I have a smallish lawn, and this robot mower handled it with aplomb

Price When Reviewed

$1,599.99

Best Prices Today: Eufy Lawnbot E18

Research and growth efforts aren’t low-cost. Outsourcing is likely one of the methods producers can extra affordably increase their product choices, and a few good dwelling manufacturers—together with Anker’s Eufy good dwelling division—have taken this method slightly than growing their very own merchandise in-house. In this case, we’re speaking about robotic garden mowers.

The Eufy Lawnbot E-series robotic garden mowers that Anker debuted at CES final January are literally rebranded TerraMow fashions which have been out there in Europe since mid-2024. Apart from battery measurement, the 2 Lawnbot E-series mowers are equivalent, with the mannequin E15 able to dealing with as much as 0.2 acres, whereas the mannequin E18 reviewed right here is appropriate for as much as 0.3 acres.

Specifications

Both Lawnbot E-series mowers may appear small in comparison with a lot of the competitors—suburban and rural American yards are usually very massive—however you don’t must personal an acre or extra of turf to understand a robotic garden mower.

These are smallish, rear-wheel drive mowers, however don’t let their measurement idiot you: Both machines are filled with smarts. The GPS navigation that so many different fashionable mowers use, nonetheless, just isn’t one in all their options. These mowers map your yard utilizing pc imaginative and prescient alone.

The mower maps your yard utterly by itself: you solely direct it to the parts of the yard you need it to map after which draw pathways between these areas. I had the Lawnbot E18 up and operating in my yard in lower than 30 minutes.

While it’s thrilling to see a mower that doesn’t rely upon GPS satellites or require a fancy set up involving antennas on tripods and the like, I actually had my doubts a couple of mower that depends solely on imaginative and prescient, however these have largely dispersed—a minimum of relating to Eufy’s (and TerraMow’s) bots.

Setup

Ed Oswald/Foundry

The preliminary setup of the Eufy Lawnbot E18 includes discovering an acceptable location for the mower’s base station, plugging it in, after which turning your consideration to the mower itself. While the mower comes with sufficient cost to finish setup, we charged it to 100 p.c, which took lower than half an hour (Eufy says a drained battery ought to attain a full cost inside 90 to 110 minutes).

After that, you can begin mapping from throughout the app. Place the E18 wherever inside a grassy space (the app will information you) and permit it to calibrate. The mower will spin in a circle, using its cameras to find out its location on the planet.

Watching a robotic doing donuts in your yard will appear odd, however that’s how this mower determines its exact location with out the help of GPS. Once that orientation course of is profitable, the mower will proceed to map your entire space of grass.

I’ve a fancy yard, so I set the Lawnbot E18 free on the best patches of grass first. It dealt with these spectacularly, needing lower than 10 minutes to map the 400 sq. ft. The mower struggled within the sloped parts of my yard, nonetheless, usually making an attempt to map areas that have been too steep for it to navigate. This required me to set no-go zones and limits throughout the app to stop it from getting caught. All-wheel drive would have helped with this, however the E-series mowers solely drive their rear wheels.

Ed Oswald/Foundry

The mower additionally insisted on returning to its base station after every zone was mapped, which I discovered irritating. When it got here to mowing areas removed from the bottom station, this added a substantial period of time to the mapping course of. This conduct could be necessitated by the Lawnbot E18’s reliance on pc imaginative and prescient for navigation.

Apart from that, the Lawnbot E18 was surprisingly easy at mapping, even in areas with view obstructions or obstacles. You received’t spend a lot time establishing a extra fundamental yard; certainly, transferring from unboxing to mowing occurred extra shortly with the Lawnbot E18 than some other mower I’ve evaluated so far.

Performance

The Lawnbot E18 is underpowered in comparison with many of the rear-wheel drive mowers I’ve examined on this worth vary, and it could climb slopes of solely 18 levels or much less. If you’ve gotten something greater than gradual rises in your yard, you’ll possible run into bother with this mower.

