Customer Reviews

RoboMower – RL850

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The last time I bought a product this life-changing was the original IBM PC in 1983. RoboMower makes you feel like youve entered a new era, where those Jetsons episodes we watched as kids have finally come true. The first time your robot mows your lawn is like using your first dishwasher, microwave, etc. How did we ever live without this thing?

RoboMower erased all my fears. Would it take too long to mow since it would cut a random pattern? No, RoboMower methodically cut my almost-square front lawn row by row, just like I would have done. Would it lack enough power to cut front and back lawns, about 600 feet of perimeter? No, it can do both on one battery charge! Would I need the rapid charger? No, charging over night works OK since it cuts faster than I expected. Could it handle my still wet grass without clogging? Yes, it cut fine with no grass build-up under the blade areas. Could it handle the slope in my back yard? No problem!

Things the manual didnt tell me that I wish it had:
1) On sweeping curves the wire needs to be placed closer than the supplied ruler and instructions indicate. I moved it 3-4 closer to the edge, otherwise the RoboMower makes turns too wide. The tighter the turn the closer the wire needs to be. Plan on tweaking wires on curves a lot when testing!
2) When you place the wire down the first time, lightly place the stakes, as I found I moved about one in three. When you move one, at that point youll have either too much slack or not enough. To adjust slack youll need to pull the wire through many stakes. Dont expect to tug wire through several stakes at once  the insulation will split on a snug stake and youll have a bare spot! Carefully work slack under each stake. Be sure to leave enough spare wire at BOTH ends of your loop so you can provide slack on either side as needed. If only one side has extra wire, you may have to pull slack through almost all your stakes.
3) You want stakes loose when testing to adjust slack, but if you leave the wire too high off the ground and turn the blades on by mistake youll cut the wire.
4) When I first tested, over a straight stretch of 30 feet I tried just one stake at each end, pulling the wire taught to the ground. That didnt work  the mower can still swish the wire left or right an inch or two and not run the course you intended to test. Youll need the wire snug enough so the mower cant shift it. A stake every 10 feet or so solves that.
5) None of the literature or their website tells you RoboMower comes with only two perimeter wire connectors so you can create only two zones. If you need more you need to order the connector accessory kit.
6) You may need more wire than you think. I had carefully precalculated I would need only 450 feet, so I didnt buy extra wire from Amazon in advance. Turns out on mowing day the 500 foot roll wasnt enough (curves gobble up wire!) so I was running around town searching for more. I tried Sears who sells RoboMower but has no wire. Sears sent me to Home Depot saying any 18-22 gauge copper wire would work. Well, HD doesnt have wire that small!. I finally found it at the Hoover Store, since Hoover stores service RoboMower (and will soon sell the to-be-announced Friendly Robotics Vacuum.)

My front yard is 1800 feet, almost a rectangle with three sweeping curves. RoboMower cuts that in 35 minutes row-by-row from house to curb, like I would in one pass, in a methodical manor perpendicular to the street leaving no uncut areas between rows. But the mowing pattern it uses on my 3600-foot rear yard is quite different. First it cuts at a 45-degree angle leaving uncut areas between the rows it cuts. When done with this first pass, it shifts 90-degrees to cut across the first rows, catching some uncut spaces but not all. Then it shifts again, hoping to catch more uncut areas. This behavior means some areas are cut repeatedly so it needs about two hours to mow the rear yard.

Mowing efficiency has a lot to do with where you train it to leave the edge to start mowing inside. When it starts mowing, it seems to ponder about what kind of area it is within. If started in a small leg off your main lawn and it keeps bumping the wire time and again after a short distance, it does into a different behavior than if it starts within a very large area and encounters the wire infrequently. However it starts seems to be how it will continue to mow, seemingly choosing the pattern it thinks fits what it first encountered. So, Im experimenting with the learn perimeter function to teach it exactly how far to trim the edge before turning inside the lawn. My theory is if I start the mower in the same spot each time, and teach it to leave edge trimming in the correct place, it will always choose the better pattern for my lawn. If you start it in a different spot each time it may mow less efficiently at times. So, like a child, RoboMower needs a little advice.

