Customer Reviews

Friendly Robotics RL1000 RoboMower 21-Inch Automatic Cordless Electric Lawn Mower and Docking Station

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I got my RoboMower in June of 2005 and other than one breakdown it has performed perfectly for me.

I have 12,000 Sq Ft of very level lawn (newly landscaped and graded yard) with no obstructions. The RoboMower comes out every night at 5:00PM, mows for a few hours, and comes back without issue. It's the hit of the neighborhood.

Laying the perimeter wire was a pain. At first I just laid it out and used the stakes to keep it down. I figured there was a 50/50 chance I'd be returning the unit (low expectations!) and I didn't want to spend the time burying the wire. After a couple of weeks I decided the unit was a keeper and I buried the wire - which took all day.

Suggestion: keep the box in case you need to ship the unit back. If you have the box they'll pay for shipping. It's a pretty bulky shipment, so it'll be hard to find a box that can safely ship it back.

Bottom line: My yard looks like a golf course every day. The quality of the mow is excellent.

Even if the unit broke every three years, I'd keep buying them. Having a mowing service would cost me $1,200/year ($60/week, 5 months a year) and the lawn would start to look shaggy a few days after mowing. With the RoboMower it looks perfect every day. A riding lawnmower would have cost me more, would cost more to maintain, and would still require me to mow my lawn myself every week. For me, it's a no-brainer.

Also, keep in mind that a lot of reviews are for older models. I have the 1000 version that automatically docks itself.

I bought a new house and saw that everyone else in the neighborhood had a riding lawnmower. Having a small yard with not much to mow, in the past, I was not looking forward to spending at least 2 hours a week sitting on my [back] driving around in circles. I started looking for "high speed" riding movers but the cost was astronomical.

(...)
The mower and docking station arrived, from Amazon, in 2 large boxes. Installation and set-up was easily enough and I was "mowing" the front yard the next day. I had the mower set to MAX time but the lawn looked pretty well mowed after about 2 ˝ hours. Now in the back yard (much larger area) the grass was long, wet, and has a long slope in it so the mower ran less than 3 hours before it returned to its dock. The lawn looked about 90% done. I was fairly satisfied with that being it is going out again today at 4:00 PM to finish up. "It mows, you don't". Love that!

The only thing I did that took a bit more time for the initial set-up was bury the perimeter wire, in high visibility areas. I did not like looking at the green line. I found this to be quite easy once I taped the "robo ruler" to a lawn edger I already own. I could then easily look down at the ruler and use it as a guide for the 1 inch deep little trench I dug with the edger.

Things that impressed me: There are no "clumps" of grass even when it was mowing during the rain storm. It mows in the rain. :-) It even pulled itself out of a little mud puddle that had formed once it realized it had no more traction in that direction. The speed at which the blades come to a complete stop (< 1 second) if it runs into something while you are manually mowing or you pick up the front.

Negative comments: If you like pretty "lines" in your lawn, this mower is not for you. All your friends and neighbors will ask you questions and/or make fun of you. I suggest you tell them what I tell them, "You do not manually was your clothes. You probably do not hand wash all of your dishes. Why would you WANT to mow your lawn?"

Timmy (Friendly Robotics RL1000) took over mowing our lawn August of 2005. I haven't mowed a lawn in over a year, 1 and a half growing seasons! I split up my front and back yard with a small gap so Timmy can do the front yard or the back and still make it home to his charging station. (home base is highly recommended!!!) I often start him up at 6pm and he keeps mowing until around 9:30pm and then goes to his little house for a complete re-charge for the next day. I did not choose the scheduled start option because I have two dogs and a 1 year old that leave toys in the yard. Also, Timmy can mow in the rain but grass cuts so much better when it's dry, plus grass clippings don't build up as much in the underside and wheel treads.

Setting up took some time and a bit of experimenting. Especially deciding which trees to block out with the wire and how to keep Timmy in the front or back while still being able to make it home when he's done. I purchased an extra roll of wire at Home Depo, any solid strand 16g or 14g wire will work. I soldered the connections instead of using the special wire nuts. I tried to go without an extra bag of wire stakes thinking I could just get something at Walmart or Home Depot but ended up buying 3 more bags of official stakes later on after an exhaustive search came up empty.

