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Welcome to the Vergecast, the flagship podcast of robot lawnmowers. I'm Jennifer Patterson Tui, the Verge's senior smart home reviewer. It's officially the dog days of summer. And if you've been spending the last few weeks watching your grass grow and wondering whether it's worth shelling out a few thousand for a robot to cut it for you, then this is the Vergecast for you. I've been spending the last few months testing around a half a dozen of these robot lawnmowers to see if they've gotten any better than the last time I tried when I came away hot, sweaty, frustrated, and with a few scars. My husband's not mine. Today, I'm going to be joined by Brandon Doyle, a smart home reviewer, podcaster, real estate agent,
and columnist for Realtor magazine, who has been going through a similar gauntlet, only with fewer scars. We're going to chat about our experiences with the latest crop of auto mowers to see if they're worth your money. But first, here's what's happening on The Verge today. This is 90 seconds on the Verge for Thursday, August 13th, 2026. We may be one iPhone short at Apple's upcoming hardware event, which usually hits around the first week of September. According to statements from Apple supplier Pegatron during an earnings call, the base model iPhone 18 will skip the full launch and instead arrive in early 2027. That's a bummer as the entry model 17 was the best of the bunch last
year. I know I gave my whole family one. Foldable stands, however, fear not. The rumored ultra model, the foldable iPhone appears to still be on track for fall as is the 18 Pro line. Popular tech company, sorry, wrong company, deeply unpopular surveillance tech company Flock has announced it's implementing new safeguards after officers were caught using the tech to do exactly what people feared it would be used for, stalking people. Reports of police officers abusing the tools to stalk ex partners and others have prompted the Flock CEO to admit they got this one wrong and roll out updates to prevent abuse of its license plate reader technology. The changes include shortening the default period. It keeps data from 30 to 7 days, moving closer to
the limits suggested by its critics like the ACLU, who called the moves more focused on addressing a perceived PR problem than the significant harms its products create. And finally, a service outage for a popular pet tech company, Pet Libro, left several critters without their kibble. According to user reports on Reddit, the outage prevented the company's smart pet feeders from dispensing food on schedule despite Pet Libro claiming they should still work even offline. Pet Libro says all services are now fully restored, but some pets are still reporting missing meals. You can read more on all these stories at the verge.com. That's 90 seconds on the verge for Thursday, August 13th.
Hey Brandon, thanks so much for joining me. I can't wait to dive into our robotic lawnmower experiences cuz I know we've both had some interesting ones. Yeah, I'm really excited to get started. Thanks for having me. My first year testing robot lawnmowers was 2 years ago and I had held off for a while because they for many years had a reputation of being very expensive, very fiddly, and they didn't really work well unless you had like a super expensive top-of-the-line model. It was like the early days of robot vacuums, right?
Exactly. So, would you say that's changed? Have we What does What are robot lawnmowers able to do for us today? Yeah. You know, I think we're getting them to about 95% of what you're looking for. There's still some areas where they struggle and you're still going to be some required maintenance and, you know, some babysitting. Uh, but it's really come a long way in the last, I would say, two years. One of the big reasons I think is technologies. Um, and would you say what's the biggest change we've seen since say three or four years ago to today in how these robot lawnmowers work in our yards?