Id rate this among the most fabulous purchases of my lifetime. The biggest problems: feeling guilty because youre doing no work and dealing with your neighbors who stop to watch you watching your mower at work.

This is a great mower! I researched it and liked the reviews of the RL500. When the RL800 was available I ordered it immediately. It took a little while to set up the perimeters correctly for the 5 zones around my house. I have mowed my entire yard twice so far and have no complaints. I still have to do some trim work around the edges of the house and the fence line, but this is minimal. So far, this has been the best investment in my lifetime. I just start it up then surf the net, watch a movie, play with my two kids, etc. In fact, it is mowing one zone as I type this review! I periodically listen for the hum out the open window. The first time I mowed each zone I watched it pretty closely and made a few changes to the perimeter wiring, but now I just monitor it occasionally.

While researching the RL800, I was always looking for practical details on the size of yards that had been successfully mowed by the RoboMower. For any who are interested the details of my yard are in the next paragraph.

I have a large yard 22,749 sq. ft., which is mostly centipede grass although near the fence line there are a number of weeds and Rye that grows pretty thick and tall (4-5 inches in some isolated areas). I subdivided this into 5 zones each approximately 4,500 sq. ft. I live in Louisiana so the land is flat, but there is a 10-15 degree incline along about 30' of the rear of the house. The RoboMower handles it like a champ. I was a bit concerned about some tree roots that protruded from the ground a bit less than 1", but no problem. I have the RL800 set to mow at 1.5" and the rear wheels at their highest setting and it goes right over the roots of a few large pine trees. I was also concerned about pine cones, even though I pick these up before mowing sometimes I miss one or one will fall if it is a windy day. The RL800 has hit only one in the first ten zones it has mowed, but it chewed the side off of it and the blades are still sharp. I do not recommend that you do not try to pick up stray sticks and pine cones, but if you happen to miss one the RL800 seems resilient enough to take it and keep on going. I ordered the sped charger and another battery at the same time I ordered the RL800, but have not received them yet. Currently, I mow a zone a day (or night). When I get home from work if it is dry I pick up around a zone and start the RL800 about 5:00-5:30. I have it set to max run time, but usually it does a good job after 3 hours of work and I go out and stop it and take back inside the shop to recharge. When I get the fast charger I will post another review to say how that affects the over all efficiency of mowing with the RoboMower. ...

I purchased the RL500 ... in December 2000, the middle of winter in Chicago, because of a special offer - two batteries for one and 6-mth financing...

Anyway, the RL500 has mowed my (previously bare brand-new) yard from the first cuttings just after seed as well as after laying down the sod. My yard is ~6000sqft, divided into 5 zones. The front zone is rectangular (40x25ft), straight sides. The back zone (75x25ft)is a large rectangle, with sides entirely of both long slender curves and tight 2-ft PARTIAL-radius curves, (flower beds at the far end, curved patio near the house, sewer drain and electric boxes at ends). The parkway zone has two rectangular sections totaling about 15x50ft, and a tree and lamp-post in the middle. The two side yard zones are 60x10ft, with one zone having a tree in the middle - Keep this zone in mind. The yard and zones, however, were carefully laid out and designed with the RoboMower in mind. (Download the Operating manual from www.friendlyrobotics.com and read the yard design requirements thoroughly.)