I have had very little trouble with Timmy. I'm good with new gadgets so dealing with little problems isn't too difficult for me. The outdoor power supply did break after only about 4 months of use but I just hooked up the indoor power supply inside and drilled a hole in the garage wall for the wire. I can now tell the blades need replacing after just over 1 year of use (about 5 months total in southern Maine) but that was expected. The battery life has gone from almost 4 hours down to about 3 hours so I plan on replacing those next spring. (I will just install 2 new 12v lead acid batteries in the existing housing and save about $75 on a new official battery pack)

Everyone in the neighborhood talks about Timmy, he's so popular! Mostly people ask about him when I'm outside and they walk by. I have had a few kids ring my door bell asking about him while he was busy at work.

I bought my Robomower about a year ago, and decided I've probably had it long enough to make a comment.

My wife and I moved from our house in the city to a place in the suburbs with a half-acre lot. I spent our first summer using our walk-behind mower, but quickly decided that was for the birds. It took hours. All my neighbors had riding mowers, but I didn't want one of those. It seemed a little too stereotypically suburban. So in researching mowers I discovered the Robomower.

Now, I am not an early adopter by any means. I don't go for the latest gadget. But I learned that the Robomowers have been around for about ten years now, and have been much improved since the early models. And the Robomower cost about the same as a riding mower. So after doing a lot of research I decided to take a chance on it.

Someone else left a comment here saying that the Robomower comes with poor documentation. I really disagree. The manuals were well-written, and I was surprised how easy and straightforward the set-up was. The most monotonous part was laying the perimeter wire. That probably took me three or four hours -- but then, I have a rather large yard.

Once the wire is set and the docking station set up, you just let the mower charge up and then -- off you go. It runs pretty quietly, and sounds very much like an electric weed trimmer (the three blades underneath the mower deck look quite a bit like trimmer blades, actually).

One of my neighbors came over to see what I had trolling around the lawn. "My wife and I saw it but didn't know what it was," he said. "One day I said to her, I think it's cutting their grass -- I don't see him out there with the lawn mower anymore".

In terms of the quality of the cut, I think it does pretty well. Your lawn won't look like a golf course, but I'm not that picky. Looks pretty much like it used to when I cut with the gas mower. Robomower has soft bumpers on the front and back so that if it runs into a tree it will simply toddle off in the opposite direction. It doesn't seem to hit very hard, and I haven't noticed any damage to the bark. When the mower battery runs low, it automatically goes back to the docking station. Once in a while it had trouble finding the station, or had trouble docking on its own, but it would usually make it by itself. Worst case scenario, you can simply use the manual controller to drive it back to the station.

You can run perimeter wire around a tree to keep the Robomower from hitting it. I will need to do that for one of the trees, as Robomower keeps running up on one of the tree roots and getting stranded -- its wheels keep turning but it doesn't get anywhere. Then I have to walk out and drag it off. But generally, if it gets a wheel stuck in a chuckhole or something, it will just beep loudly and start off in the other direction.

There is a manual setting that allows you to use it as a conventional electric mower, ostensibly for doing small areas that don't fall in one of your zones. You simply pull out the control panel (it's connected to the mower by a 4-foot line) and work the manual controls as you walk behind the mower. However, this is not very easy to use. You have to hold two buttons down simultaneously (one to move the wheels, one to run the blades) as well as manipulate the direction controller. My hands tended to cramp up within a couple of minutes.

If you start with grass of a reasonable length, Robomower will do a good job maintaining it. But it has a hard time cutting overly long grass. Because the mower is heavy (it's about 80 pounds with battery) it tends to flatten down long grass before the blades get a chance to shear it off. So you probably don't want to give away your gas mower - you may need it once in a while.

The literature says Robomower can work in the rain, but I wouldn't recommend it. The tires can get kind of gummed up with wet grass clippings and tend to slip. It will mow at night (you can see the blinking light on the top even if you can't see the mower), but I really haven't bothered. Usually, I start it up on a weekend, when I'm doing other stuff around the house.

Overall, it cut the grass trouble-free throughout all of last summer, and it was a snap getting it set up again this spring.

Robomower handles different zones, but be aware that model that comes with docking station can only be used for one zone. There's a battery-powered perimeter switch that can be moved from zone to zone, but that's not included with this.

Overall, though, this was a good purchase for us. If you're thinking about buying one and are on the fence, I'd recommend you go for it.

