What to Check Before Buying a Robot Lawn Mower

Check four things before anything else: your lawn’s total square metreage, the steepest slope on the property, whether the garden is one connected area or several separated zones, and whether the model uses a boundary wire or satellite navigation. Those four answers eliminate most of the market immediately and save you from the common mistake of buying on price and discovering the machine cannot climb your back slope. Expect to spend 600 to 1,200 francs for a capable model covering up to 800 square metres, and 1,500 to 3,000 for larger or wire-free systems.

The single most underestimated factor is garden shape rather than size. A simple rectangular lawn of 700 square metres is far easier for a robot than a 300 square metre garden split by a path, a terrace and a narrow passage between the house and the fence. Complexity costs more than area, and the manufacturer’s stated coverage figure assumes conditions your garden probably does not match.

How do you work out the right capacity?

Measure your actual grass area, not your plot size. Subtract the house footprint, the terrace, the driveway, the flower beds and the gravel. Most people overestimate by 30 to 40 percent, which leads them to buy a larger machine than necessary and pay for capacity they never use.

Then add a buffer rather than matching exactly. A model rated for 500 square metres will manage that figure on flat, open, simple ground with a full daily cutting window. If your garden has obstacles, slopes or narrow sections, the effective coverage drops noticeably, so a rating around 30 percent above your measured area is a safer target. Undersizing shows up as patchy growth during spring, when grass grows fastest and the machine cannot keep pace.

Slope is a hard limit rather than a soft one. Most entry-level models handle 25 to 35 percent gradients, mid-range units manage 40 to 45 percent, and only a few specialist machines cope with steeper ground. Measure the worst section of your lawn, not the average, because a robot that slips on one bank will get stuck there repeatedly and you will spend your Saturdays retrieving it. Wet grass reduces traction further, so treat the manufacturer’s slope figure as an optimistic ceiling.

Boundary wire or satellite navigation?

Boundary wire is the proven approach and still the cheaper one. A perimeter cable is pegged or buried a few centimetres down around the lawn and any obstacle you want excluded, and the machine turns when it detects the signal. Installation takes three to six hours for an average garden, and the wire lasts years if buried properly. The drawback is permanence: rearranging a flower bed means relaying cable.

RTK and GPS-based systems remove the wire and define zones in an app instead, which is genuinely convenient if your garden layout changes or you want separate mowing schedules for front and back. They need a clear view of the sky, so gardens ringed by tall trees or sitting close to a multi-storey building can lose signal accuracy. Expect to pay 600 to 1,500 francs more for the wire-free version of an equivalent machine.

Vision-based navigation is the newer middle option, using cameras to recognise grass edges. It works well on defined lawns with clear boundaries and struggles where grass blends into gravel, moss or bare patches. If you are weighing several models across these three systems, a broad Swiss retailer such as pandaloo.ch is a practical place to compare navigation types and coverage ratings side by side before going to a specialist dealer for installation.

Separate zones deserve specific attention. If your front and back gardens do not connect by a passage the robot can drive through, you either need a multi-zone model with manual transport between areas or two machines. Check the minimum passage width too, usually 60 to 80 centimetres, because a narrow side path is a common reason a robot never reaches half the property.

What does ownership actually involve?

Blades are the main consumable. Most models use small pivoting razor blades that need replacing every six to twelve weeks during the season, costing roughly 15 to 30 francs for a set of nine. Machines with fixed steel blades last longer between changes but need sharpening instead. Budget around 60 to 120 francs a year in parts for a typical garden.

The machine runs far more often than a manual mower. Robots cut a few millimetres at a time and return daily or near-daily, which is why the clippings can be left in place as mulch. That mulching effect is one of the real benefits, since fine clippings return nitrogen to the soil and lawns under robotic mowing often thicken noticeably over a season or two.

Winter storage matters in Swiss conditions. Bring the unit indoors, charge the battery to roughly half, store somewhere dry and above freezing. Batteries left at zero charge through a cold garage winter degrade fast, and a replacement pack runs 150 to 350 francs. Expect five to seven years from a battery under reasonable care.

Cleaning takes ten minutes a fortnight. Grass builds up under the deck and around the blade disc, and a machine left to accumulate that ends up cutting unevenly and drawing more power. Check whether the model you are considering can be hosed down or needs brushing only, because it changes the job considerably.

What is it actually like to live with?

The change most owners notice is not the saved time but the state of the lawn. Daily light cutting produces a consistently short, dense surface with no clumps of cuttings and no weekend block set aside for mowing. Lawns that were previously cut every ten to fourteen days look visibly different after one season.

Noise is low enough that night running is feasible, typically 55 to 65 decibels, roughly the level of conversation. Many owners schedule overnight operation to keep the garden free during the day. Check local rules and building regulations first, since some Swiss municipalities and many housing associations restrict night-time garden equipment, and neighbours in close quarters tend to notice a machine circling at 2am even when it is quiet.

Gardens with small wildlife need thought. Hedgehogs are active at night and are vulnerable to blade contact, which is a real argument for daytime scheduling or for choosing a model with obstacle detection that reacts to low objects rather than only to raised ones. If you have children’s toys, garden hoses or pets that use the lawn, the same detection quality determines how much tidying you do before each run.

Before buying, walk your garden and note every spot where the ground dips, a root protrudes or the lawn narrows below a metre. Those are the places a robot will strand itself, and they are much cheaper to fix with a spade and some topsoil now than to work around for the next six years.

The other thing to settle early is who installs it. Wire laying is straightforward but tedious, and dealers typically charge 200 to 500 francs depending on perimeter length and whether the cable is buried or pegged. Doing it yourself is entirely feasible, but budget an afternoon and buy more pegs than the box contains.

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