Hopefully, you have a rough picture of my yard. My ADVICE is: (1) Never lay a tree in the middle of a zone less than 10 ft wide. The RL500 has often got trapped on either side of the 10ft wide zone with the tree. The RL500 has no trouble navigating to either side of the parkway zones, which are 15 ft wide and have a tree and lamppost. (2) Pay close attention to laying down the wire - the supplied ruler is exactly what it's for. When laying out curves, long slender curves pose no problems unless the grass surface is bumpy, erratic, or uneven (due to plastic border edging or mulched for instance). Tight radius curves (I used 2-ft radius) will work if you run no more than a 1/4 circle (90 degrees) followed by a few feet of straight run or slender curve. This works because the 2-ft radius curve turns only 90 degrees - the same as when the mower navigates a square corner. (3) Never let the grass grow too high, and never cut when the grass is wet or damp. The mower will cut tall grass adequately, but this SHOULD BE DONE MANUALLY by cutting only a 13-15inch path at a time. This allows half the blades to cut the tall grass while refining the cut on the recently mowed other half. Otherwise, the likelihood of burning out a motor increases, as well as sharply draining the battery. I observed sharply reduced battery times and unusual noise - it didn't sound right so I went manual. In another instance, rain was predicted for a week, and had already rained earlier that day, a typical Springtime scenario - I HAD to MOW. The Robomower cut the slightly wet grass fine, until a motor fried. The wet grass particles accumulated in large clumps on the underbody of the mower, inside the blade cavities. Had I removed these clumps EVERY FEW MINUTES the motor MIGHT have lived. There were still two other working motors, but the smell of a burned motor is one you'll never forget. So ...(4) Fix a burned out motor as soon as possible, or it will strain the others (an electrician could furhter explain). A new motor cost about $100, not cheap if you burn one out every year. (5) 15% slopes or steeper ARE A PROBLEM, as the manual states. I soon filled in this slope with a flower bed. (6) Absolutely never leave it alone with small children. My mower draws crowds every year - adults from the neighboring golf course, but kids from everywhere. IT WILL PARTIALLY EAT THE SMALL ONES, as well as your toes, before the bumper senses them. (7) Never manually mow by walking beside the mower's front or side edges. This would seem COMMON SENSE, but every homeowner gets complacent, and will inevitably make a wrong turn (unless you're a radio control model car enthusiast). Those blades are an inch from the mower's edge and spin fast. The cord on the remote control gives you as much as 6-8ft to stay away.

The good news is that these lessons learned are easily corrected. The tree problem in the 10 ft wide zone required rewiring into two separate zones. The mower is now approaching its third season with no problems. It mulches, as stated, finer than other mulching mowers do, and never leaves lines or marks when allowed to fully attack every grass blade from every angle.

What's the paradign shift? I never mow the whole yard in one sitting - it would take 5 hrs! I mow two or three zones every 2-3 days, for 2-3 hrs, instead of once a week with a conventional mower. Remember, YOU'RE NOT MOWING THE GRASS. You can wash the car (keep that water away though!), prune, mulch, or weed the garden, or as is the case on fine summer weekend mornings, enjoying breakfast on the patio watching it have at it. Actually, when I'm at work and its a fine day, my wife takes the mower out. MEN: YES, YOUR WIVES WILL WANT TO ASK YOU HOW TO DO THIS! I swap batteries and never drain them past 2.5 hrs (4hrs on one chrg) for longer life (battery technology factoid. Also, the batteries never developed memory.)

Its quiet, environmentally conscious, safe (with the right practices), and efficient (in terms of time, money, gasoline hassles, cleanup, winter storage). The RL500 has been problem free in all respects (except the lessons learned, which were my fault), and the effect on the grass has been equal if not better than the conventional mowers on my nieghbor's yards. I would recommend it to anyone with the right yard and careful landscape design.

Before using the robomower, I had to lay out a perimeter wire for each of the areas I wanted mowed. In my case, I divided my lawn into three sections, the back yard, the front yard to the left of my driveway, and the front yard to the right of the driveway. The wire is an electronic barrier, not a physical one. It's flush with the ground, and held in place by plastic tent pegs. The tent pegs and the wire come with the mower.

Besides the outside edge, I also used the wire to mark off obstacles. I have some mulched covered areas with plants, and some of the trees have mulch around them that's too steep for the mower, and which doesn't need to be mowed anyway. For islands, I ran a wire from the perimeter, circled the obstacle, and then ran a wire back parallel to the incoming wire. Two wires side by side cancel each other out, and the mower ignores it.

Not all obstacles require wire. I did not have to mark several of the trees in the back yard. The mower has bumpers around the outside edge, and if the obstacle is 6" tall and reasonably resilient, that's sufficient. It doesn't bump into things very hard, but a soft plant stem isn't going to offer enough resistance.

