At a look
Skilled’s Ranking
Execs
- No boundary wires
- 4 choices relying on garden dimension
- As much as 45% slope functionality
Cons
- Antenna requires open floor
- 15cm border requirement
- Charging station wants entry to an influence socket
Our Verdict
The Navimow is a unbelievable strategy to preserve your garden wanting trim, however you will want a large expanse of open and flat turf to get the very best worth from this mower.
Worth When Reviewed
From $1,699
Finest Costs Immediately: Segway Navimow
It seems like a horticultural dream: a robotic mower without having for boundary wires you could management out of your sensible telephone. And it may be… in case you have the correct of garden in the correct of place.
There are 4 Navimow fashions accessible, for lawns starting from 500m2 to 3000m2. We’re testing the H1500E, which is – as you may guess by its mannequin identify – for lawns as much as 1500m2.
Design and construct
- Substantial construct
- Off-road tires
- GPS positioning
- 7.8Ah lithium battery capability
The Navimow is massive.
The field arrived at our testing floor on a pallet, which provides you an concept of the scale and weight. The charging base alone is 80cm lengthy by 55cm extensive, and the mower itself is 58cm by 46cm by 25cm.
The mower can also be heavy, so chances are you’ll need assistance to manoeuvre and unpack it from the field and set it up in your garden. It’s not a product you can have delivered to your grandmother and count on it to unravel her gardening issues.
Each the physique of the charging base and the mower are laborious plastic: black for the charging base, and gunmetal gray with orange accents for the mower. The off-road wheels in the back of the mower, 20cm in diameter, have a chunky rubberised orange tread and good traction.
The highest of the mower boasts a big crimson cease button, an LCD display, and three buttons: one to start out mowing, an okay button, and a house button. On this means, it’s much like the fundamental operation buttons you may discover on a robotic vacuum. The buttons additionally double up as plus, minus and energy buttons, which you employ to lock and unlock the mower’s pin code.
Alex Greenwood / Foundry
The Navimow’s USP is that it makes use of GPS positioning to manage the mower’s actions, quite than boundary wires. So, naturally, this implies it has an antenna, which is a black transmitter mushroom that matches onto a black, forked, steel pole a metre excessive and wishes to face subsequent to the charging base.
Once more, the lithium battery is substantial at 7.8Ah, which permits this mannequin of the Navimow to cowl a 1500m2 garden dimension.
In app, you may schedule the mower for any time in a 24-hour window throughout all the times of the week. It additionally allows you to change on a rain sensor and routinely dim the sunshine for evening mowing
The Navimow additionally has IPX6 waterproof safety, so it’s protected towards a excessive strain of water, however you may’t submerge it solely. Briefly, it’s going to face up to heavy rainfall, however gained’t survive if it will get swept up in a flash flood.
Garden suitability
- Distinctive on-line guidelines
- 15cm border requirement
- A number of garden areas require flat corridors
Before you purchase, you might want to verify that the Navimow will work to your garden. Segway has created a Navimow guidelines on its web site for this function, and we’d strongly advise you undergo it earlier than you resolve to buy considered one of its mowers.
Alex Greenwood / Foundry
The guidelines takes about 5 to 10 minutes to finish, and it’ll ask you what your garden appears like, about your borders, how massive your garden is, about surrounding tree and home heights, and about passages between patches of turf. Upon completion, you’ll get an electronic mail of your end result, which you need to use to tell your resolution.
Do bear in mind that the Navimow requires 15cm clearance between its outer boundary mow line and a wall, fence, hedge or tall border, so in case your garden extends all the best way to a wall or planted shrub border, you’re more likely to get a 15cm strip of unmown turf across the outskirts of your garden.
You’ll profit from the Navimow finest in case your garden abuts planted borders with low top foliage on the entrance.
If you wish to use the Navimow to mow completely different lawns, they might want to have a flat hall between them that the mower can use to traverse from one garden to the subsequent. You probably have, as we did, two lawns separated by a cobbled path with stone curbs, it’s not going to work.
Arrange
- Good app instructions
- GPS reception might require charging base location adjustment
- Garden must be 6cm excessive or much less
We’ll be sincere: organising the Navimow appears daunting. However it isn’t an excessive amount of bother when you get began.
The very first thing is to make sure your garden is 6cm excessive or much less; this may imply, paradoxically, that you might want to mow your garden earlier than you arrange the Navimow. On this respect, you might want to consider the Navimow as a garden upkeep machine, quite than one thing that can type out uncared for grass. You additionally have to clear up any obstacles, similar to toys or damaged branches.
You then obtain the app out of your app retailer – Navimow provides a QR code – and arrange your account throughout the app.
Subsequent comes the set up of the charging station. You’ll want open floor with 110% skyward open clearance for the antenna, so the station must be on flat floor that’s two metres away from any home, tree, fence or wall on any aspect, with affordable entry to an influence level. Segway does provide an influence extension cable, however keep in mind that you could be have to shift the charging station to a different location if reception is poor.