While the Lawnbot E18 is smaller than most robotic garden mowers I’ve reviewed, its measurement—and the truth that its slicing blades are fairly near the sting of its deck—provides it a minimum of one necessary benefit: Bulkier mowers can have issue maneuvering round obstacles, leaving unpleasant strips of uncut grass behind.

Ed Oswald/Foundry

That stated, the E18’s small slicing radius—8 inches—leads to longer mowing occasions than many different robotic mowers. But I’m OK with that, supplied the mower does its job. And for probably the most half, the Lawnbot E18 does its job.

While its imaginative and prescient navigation isn’t good, the mower carried out nicely general, and the maps it created grew to become more and more extra exact with every run. This meant the E18 left fewer untouched patches of grass after a couple of mowing periods. Another shock got here after I packed the mower away after which re-installed it later for a photoshoot. I put its base station in roughly the identical location, however I assumed the mower would wish to create a wholly new map; as a substitute, it acknowledged the yard and adjusted itself accordingly.

Some of probably the most vital navigation points I skilled have been solar blindness and incorrectly figuring out tall grass and weeds as obstructions. You can change the path of its reduce by zone; nonetheless, there is no such thing as a choice for alternating the path it mows to stop its wheels from leaving tracks in your garden. Segway’s E3-series mowers have this function, and it’s nice.

The Lawnbot E18 can’t function in the dead of night, both, though it’s outfitted with an LED gentle that may be turned on whereas it’s in distant management mode. This means you received’t be capable to mow your lawns at evening, as you possibly can with some competing mowers.

The Eufy app

Ed Oswald/Foundry

Some of the issues I encountered with the Lawnbot E18 can most likely be chalked as much as software program/firmware points. Until June, the bottom station needed to be positioned inside a mow zone, or the bot wouldn’t be capable to discover it. And you would solely set the mow path to your complete yard slightly than by zone. Also, an errant firmware replace in early June briefly prevented some Eufy mowers from working in any respect. These issues jogged my memory of what I handled throughout my Mammotion Yuka 1500 review final 12 months.

In each circumstances, issues improved over time. Eufy’s Lawnbot app is now rather more secure than after I first examined the E18 in May. It additionally obtained higher at detecting transitions between grass and sidewalk. Walkway stones, alternatively, repeatedly tripped up the mower, as it will deal with them as a stable sidewalk.

If you personal different Eufy good dwelling gadgets—whether or not it’s safety cameras, video doorbells, good lighting, vacuums, or mops—you’ll use the identical app to regulate the Lawnbot. It will seem underneath the Clean tab. The app is usually straightforward to make use of, though a bug would generally trigger the mower to sometimes disappear from the app’s Home web page.

The app’s live-view function is usually helpful, supplied you’ve gotten good Wi-Fi protection in your yard, nevertheless it does take some getting used to. The mower’s actions are considerably jerky, so it could seem as if the machine is lurching in sudden instructions when it actually isn’t. I didn’t completely check the app’s remote-control operate, nonetheless, as my Wi-Fi router doesn’t blanket my yard with protection.

Should you purchase the Eufy Lawnbot E18?

That the Eufy Lawnbot E18 is a rebranded TerraMow product doesn’t reduce its attraction—a minimum of for owners with smaller lawns. Its reliance on visible navigation is novel, however that function will get you as near plug-and-play as you’ll get with a robotic garden mower. It’s an important choice for folk who really feel overwhelmed by fashionable know-how. And should you personal different Eufy good dwelling merchandise, you received’t even must obtain one other app.

If you’ve gotten a bigger or extra complicated yard, the Sunseeker Orion X7 AWD will most likely be extra appropriate. Or should you don’t wish to watch for a mower to be taught the form of your yard, you would possibly think about the Mowrator S1 4WD, which you management with a gaming console-like distant as a substitute of counting on the mower to navigate.

This assessment is a part of TechHive’s in-depth protection of the best robot lawn mowers.