Laying down the wire was a lot of work. I ended up pegging down about 1200 feet of wire to enclose a 1/2 acre lawn, which probably took me about 3 hours total. Objectively this is more work than mowing the lawn a couple of times would have been, but it was more interesting than mowing. There's a little mental challenge in trying to place a reasonable curve around an obstacle or an edge.

The mower comes with a signal generator which I attach to the wire for the zone I'm going to mow. After I release the mower into the zone, the mower seeks out an edge and then follows it for roughly one complete circuit. The mower then begins criss-crossing the lawn, stopping each time it either senses the wire or bumps into an obstacle. It then turns slightly and reverses direction, mowing a strip roughly parallel to the first. Eventually it decides to take a 90 degree turn, to being mowing a set of strips in an alternate direction.

The mower is really slow, particularly since it misses large patches on the initial pass. It makes up for this by making several passes over the lawn. For each zone, I've let it run for the maximum time of 2 1/2 hours, and despite those patches it missed initially it mowed everything by the time it was done. I had no complaints about the result in the back yard. To my mind, it doesn't matter how long it takes, since my time investment is a couple of minutes to drive it over to the lawn, and then a press of the "go" button.

The mower is very, very quiet. It has three 7" blades, and it's battery powered, so I can hardly hear it from inside the house. The sound is kind of funky, like a turbine or something, since the three blades produce odd harmonics.

My only real problem came up with the left front yard, which has an unusual feature. It's a large depression that was intended as a catch basin for water runoff, so that rain goes back into the water table instead of the sewer. Some of the angles are just plain too steep for the mower. To be fair, they'd be too steep for any mower - the robomower is short and squat, and very stable, but a 40 degree angle slope is likely to tip any mower over.

Some of the slopes are gentle enough for the mower, so my initial attempt was to mark off only the steep slopes. This resulted in a cup-shaped obstacle, which actually had "lips" and a relatively narrow opening. Unfortunately, while the mower handled the slopes I left open well enough, it spent way too much bouncing around inside the depression. It never quite figured its way around to the other side, which it did quite handly with more convex obstacles I marked in other zones.

As a result, I marked the entire thing off as an obstacle, and made a tiny zone inside the depression.

Alternately, I could have mowed this manually. Driving the mower manually is sort of like playing a videogame. There's a controller on a coiled leash that has a direction pad. I push the direction pad, and the mower goes in that direction. The turning radius is zero, since the drive wheels can spin in opposite directions if you ask for a tight turn. It works, but it's really kind of awkward, particularly if I have to make several turns.

I do have to drive it manually with the controller to and from the lawn. The mower is heavy, mainly because it has a big, sealed lead-acid battery. It's roughly the size and weight of a car battery. It lifts out easily so you can do things like tilt the mower on its side to clean the blades.

The mower takes a long time to charge. The instructions say 24 hours, but it's more like 30 in my experience. This means that as a practical matter, I can only mow once every two days. This isn't really a drawback, since each zone probably only needs to be mowed every two weeks, though it was annoying when I was first starting and was impatient to play with the new toy. They do sell an external fast charger which takes 6 hours to charge the battery. They also sell extra batteries, again for convenience.

Overall, I'm happy with my gadget purchase. It's quiet, it does the job, and it requires almost no effort on my part to mow the lawn, now that I've invested the labor of placing the wires.

With more than a little skepticism, I read every review I could find before buying our new RL800. How could such a device do a good job cutting the lawn without some assistance along the way?! Not to mention the price tag. Thanks, all of you, for sharing your experiences with the Friendly Robotics mowers. Your reviews really helped me make my decision.

Our lawn is OK but not the greatest, probably due to a lawn service that kept it too short, and burned it out in the summer by mowing it when it didn't need it. So cutting the lawn service cord is a definite advantage. Also, when I looked at the higher rated gas mowers, many of them were in the same price range. Until you figure you have to buy and store gasoline, do oil changes and perform tune ups on them. Not with the RL800. I figure the RL800 will have paid for itself after the first season!