Yeah, it's definitely going to be the navigation. Originally, you would have that boundary wire. Then they had RTK, which is a GPSbased system, often requiring you to put a post in your yard, but it needed good view of the sky. And so you have to run power to that. and in some cases also Ethernet uh for like the Yarbo. And so that can be kind of a challenge of where you get that positioned in your yard. And of course, most yards have trees and GPS isn't so good with that. I know. It's like, seriously, people, did you not realize? It was crazy. It's like, oh no, you need to I spent hours in my backyard sticking these antennas, like walking around holding an antenna, like where is the signal? And I live in the south and
we have oak trees everywhere. I was like, I can't do this. Um I Yeah, it was so frustrating. And I was like, this is not something a regular user is going to want to go and spend $3,000 or $4,000 on one of these things and then have it not work because of satellites. Yeah. But we just have the one tree in our front yard, but I live in a suburban neighborhood and so, you know, the houses are 10 ft apart from each other or whatever it is. And even in the sideyard, the signal would bounce and it would get slightly off. Uh, but there's not a lot of room for error here. We can't have it mowing my neighbor's like landscaping. That would be a bad day. So, uh, they've definitely had advancements there. I think the best case is when we're combining
technologies. So taking a page out of the robot vacuums, some of them are using LAR and then also either VSLAM or just cameras in general for that object recognition. And so if it gets in an area where a signal is uh weak, it can rely on those other technologies, which is nice. And then they've gotten rid of that base station requirement. A lot of the companies have switched to net RTK. Yeah, I've tried that on a couple this year and it was definitely better. So, when I first tested Mimotion, um, theirs just would not work, refused to work in my yard and it was very frustrating. And then I put it in my neighbor's yard and
it worked fine. So, like this is, you know, it's You got to cut down your trees. That's the solution. They don't let us do that here. And yeah, it was very frustrating. And then this time they sent me the model for this year and they I think right when the three all-wheel drive. There we go. And then right when um I got it, they launched this new I Navi I think they call it, but it's Net RTK. Now, this is the key, I would say, to one of the reasons robot lawnmowers have got better. Can you explain a little bit what the Net RTK is versus the RTK GPS positioning that most of them were using prior?
Yeah. So essentially instead of relying on an antenna that you put in your yard, it connects to one that is nearby and they're regionally located. There is a subscription cost uh associated with them. Uh they include it for I think 3 years or something. But like that just is a sign of times to come like okay it's free now. And it kind of reminds me of like the early uh video doorbells or AI cameras where we have some of these features or it's like okay well that's really nice to have and that I want that uh but then down the line okay the models change and so you're reliant on that. However, I will say the shelf life of some of these robots isn't actually that long and so at some point we're going to be
replacing them anyways. Yeah, I think subscriptions and longevity are definitely two areas to be concerned about when you're investing in a device like this. I mean, they're they're out in the elements and they're doing hard work and a long time. Like, they're constantly going. It's not like your push mower that you maybe take out once a week or once a month. Yeah. Just to keep on the navigation real quick. Um, you mentioned combining these technologies. I'd noticed that this time around that a lot of these mowers will do now do all of them. Do you think that's a good solution or is there one in there that's just better than the rest?
Yeah, I'm a big fan of LAR. Obviously, if your yard is too big, you know, on a golf course, LAR is not going to work cuz it can't go that far. It relies on seeing things. Um, that would be my go-to. The net RTK is great. I do have concerns about subscription costs in the future. Obviously, as reviewers, you know, they're including that for us, but we got to think about the consumer and like would I go out and pay my hard-earned money for this and knowing that I might have that attached. Um, and then I like the cameras for object avoidance. I think it does a really good job. It didn't kill any of my puppies.
Didn't I still have all my toes, so I would say that it's been successful. Yeah, I have a flock of chickens in my backyard. You know, we're talking like at least a dozen. And it's really fun to watch it kind of dodge them and go around them. And the chickens kind of like face it down. Oh yeah. Our dogs like just grew up with robots. So like I have video of them riding a Roomba when they were first born. So uh they just don't even move for any of them anymore. They're just like, "No, you go around me. This is my house." Uh even outside with the lawnmowers. So do they ride the lawnmowers, though? Cuz that would be a video I would watch. That would be fun, but I haven't.
