comparison with different robotic mowers, however do not anticipate it to reside as much as its seems and change into a turbo turf-tamer.
My Luba 2 drifted from its path six instances throughout testing. A kind of instances, it ended up in my neighbor’s yard, which is far lower than ultimate as they’re very specific 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 below the deck and shedding its sign. It wasn’t ever speculated to go below the deck, however I suppose it was taking a shortcut to the pole place (I’m really sorry about that one).
It’s also possible to steer the robotic within the app to manually mow over robust areas the place you suppose it could drift away – that is additionally an excellent function for touching up areas that want it. The Mammotion app additionally provides first-person view (FPV), so you may verify 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 far much less vulnerable to errors than the EcoFlow Blade. I can depend 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’d 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 could actually escape your discover. Total, I like to recommend the Mammotion Luba 2 for anybody who desires to reclaim a couple of hours from the garden on their weekends.