I was open-minded enough to accept that it could actually do the job, so I ordered, despite some reservations about its ability to handle our 2/3 acre lot. Of course, had I ordered it a little earlier, welllll.... Let's just say it was like watching a race between the house burning (the ever-increasing height of the lawn) and the fire engines arriving (UPS/RL800 to the rescue!).

As it got close to its delivery date, I broke out the weed whacker and cut about a 2' swath where I planned to place the perimeter wire. I was just about to the end of the perimeter as the RL800 arrived! It's heavy! The box is just under 100 lbs. For one-person uncrating, be sure you remove the battery pack first. You'll be glad you did!

The RL800 manual is great. It's well-written, complete, well-organized, has lots of pictures, and tells you everything you need to know along the way. And if, like most of us, you don't DO manuals, there's a couple of quick start pages right at the beginning to get you started!

I wanted to make sure it could cut the grass well before I bothered running the wire! I read about manual operation, popped the battery pack back in the unit, and got started with my first test. After 2 passes over grass that was 7-9" in places, it looked great, and it looked like there were no real clippings to speak of. The mulcher works great!

Pop in the battery pack and things start to get exciting. The audio prompts, warnings and sound effects really make mowing the lawn something to look forward to. (I know, I know - I was a skeptic too....) The pack is partially charged when you get it so you can do some initial playing...ah hem ...testing.

Yesterday I installed 500' of perimeter wire in about 2 hours (I'm waiting for more to arrive). Caution: I left some long spaces between pegs in a straight run until I had tested the placement. Bad move! The front wheel pushed the wire to one side, and eventually tangled in the front wheel, stopping the unit. It didn't break the wire. So until you're sure of the placement, make sure you use enough pegs to keep the wire in place without drifting.

The controller must be at least 5' back from the perimeter loop so plan accordingly. I ended up putting it in a flower bed.

Once the loop is in place, calibrate the mower using the LCD controller (it reminds me of a Game Boy). Tell it what country you're in first. Then RL800 spins around a couple of times until it identifies true North. At that point, press "Go" twice and you're off to the races! If you'd rather have it cut the edge first, press "Go" once instead.

In the 4 hours + that it mowed, it completed most of the area within the loop to my satisfaction, though I'd really like to have it be able to complete a zone on one charge. I'm thinking that I'll probably set up 3 zones since the current zone includes the front of the house, the left side, and about half of the back yard. I have a 2nd battery, and an external charger on order to keep it charged.

As I write this, I'm watching (and hearing) my neighbor mowing her lawn. Not only is the RL800 pollution-free, it's practically silent. It's perfect for someone like me who's allergic to cut grass. In fact, as I stood there watching it mow yesterday, my allergies didn't bother me - probably because unlike traditional mowers, it doesn't raise any dust while mowing. Maybe it's due to the 3 smaller blades it uses instead of one big one.

Prepare to meet many new friends along the way. It's a real crowd pleaser. Everyone walking by had a comment. I met neighbors I'd never met before, and the funniest thing was watching the drive-bys. Very funny!

I'll let you know more about our progress later, but after its maiden voyage, we consider the RL800 to be a huge success! It's easy to use, fun to watch, non-polluting, allergy-friendly, and it does a great job! My wife thinks it's cute. I almost felt guilty standing there watching it - like I should be doing something.

Then my neighbor came up with the answer. "This is amazing. Don't know what kind of toys we can get to top this. Time for another beer, huh?" ;^)

After a couple of months now, I can say that our lawn has never looked better, especially given the dry summer we've had so far. It helps so much to be able to mow only when needed, instead of on the lawn service's calendar.

Shortly after the last review, the additional wire, battery and external quick charger all arrived, making living with the RL800 even more pleasant.

I've since buried most of the wire, which eliminate any concerns about catching the perimeter wire in the front wheel, tripping over it, or catching it with a rake. In case you're wondering, I used an edger to open a slot in the ground, and gently pushed the wire into it with a "V" shaped dandelion weeding tool. Once the wire was a couple of inches deep, I could simply use my feet to push the two edges of the slot back together. It's time-consuming to do it this way, but I figure I'll only need to do it once, and having it underground will protect the wire from any damage.

