The boundary is the purchase, not the blade
A robot mower is the only machine on this site you buy for what it does when you are not there, and the thing you are actually buying is the boundary. For a decade that meant a wire pegged around the lawn; on this shelf, six of the nine machines surveyed say « ohne Begrenzungskabel » in the title, and all nine delimit the lawn without one. Three methods appear, and they are not equivalent. RTK uses a fixed reference antenna and satellite positioning, which is accurate to a few centimetres and needs sky — a garden under mature trees is where it struggles. LiDAR scans the surroundings and works under canopy, which is why it appears on the machines aimed at awkward gardens. Vision reads the grass edge with a camera, alone or alongside one of the other two. The stated area follows the money: 100 m² for the smallest here, 500 to 800 for the mid-range, 1 200 for the largest. Then the figures that decide whether the machine suits the garden rather than the lawn: the slope it will climb, quoted as a percentage and the single most common reason a robot fails in a real garden; the cutting width, which on a robot is small — 16 to 22 cm — because it mows continuously rather than quickly; the cutting heights; the battery and its charge time, which together decide how much of the day the machine is actually out; and the app, which on this shelf is where zones, schedules and no-go areas are set. We compare cutting width, stated area, navigation, boundary, slope, cutting heights, battery, charge time, app, guaranteed noise and weight.
16 cm, 100 m², camera navigation, 20–60 mm, no battery
A 16 cm robot for 100 m², wire-free by camera, supplied without a battery. The smallest machine on the shelf and the one that needs a pack buying.
Best for: A small, simple lawn, for somebody who already owns packs on this battery alliance
3D + HDR camera, mapping to 3 000 m², 50 % slope, under 55 dB
Long-range 3D scanning with an HDR camera, an extending cutting head for edges, a 26.5° slope and a camera that patrols the garden.
Best for: A large garden with slopes and a lot of edge, for an owner comfortable with an app and a camera
RTK + vision, 600 m², 30–80 mm in 10 mm steps, 45 % slope
Satellite positioning with a visual fallback, 1 cm height steps from 3 to 8 cm, 45 per cent slopes and 0.7 m passages.
Best for: An open garden of moderate size with slopes and narrow links between areas
600 m², camera, 25 % slope, 20–60 mm, 4.0 Ah, magnetic tape
Camera navigation on a shared battery platform, with magnetic tape for no-go zones and three spare blades in the box.
Best for: A medium lawn on gentle ground, especially in a shed that already holds this maker’s batteries
Vision, 500 m², 60 cm passages, 300+ obstacles, 58 dB stated
Camera navigation with animal detection, 60 cm passages, edge riding, and a stated 58 dB — with no indication of which decibel it is.
Best for: A medium garden with wildlife in it, where the machine will be scheduled and forgotten
150 m², HDR camera + ultrasound, no app, 1 h charge, 20–60 mm
No app, no dock, no wire: a camera-and-ultrasound robot you put on the lawn, with a removable pack that charges in an hour.
Best for: A small lawn with hard edges all round, for somebody who does not want another app
Full-HD vision, 600 m², no beacons, 2 RFID zone tags
Vision only — no wire, no beacons, no antennas — with RFID tags for multi-zone gardens and a stated 0.05 s obstacle reaction.
Best for: A garden of two or three linked lawns where nothing should be buried or bolted down
3D LiDAR + vision, edge within 5 cm, 45 % slope, 30–100 mm
Laser scanning plus vision, a sliding blade disc that cuts within 5 cm of a wall, 45 per cent slopes and 60 cm passages.
Best for: A large, complicated garden with slopes, narrow links and a lot of hard edge
190 mm cut, 3 cameras, 45 % slope, 55 cm passages, 4.5 Ah
Three cameras working together, a 19 cm cut on five swinging razors, 55 cm passages, and a mode that mows without mapping first.
Best for: A garden of several small linked areas with narrow gaps between them
Only the specifications at least four models out of five state. A column that is more empty than full compares nothing.
| Model | Price | Amazon reference | App | Battery | Boundary |
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Specifications: manufacturer sheets and Amazon product pages. Prices and availability: Keepa. No product on this site has been physically tested.
Most recent revision in this category: September 26, 2026.
