Husqvarna Automower® 430XH Robotic Lawn Mower, Medium – Large Yards (0.8 Acres)

TLDR: If you're even thinking about robotic lawn mowing, get a Husqvarna Automower - they are stunning and will change your outdoor life. Longer version: I've been using robot mowers for about 6 years now. As a professor of computer science & engineering and a roboticist, I'm always applying technology in automation and quality of life improvements. In 2016, I was deciding between a Husqvarna Automower and a Robomow RS622. At the time, I chose the Robomow, primarily because of the powerful dual 400W mowing motors (old school thinking). And while the RS622 did its job fairly well, its Achilles heel was its unbelievable weight, at over 51 lbs. Inevitably, it'd start tearing up our grass (we have clay soil, and so the heft of the machine in wet areas would cause it to become stuck and rip up the grass, exposing unusable clay), make deep ruts around the perimeter wire, and eventually become stuck at least once per week. In short, it was not quite set and forget. It also chewed through drive motors and gearboxes like a 2-year-old through cake.This spring, our Robomow finally bit the dust with a motherboard failure. I had been hoping to look at a Segway Navimow (RTK GPS tech), but so far, the technology looks a bit immature, and there's something to be said for a company that has spent 27 years refining their robot mowing technology. So, I ordered the Husqvarna Automower 430XH. And oh boy, what a brilliant, incredible difference it has been. If you're on the fence (or have a fence), let me tell you why you need to get this unit.Firstly, the weight of the device is perfectly calibrated. It has enough weight to get good traction from the wheels, but is light enough not to leave tracks or tear up freshly-sown grass. That's right, you can plant new grass seeds without fear of the mower tearing it up. Secondly, I was worried that the pivoting razor blade system wouldn't have enough power to make clean cuts, but I was totally wrong about this; the cut quality far exceeds the old Robomow's, and the overall appearance of the lawn is unbelievable after just two weeks of operation.Most importantly, the device's learning capabilities and operation are absolutely stellar. It's manifestly evident that the company has spent decades refining their positioning and mowing algorithms. The GPS is used to its full potential (I've used GPS navigation from the get-go rather than the manual area setup), and my lawn was completely learned in just a few days. After the first two weeks, the GPS *really* picks up steam, focusing on key areas (you'll see the mower turn around in its tracks to go back to a particular area of interest), and its ability to combine the locations of the guide wire with areas requiring more attention is simply spectacular. I didn't bother to use the manual guidewire distance/areas method (I have two guide wires that I put in), as the GPS-based navigation algorithm is *so good*! The app also does a great job, and is reliable. The old Robomow had a terrible Bluetooth stack which crashed completely every few weeks, requiring a reboot of the mower. In contrast, the Husqvarna Automower uses cell data, which is updated quickly and always accessible from anywhere.We have a complicated setup in our yard - a back yard fence, in which I have cut two "flaps" from the original fence wood, and a couple of strips of grass separated by sidewalks or walkways. I've created an automated motor and microcontroller-driven setup with long-range radios to automatically open up the fence gate flaps when the mower goes out to mow. (With 3 young kids, this is an essential innovation.) This necessitates two 24" narrow passages through which the mower must go, and unlike the Robomow, it handles these perfectly, every single time. Yes, on occasion it'll escape from one area to the next, but don't worry; the GPS knows this, and will either try to get the mower back, or will direct the mower back to the escaped area in the next mowing session by going along the guide wire.Then there's the amazing attention to detail; for instance, the mower will periodically stop the mowing motor and change its direction, ensuring that the grass is cut from both possible rotational directions; the ability of the mower to not have to follow the entire guide wire to its entire length better utilize GPS data is another example of meticulous engineering. It's far quieter than I could have imagined. The Robomow, when cutting wet grass, would compact said grass under the blades, you could hear it even through a second-story window at night. The Automower has no such issues, at all. It's quiet in the wet and dry, and the grass seems to love it either way.IFTTT integration is great. I've written a few rules to expand Google Home interactions, and the sky is the limit as far as weather-based integration, if you want to add it. I have yet to try the "Weather Timer" feature, which has nothing to do with weather, and isn't really a timer - it just changes focus areas based on resistance detected by the cutting motor. Yet, it does such a great job, I haven't turned it on at this point during peak growing season.Installation was easy; just plan out the perimeter wire an the guide wire locations. I was actually able to keep the perimeter wire from the Robomow around our fence without modification; the offsets are exactly the same. However, anything around a path or at the edges that didn't sit next to an obstacle had to be re-wired, which wasn't a big deal. Proper planning will mean a reliable experience. We're even able to mow the thin strip of grass between our sidewalk and the street, which wasn't really possible with the older system we had. Thus, I don't have to pull out a push mower for any main area of grass, ever. Of course, one thing the Automower won't do is edge next to walls or fences; you'll still have to do that, but even a regular mower won't do that either.So, if you've been considering a robotic mower (and I can't figure out why they don't catch on in the United States, everyone should be running one of these!), look no further. Husqvarna's 27-year experience in the field, extraordinary engineering, and simple set-and-forget, intelligent system, will make your grass look amazing, with a constant, perfect cut, and you can stop worrying about failures or issues. While there are other contenders out there, and there certainly are cheaper units, the quality, engineering, and performance of the Husqvarna Automower line is the best you can get.