You then set up the GNSS antenna subsequent to the station. This can be a easy matter of securing the antenna mushroom into the highest pole half, screwing the underside pole half into the fork, stabbing the fork into the bottom, after which screwing each halves collectively. The antenna cable wants plugging into the again of the charging station, and this makes use of exterior waterproof fittings, like these on exterior fairy lights.
Plug within the charging station and the sunshine on high of the station ought to illuminate blue if the antenna has a powerful sign, or yellow if not – by which case, you will want to relocate the station and antenna to a different a part of your garden.
You then activate the mower by putting it into the charging station and utilizing the app to pair the mower to your sensible telephone. As soon as this happens, you may screw the station into your turf and peg down your cables utilizing the provided screws and pegs.
We have been impressed. The Navimow was so quiet, we didn’t realise it had begun to mow – and it didn’t miss a spot
The app will then take you thru a calibration course of, and chances are you’ll discover that this requires you progress the bottom to a different spot, even when the Navimow indicator gentle was beforehand inexperienced. The app may also take you thru the Navimow guidelines.
When you’ve set every thing up, it’s time to arrange your boundary. You’re going to get prompts by way of the app, however it’s a means of transferring the Navimow to a beginning place, fixing the 15cm measure to the mower, after which slowly directing it across the boundary of the plot you want to mow utilizing the arrow keys within the app.
It’s essential to stand about 6 metres away from the mower on the again and slowly direct it. You then set your off-limit islands and create channels to different sections of garden.
The ultimate step is to then give it a take a look at run. You’ll have to enter the pin code into the mower LCD display to unlock the gadget.
Efficiency
- Quiet
- In-app reducing top adjustment
- Good scheduling
The Navimow is quiet. Segway states 54 dB(A), however it appeared quieter to us and much under the noise stage you’d count on from a traditional electrical or petrol mower.
By the app, you may set the reducing top between 3cm to 6cm, and schedule the mower to work at any time in a 24-hour window throughout all the times of the week. The app additionally permits you to change on a rain sensor and set the sunshine to “darkish mode” so the sunshine dims routinely if mowing at evening.
For our first take a look at, we set the peak to 4cm. The Navimow did its job quietly and properly. It zigzagged its means throughout the garden in 21cm extensive strips and coated 16m2 in roughly quarter-hour. The protection was even and cautious. You possibly can comply with the real-time progress of the Navimow within the smartphone app.
Alex Greenwood / Foundry
One factor to notice is that the Navimow deposits cuttings again onto the garden, so if you need a clear end, chances are you’ll need to rake up the cuttings afterwards.
For the second take a look at, we scheduled the Navimow to chop to 3cm at a selected time of day. Once more, we have been impressed. The Navimow was so quiet, we didn’t realise it had begun to mow and it didn’t miss a spot.
Alex Greenwood / Foundry
The mower can’t address slopes over 45 levels, however we discovered that wasn’t an issue.
By way of security, there’s a massive crimson cease button on high of the mower itself, and a blade sensor that stops the mowers blades spinning when the sensor space is touched.
When the mower has completed, it returns to the charging station and expenses routinely. You possibly can verify the cost stage by way of the app’s fundamental web page.
The Navimow additionally boasts an anti-theft function in its Precise Fusion Location System, which suggests you get an alert to your telephone if the mower strikes exterior of its digital boundary, and its present actual time location.
Equipment
You should buy equipment for the Navimow, together with a VisionFence sensor that enables the Navimow to adapt to extra complicated lawns and keep away from obstacles in a extra clever means.
There’s additionally an ultrasonic sensor accent that can, once more, assist to keep away from obstacles. You may also purchase a brief fence to guard areas you need the Navimow to keep away from, and an antenna extension equipment, together with an extension cable, if you wish to set up your antenna on a wall or roof.
Worth and availability
We examined the H1500E with the 7.8Ah lithium battery for lawns as much as 1500m2.
Should you want extra protection than this, there’s the H3000E for lawns as much as 3000m2; this mannequin comes with an integral ultrasonic sensor and three years free 4G knowledge.
Should you don’t want a lot protection, there’s the H500E and H800E for lawns of 500m2 and 800m2 respectively. The H500E works utilizing Wi-Fi and has no GPS anti-theft measures.
Should you’re within the UK, go to the Segway Navimow web site, the place you’ll be capable to discover a full record of native dealerships. There are additionally on-line shopping for choices. FR Jones & Son has your complete vary on its web site: the H500E, the H800E, the H1500E and the H3000E.
Should you’re within the US, you will get a Navimow through Indiegogo however you’ll have to be fast to get it at its finest value.
Verdict
The Segway Navimow is a superb robotic mower. It’s quiet. It does the job properly. You don’t have to fuss with boundary wires. However it’s expensive.
Relying on the place you reside, there are limitations. You probably have a excessive mound of turf exterior your again door, or tall timber or shrubs sprouting out of your garden, or a lot of grassed walkways in-between raised beds, you gained’t get the very best worth out of it.
However in case you have a largely flat, largish sequence of lawns, open to the sky, with flat corridors between the lawns and low entrance borders, you’ll love the Navimow. You possibly can schedule the mower by way of the app, and simply overlook about your lawns from Might to October. It’s an exquisite strategy to preserve your garden tidy and weed-free.