I actually have the RL800 model. As do all the above reviewers. I know this because this model, the RL1000 was only released in 2004 and the above reviews are all complaining about it being out of warrenty. That means they bought there mowers in 2003 or earlier. So please give this review as much weight as theirs. I also have an RL500 and that has been more difficult to maintain. If I guessed I'd bet most of the above problems were with that model.

As for the RL800, this is my second full year using it and its been no problem at all. I've played around with the barrier wires a little this year, but other than that and replacing the blades before the season started its preformed perfectly.

One note of common sense. Sure the mower will mow in the rain. Just like you could walk down the street with a sack of potatoes. But why would you strain yourself like that? Wet grass = heavy motor wear.

And just to be clear my RL500 is also 2 years old and running strong.

I remember seeing robotic lawnmowers at Disney, many years before RoboMower came to market. I was thrilled when I had a chance to buy one, for many reasons I won't bore you with.

When I bought it, it took several days to get set up properly. I buried the cable carefully, and had to order more wire and stakes than what came in the box--not a problem, I have a big yard. Once up and running, "Clyde" worked very well for about 9 months. Then the problems started. Initially, Friendly Robotics had great customer service, spending time with me on the phone to diagnose various problems, then sending me replacement parts as needed. For the next 9 months or so, Clyde worked intermittently. There were several trips to the service center (a VERY expensive shipping bill for them and later, for me) and before long, pretty much everything that could be replaced or serviced on the thing had been. I live in Florida, which is probably the toughest conditions for this mower, but when it worked, it worked wonderfully. Over time, the Friendly Robotics people became less friendly, probably thinking that I was not capable of the self-repairs they were asking me to do over the phone to save shipping charges. They referred me to Probotics, who were happy to sell me more parts.

I am capable, handy and never had any problem understanding anything about the technical services I was performing, but the sheer tonnage of (wo)man hours I had into this thing by now were staggering. At the time, as a freelancer with a flexible schedule, I was willing to do it. I suspect that many consumers would not want to go through all that I did to keep their mowers running.

At some point, about a year and a half after our first date, Clyde jumped his wire and was foraging near my bedroom window in the middle of the night. This was not a programmed time for him, and he had strayed outside his wire perimeter. It was very sad. I tried all the things I had now learned to do from talking with the FR and Probotics people for so long, but Clyde never returned to his old self. One day in an aimless spiral in the back yard, he just quit. At that point, I had found a full time job and could no longer dedicate time to fixing him. Having paid a lot for him, however, I felt that I should receive some sort of further service or at least a partial refund, since he was under warranty. Both Friendly Robotics and Probotics quit returning my calls and emails. They pointed fingers at each other. I was abandoned.

Clyde was dead, FR and Probotics non-responsive, and I was trying to start a new job. I just let Clyde languish in his cradle on the side of the house for two years, unable to say goodbye. I decided to FreeCycle him this weekend, thinking he might be a good science project for an enterprising teen, but I didn't want to do it without writing this eulogy. RIP Clyde and caveat emptor.

I purchased the RL800 in April 2003 from Amazon, hoping to get out of mowing the lawn. I ended up wasting lots of time and money on this useless device instead. My original review for the mower was actually positive. It worked well for the first summer and I didn't mow the lawn once with my push mower. I even recommended it to my coworkers. But the following spring, we got a lot of rain which caused the ground to get saturated. The robomower wheels lost traction in the wet grass and kept getting stuck in the middle of my lawn. I had to go out to push it along at least 5 or 6 times. I would have been better off taking my push mower out and mowing it myself, which is what I did until the ground dried up. Once summer came around, I brought the robomower out hoping it would perform like it did the year before. Wrong again! After less than 2 hours, the battery ran out of steam. The robomower is EXTREMELY slow so 2 hours is nowhere near enough time to completely mow my lawn. And yes I did read the manual on how to properly maintain the battery. I constantly charged it even while not in use. And during the winter if temps fell below 0 degrees, I was instructed to remove the battery and place it inside somewhere dry, which I did. Hoping to salvage use for the robomower, I purchased a second battery and the rapid external charger this year. I manually mowed my lawn with a push mower for the beginning of this year while the ground was too wet for the robomower. Then when it dried up enough, I decided to let the robomower take over. I unleash it on my lawn and 20 minutes later it stops. The robomower was beeping with the error "Check Power" message on the controller. I bring it back in and try charging it, but the error doesn't go away. I plug the power supply into another power outlet on a different circuit breaker and get same error. I put in my second battery and still same error. I end up calling tech support for assistance. Coincidentally, the 2 year warranty just ended in April so I was one month passed it. Their diagnosis was possibly a bad power supply and/or bad controller. When I asked if they could help me fix it, they told me not without getting charged even though I was only a month out of warranty. Keep in mind, I would have found out sooner about the problem if the robomower worked properly when the ground was a little wet. Thanks Friendly Robotics! So don't make the same mistake I made. Just mow your lawn yourself like I do now.