We ended up with 3 zones (right side of the driveway to the back edge of the house, left side of the driveway to the back edge of the house, and the back yard). The two front zones finish on a single battery each. I've noticed that the back yard is close to finishing on a single charge, but I usually let it run a little bit over on the 2nd battery.

The external charger recharges a battery in just about the time it takes the mower to complete a mowing cycle, so there's always a replacement ready to go.

As someone else mentioned, I'm amazed, with all the interest it seems to draw, that I haven't seen another one pop up yet. No matter. It's nice to be able to make use of that time on all the other joys life has to offer. We highly recommend it!

I purchased one of these figuring that the technology was not truly mature, but wanting to take advantage of what was available. I was right. But, I also love Herbie (of course you need to name it), and would NEVER go back to a noisy, knuckleheaded 2 stroke mower.

This is not for those who expect a Plug N Play mower. There are some realities to take under advisement.

First, there is an art to laying out the perimeter wire. The instructions in the booklet are pretty good, but they don't really get into the art of laying out the wire in an efficient way when you have to deal with trees, bushes, driveways, and more than four corners. The sensors do not always place the mower at the distance indicated on the measuring stick, for example. There are also tricks to be learned. There is a real satisfaction, however, in learning from your mistakes and finding that you are the only one on your block (heck, probably town) who can do this.

This device does not cut back and forth in parallel lines like a human would. It cuts the perimeter, then turns inward to cut back and forth across the defined area. It will recut some areas many times before the entire lawn is done. This definitely is something the next generation had better improve upon, or the robotic mower is not going to catch on.

There is no doubt that the smaller the area, the more efficient the cutting job. If you have anything larger than a postage stamp yard, you will want to break it up into segments.

If you have grass that grows fast and a large yard, a second battery is a MUST. And the external charger. More cost.

Finally, this does not cut like a rotary mower. The grass is not sucked up into the blade area, but must spring up into the blade wells to be cut off. So, wet grass, thin grass, or very high grass will not be cut very well.

I love this thing, but be prepared for a steep learning curve.

I have the previous model (RL-500) for a THIRD season now, and it is really great machine! I recommend it to everyone as a solution between waisting your time on cutting the grass yourself and waisting money on the service to do it. I did not have any problems so far, am now buying new blades but probably could go with the old ones for a while more. Also is a subject of curiosity of friends & neighbors :) It has some difficulty with going through narrow areas, but they say the new model improved this. You need to trim the edges though, it is possible to do it with Robomower in manual mode, but I find it faster with regular edge-trimmer; it is minimal. Installing a perimeter was easy do-it-yourself work, and it has really zero maintenance. It is absolutly not noisy (my neighbors rip the benefits, though, and I have to listen to theirs :-).It is not for you if you have a real slope, very large lot (my 1/3 acre requires 2 cuts with charging in between), or if you want really, really perfect work, like professional service does. It is really good for normal lawn, and also very, very cute. Even if my dies after this season (I see no reason why it would) I'd buy the new one and consider it [a great] solution ... . I can't wait for their next toys.

I purchased an 850 about three months ago. My thumbnail review: good labor saving device, if you do not set your expectations too high.

This tool saves me a LOT of work. Not necessarily time, but work. I don't feel comfortable leaving Raoul (our name for our "gardener") running when I go out. It takes him about two hours to cut one of our two zones. (It takes me about an hour to cut the whole thing by hand.) So for those two hours, someone has to be home. At first, we just sat and watched him cut. Now I usually work on something else. But I have to stay home. And he does not cut in an orderly fashion. Raoul just wanders around the yard in a long, cris-crossing fashion. What he does not cut in one pass, he might get in the next. Or maybe the one after that. So if you stop him early, you will have to look for the places he has missed. But I have gotten into the habit of just turning him loose whenever I happen to be at home for the evening.

