The Robomow Diaries: Weather thwarts inaugural mow - CNET

We're starting with a mower from Robomow, an Israel-based company founded in 1995. The company has five battery-powered robot vacuums from $999 to $2,099 that designed to tackle different-sized lawns. We're using the $1,599 RS612 model, a mower designed for yards that are a fourth of an acre or less.

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My front yard has become the Robomow testing grounds. First, I had to cut the yard with a traditional lawnmower per instructions from Robomow so I could more easily install the perimeter wire (I had to cut my grass before I could cut my grass, which felt pretty weird). That wire is what tells the Robomow where the boundaries of my yard are so it knows the area it needs to cut. Then, one of our technical editors, Steve Conaway, spent a hot afteoon installing that wire around the front yard. He found a place at the edge of my yard for the base charging station, connected the station to a bright green perimeter wire, laid the wire around the edges of the yard, and secured the wire with plastic stakes (Robomow says you can bury the wire if you wish, but it blends in surprisingly well).

I let the grass grow for about two weeks during which rainy days and deadlines kept pushing back the Robomow's start date. Some patches of grass had grown to more than a foot tall. Today had to be the day for Robomow's first run.

Fortunately, the rain held back, but the grass was still wet from yesterday. Like traditional push lawnmowers, the Robomow can cut wet grass, but the company doesn't recommend it -- it makes for a wet, sticky mess. Freshly cut grass began to fill the treads of the Robomow's two back wheels as soon as it exited the base station, which serves as the starting point for the mower. I was convinced I'd have to stop the mower manually and clear out the wheels mid-mow. But the lawnmower pushed through the soggy lawn at a pretty vigorous clip. The Robomow did make two stops during its 40-minute run when it became overheated, more than likely a result of its trudge through wet grass. The screen on the mower's body said it was cooling down, which only took about five minutes. By the end of today's cutting session, though, the underside of the Robomow and its two blades were covered in a blanket of soggy grass clippings.