I found this mower to be very impressive.

I have a lot about 100" x 25', generally flat with a mild slope down the length of the yard, and filled with small divits between clumps of grass. I generally don't have many bushes or trees in my property, so the deviations in my wire-line were few. I also have two dogs that commonly use the yard.

The set up was fairly simple; a single perimeter wire layed the groundwork along the fence. It rounds a few bushes and trees along the fence line.

I found the system set-up easy enough to only require a light read of the manual. When I started the mower I hadn't cut the grass in about 2-3 weeks (which is probably not recommended), but the mower cut through the 1' grass length without many problems. While tackling this length of grass it did stall in a few spots because of a lack of traction, so it needed a few nudges to continue. As it cut the lawn, however, the wheels were able to grab better and better traction and soon resolved the grass to the proper length. I don't believe I'll need to fill any of the divits to allow the system to run from here on in without my watching it.

I set it up to cut the grass to max power for every day of the week, however I will probably reduce this because the cut-time is certainly long enough to handle the backyard every few days (beyond 2 hours so far). I would recommend setting up the docking station on a flat stone surface (I'll probably lay cinderblock slabs beneith it later) as the mower will not be able to cut along the edges of the docking station very well.

My dogs at first were curious about it, but the quiet mowing sound wasn't at all intimidating, so they simply sniffed at it a few times and left it alone. Also, with the mowing sound lower than the general street traffic, mowing at any time of day would likely be fine.

Outside of that, my only regret is that I didn't buy this mower earlier in the year. That would have saved me a lot of time. I look forward to reducing my workload in the backyard going forward. All in all, I'm satisfied.

I wish I bought the Lawnbott Evolution. The lawnbott appears much faster and configurable than the RL1000. Additionally, the lawnbott seems to do better in smaller spaces. However, I purchased a RL1000 because it was about $500 cheaper than the lawnbott. So, I am stuck with it. So far, I have used the RL1000 about 3-5 times to mow since then. First impressions are that the documention is terrible. I would like to see the documenation on setting up zones improve. There are videos that suppliment the paper manual. These videos should be watched. Without the videos, the documention on zones in the paper manual is incomplete. I thought the lawnmower robot would be smarter than it is. In this respect, most of the robot mowers are pretty dumb. They all seem to require a wire permiter. They all seem to zig zag around the permiter for a specified time. The RL1000 does a good job mowing, but I can mow my lawn with a reel mower in about half the time. If I use the RL1000, it takes up to 3 hours. I only have 40 feet of grass behind my house, 40 feet of grass in front, with 10 feet on each side. The hardest part in setting up the robot was the permiter wire. It was painful with baby trees. I have six newly planted trees in my lawn that I had to create islands around. The islands seem to slow down the mowing speed. Additionally, sewer pipe vents in the front make it very hard for the RL1000 to get in the corners. The RL1000 is very big compared to say the lawnbott. I would only recommend the RL1000 for flat lawns without a lot of trees. However, if you have a tiny spaces for the robot to go around, it might be best to do those manually. Additionally, the RL1000 seems to get disoriented in depression areas.

I read the manual for the lawnbott, and I used it to suppliment the RL1000 manual, which is pretty funny. They all work the same the lawnbott is more expensive, smaller, and quiter. Additionally, it looks more like a toy than a lawnmower. But, the lawnbott is the mower for the geek. The RL1000 is pretty good for the cost. Even though my lawn is small, I ran out of wire. I would recommend purchasing bulk insulated wire if you run out. It is cheaper and serves the same purpose.

You have to have a flat lot, and not many trees in there for Friendly Robo... to work. It will get stuck right by the trees, and if it rained, then you cannot use it because it gets stuck. It can not cut tall grass, and leaves some grass here and there. The worst part is the service. Mine had problem the second week, and when I called the tech. the only way he would look at it is for me to ship it to them. That is 80 to 100 dollars in shipment, and he didn't know how long it will take. You are dealing with Middle Eastern company, so don't expect good customer service.