We have three kids under seven and a business I’m trying to grow. So when I say the best purchase I’ve ever made is a robot lawnmower, understand that I’ve thought about this. There is no runner-up.
Here’s how I got there.
A while back I found out I’d be traveling abroad for about six months. That meant my wife and I had to sit down and sort out everything I normally handle around the house — and the yard was near the top of the list.
Our first thought was to go back to a landscaping company. We’d used one before. Seventy-five dollars a week to mow and hedge, and that was the only deal on the table: year-round or nothing. So we paid seventy-five dollars a week in January, when the grass wasn’t growing at all, same as we did in July. That’s $3,900 a year to have grass cut that spends part of the year not growing.
Next idea: buy a riding mower. Something my wife could actually manage without it turning into a whole project every weekend. Those run somewhere between $1,700 and $3,000, which felt reasonable next to $3,900 a year — but it also meant handing her one more job on top of three kids and a husband on another continent.
Then I stumbled onto robot lawnmowers, and it turned into a rabbit hole.
Here’s the thing I didn’t know: these are everywhere in Europe. Common enough that people don’t think twice about them. Meanwhile I have never seen a single one in my area. Not one. Whole category of technology that quietly got good while most of us weren’t paying attention.
And it did get good. The last ten years brought real AI and high-precision GPS into these machines. They’re not the bumper-car-with-a-blade units from a decade ago that wandered around inside a buried perimeter wire hoping for the best. They map your property. They know where they are.
I landed on a Mammotion Luba Mini AWD for $1,350. (I’m not sure it’s the one I’d pick today — the market moves fast — but it’s been excellent.)
Setup was the only real work: mapping the yard and placing the charging station. After that, it just went to work. Every night it mows a section, rotating through so no part of the yard goes long between cuts. I swap the blades once a month. That is the entire list of my responsibilities.
The yard has never looked more consistently good than it does now. Not “good for a guy who’s traveling” — genuinely better than when I was doing it myself, because the mower doesn’t skip a week when life gets busy or the weather doesn’t cooperate.
The math is almost unfair. $1,350 once, versus $3,900 every single year. It paid for itself in about four months and it’s been printing money ever since. But honestly, the money isn’t even the best part. The best part is that it’s one entire category of household work that just doesn’t exist for us anymore. When you’re running a business and raising three kids, that’s worth more than the dollars.
More expensive than a push mower? Absolutely.
Worth it? Every. Damn. Penny.
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