Studied automowers for about 2 years and took the plunge. Its been incredible. I love it and it makes me happy to have freed up about 2 hours of mowing and bagging a week. Going away will be even better as I wont have to mow it right before or after and plan around that. The yard looks perfect. I smile and and am so happy every time I see it out mowing.It is very quiet. Easy to program. I do have plastic boarders around the grass that I have had to cut or alter as he would get stuck trying to come back over the ledge due to the drop. He can get himself out of an area where he might be stuck as it will go at different angles.We have a dog. It has not been a problem as all with the dog mess or cat/dog for that matter. The only drawback is the dog will hear it outside the room at night and can wake her and then she wakes us. We don't mow at night anymore. But rain or shine, its so fantastic and you wont regret it.

Mower ran very well for almost a week before it completely died. Now needs factory service which I’m told will be 60-90 days. Don’t buy this piece of junk.

Overall I like the physical design, and the hardware, so far, has proven to be reliable and trouble free. The Android control app works well. In my case it seems to take 5 to 10 seconds to send a command at times, but cell phone coverage at my house is weak, especially when the automower is in the lower elevations of the back lawn, which is 30 feet lower than the front lawn.I researched various automowers and ordered the 430X. I ended up receiving the 430XH and did not return it, when I would have been a little better off with with 430X. The reason is my lawn is Bermuda, which likes to be cut short (1 inch) at the beginning of the season and the 430XH only goes down to 2 inches, while the 430X will go down to 1 inch cutting height. Given the steep slopes of my lawn, I now would get the much higher prices 435X, but that was not available at the time I purchased this in May 2019. For nearly all of the lawn mowing season, the 2 inch minimum of the 430XH works just fine. Early on I got the rough terrain drive wheel set and put those on.The firmware for this automower is pretty good, as long as it doesn't encounter any slopes or bumps to get it stuck. Because the mowing pattern is random, if it does encounter getting stuck, it will get stuck in the same place repeatedly with very few minutes of mowing in between. I have not seen any evidence of the automower "learning" anything between mowing sessions about the shape of my lawn, nor about obstacles. I have also not seen any evidence that the automower has any memory of where the charging station is, because when instructed to park it will at times turn and go away from where the charging station is to the farthest corner of the lawn before following a boundary wire that it appears to have randomly chosen to follow.About handling slopes: I tried using it on the gentler slopes of my lawn that were under 45 percent grades, and found that even though the gentler slopes were handled okay in the middle of the boundaries, at the last 2 feet inside boundary wire plus 1 foot outside the boundary wire, according to the 430XH User Manual that maximum slope must be no more than 15 percent, or a 5.4 inch drop over 3 feet. It can be more than that if the boundary is higher than the yard, but if the boundary is lower than the yard, this is critical, or the rear drive wheels will slip and either the automower will get stuck, or over time dig ruts and really get stuck.Also about slopes, when going up a slope close to 45 percent, if there are any bumps at all, this will cause the automower front wheels to go airborne, after which the automower firmware releases all drive to the rear wheels until the automower has freely rolled in reverse down the slope by around 6 feet (2 meters). If this happens in front of a down slope boundary, the mower will end up several feet outside of the boundary wire and usually require manual placement back in the boundary wire area. If this happens on a slope just above a retaining wall, it is likely the automower will experience a rolling back over the edge of the retaining wall, with undesirable consequences. Also, if the automower is in the process of following a boundary wire out to a particular zone to mow and it encounters a bump while going up slope, it will promptly forget about going to the zone and commence mowing wherever it happens to be. One result of this is if the route to an up slope zone has a bump along the route, that up slope zone will not be reached without manually placing the automower in that zone.Another firmware issue is when the automower is attempting to find its charging station. I have it set to follow a boundary wire back to the charging station. It will seemingly ignore the charging station at times, going past it while only 6 feet away. Usually it then chooses to follow a boundary wire with some pseudo random choice, sometimes picking a boundary wire to follow away from the charging station to the opposite corner of the yard until that boundary wire comes back to the charging station. In the process of going to the far end of the yard, if there is any place where the automower can get stuck it finds it, requiring manual intervention to place the automower on the charging station. My experience is the automower finds the charging station quickly about half the time, the other half of the time it appears to wander aimlessly with no clue as to whether it is getting closer or farther away from the charging station.In summary, although I have my issues with the firmware (I have written firmware for a living), and although it requires manual intervention at least once and usually several times per mowing session, it still saves me a lot of time mowing and allows me to avoid mowing in over 90 degrees F weather. I have slowly been fixing the places where it gets stuck, and when I have fixed the last of them I think this will finally be the labor-free answer to a well groomed lawn that I hoped for.