You will end up with a nice lawn. You will have to edge. It leaves about two or three inches all around (more on that in a minute), but it cuts well and mulches much better than anything else I have used. When the lawn is done, it looks good.

It appears to be pretty safe. In my opinion, you will have to work to lose fingers, or a pet. The bottom of my Robomower is relatively flat, with three bowl shaped indents. The indents are arranged in a triangle, two in front, one in the middle behind. At the bottom (top?) of each indent, about an inch above the bottom of the mower, is a blade. In order to get your finger in the blade, you must reach under the mower about two inches from the side (a good trick while the mower is moving), or about six inches from the front, then stick your finger up inside the indent, without lifting the mower, or bumping a sensor. (If the front wheel comes clear of the ground, the blades appear to stop.) Of course, you will have to make your own evaluation, and I accept no liability, and am just stating a personal opinion...

All of my problems have had to do with the state of my lawn. We just moved into a new house. We have five trees and a lamp post on the property. There are numerous low spots. Two of the trees have a significant surface root system. To be honest, I was impressed with how well Raoul copes with the roots. Usually, he rolls up, the front wheel bounces over the root (stopping the blade for a moment), he mutters to himself for a moment (something about removing the battery before lifting), then he proceeds on. Sometimes, though, he will try to go along the tree root, lifting his rear driving wheels, without lifing his front wheel. In this case, he really does not realize that he is not going anywhere. Sometimes he seems to figure out that he has gone further than is possible, and he reverses out, but sometimes that doesn't work either. I have stopped this for the moment by placing a rock partway up the problem roots. He bumps them and reverses. But I will have to come up with a permanent solution as we landscape.

The other environmental problem is the low spots. In some cases the front wheel will get in a low spot, the blades stop for a moment, and Raoul will drive out of it, but sometimes it seems to stymie him. I am filling in the low spots with a topsoil/grass seed mixture and I think this problem will go away.

Bottom line - Would I do it again? I think so. It took me a while to set him up and learn his foibles, but he is a neat toy and at this point, I just don't worry about cutting the lawn!
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OK, it is two and a half years later and a couple of more comments... I need to buy batteries about every two years. The roots continue to be a problem. I have wired around one set, so that tree is no longer a problem. Of the four remaining trees, Raoul seems to cope with three of them all right, but I need to wire around the last and biggest tree (a huge old weeping willow). I have used three bags of stakes, and will probably need to buy a fourth.
The biggest pain in the neck has been wire breaks. Maybe I have stretched the perimeter wire too tight, but I have had three wire breaks. Not major breaks, but enough to break the circuit. Finding and fixing these breaks takes just about a whole afternoon. After reading some other reviews, I think I will try some 14 gauge wire, rather than the 16 that came with the unit.
Had one unit breakdown in three years. The folks from Friendly referred me to RoboDirect. These guys are VERY good. Diagnosed the problem over the phone, talked me through verifying it, and sold me the $25 control cradle that I needed, all in one day. Took a week to receive it, I installed it easily, and had Raoul back at work. Only had to mow once with the old push mower. Don't know if everyone will have it this easy, but that has been my experience.

All it took was [some money] and I'm now the most popular person in the neighborhood. I thought my wife was going to kill me three months ago when I ordered the robomower. I can now tell her 'I told you so'.

The parimeter wire required a little bit of tweaking during the first mow. I had to move the wire away from obsticles that were too close. Now, I just drive the mower out to my yard and set it to work. I have a large corner lot and I have broken the lot up in just two sections. I am also on a hill. I do not have any flat areas. The mower handles most of the lawn just fine, but the blade turns off in some of the treacherous sections. It seems the mower mows the bottoms of hills much more thoroughly than the tops of hills. I think gravity has an effect on robomower. The mower gets pulled to the bottom of the hills as it mows. That's OK, though. I haven't had to mow the lawn in 3 months! OK. That's an exageration. I use the mower on manual mow to do some of the trim work. I sold my 1 year old self-propelled lawnboy for $250 and robomower is my only mower now. Robomower has even made my wife a believer. Although, she still doesn't trust it around our 9 month old.