We'll have to try. I'll have to see if they'll they'll go up there. But yeah, when they were little, they would go up on the roll by vacuum, and that was a lot of fun. Now they're way too big. Well, and that's the other thing about these devices is these are not small lawn motorowers. I mean, these are big hulking things that you have to find space for. And for some reason, I found myself carrying them a lot. I don't know why I mean, they don't Yeah, cuz they get stuck. We got to babysit them. You really do. That was my biggest frustration with these um when I first started testing them in 2024 was I was picking them up because they were like they dug themselves a hole in the
sand in my backyard. I live in the south. I live near the coast. My soil is not designed for robot lawnmowers. In fact, I spoke before I started all my testing last year, I spoke with Husqavana, who is the company that originally developed the first robot lawn mower, and they said, "Yeah, basically the original robots weren't really designed for American yards." Um, they weren't designed for sandy soil. They weren't designed for much terrain or rough terrain. And what's changed now and Husqavana's newest models and many of the new models we tested, they have like all-wheel drive and much better traction. Give us a little feel for how
your yard is and whether this has helped. Having all-wheel drive versus how they worked before. Yeah, dare I say too much traction in some people's cases might rip up your yard a little bit. But uh my yard is a typical suburban yard. So I think we're like a third of an acre. Uh but when you're picking out a robot mower, it's important to know that the size on the box is not the size of your lot, it's the size of the grass. And so since you have a house sitting in the middle and a driveway, you actually subtract that out. And so you may need a smaller or you could get by with a smaller robot. And they base that off of like how many times does it have to go out within a 24-hour period. You really
would like to size up if you can. Uh because it means that the mower might not have to go back as often. And with the way batteries work and how they degrade over time, uh you'll be able to use it a lot longer. So something to think about there. But our yard uh you know, I'm in Minnesota, so I've got clay and then we have a wet land behind us. we have a longer grass uh so we do require the high cut versions of these mowers and so some people might notice there's different ones and it's not always intuitive which to get uh but here we cut our grass to about 2 and 1/2 to 3 in I have a slope on the side of our house because it's a walk out backyard um and again I mentioned earlier it's about 10 ft between the
houses so that can be a challenge not only because of the slope but also uh with the signal bounce ing. And then in our backyard, which I really call the gauntlet, we've got a wetland behind which that grass tries to get underneath the uh fence there. And then we have garden beds and landscaping. And so any of those robots with the caster mowers or caster wheels, those might get caught like on the landscaping edges, which is frustrating. And those are like more the smaller wheels that don't have as much traction. Yeah. Think about like a shopping cart. So, easy maneuverability. They use the big wheels in the back to turn as opposed to ones that have those omni wheels uh where they kind of turn on like the back wheels are still doing the
turning, but the other ones kind of are able to turn the other way as well. And then a few of them have uh turning wheels in the front now, which I think is really the way to go, more like a car. Yeah, you've got the Yva, which is tank tracks, which is just a recipe for ripping up your yard if you have a smaller yard. Not such a big deal if it's a big yard, but well, it's too big for the space. We had Yeah, that I have not tried the Yabo. We actually had Sean Hollister of the Verge um did get to have a run in with the Yabo because it had some pretty poor security issues. Um and he actually had one run him over. Soough
they have um addressed those flaws, but this is one of the other problems that you're going to notice going forward with um robot lawnmowers is that they will fall under the new FCC uh ban on robotic mowers. So the ban is actually on all mobile robots um that operate in and around a home or businesses in the US. you're companies are not going to be able to import new robot mowers without a special waiver. So, if you are interested in a robot mower, it's the ones that are currently available that you're going to be able to buy, but new ones coming. We're going to wait and see what happens here, but right now it looks like those um we may see slowdown on innovation. Um although some of the innovations we've seen
already um in the pipeline are quite exciting. So, I hope they find some ways around this. But yes, security is one of the problems. These are outdoor. So in terms of privacy issues, somewhat less of a concern, but they have blades. They are remote control robots with blades. Is that you mentioned you didn't have any issues with that. Do you think that is something people should be concerned about? Oh, definitely. I mean, don't be picking them up uh when you're moving them. It's important to be careful because the blades are on the bottom and you lean it against yourself, you're going to get cut. I know you my husband may have some
experience with that. Yes. And I noticed that cuz I wrote about that in my review and I noticed that all of the ones I unpacked this time all came with polyyrene around the blades. It's like they all read my review. Yeah, they're listening. I mean, they are little tiny razor blades. So, like this thing is not This isn't like having an actual robot lawn mower. Like if you're thinking about that, the lawn mower that you push around your garden, this is not that. These aren't big giant spinning blades. Um they're just actually little tiny razor blades that sit on a cutting disc. And this is one of the things that I actually really loved about lawnmowers this year because they worked because
they could get around my yard and they could connect. So they did actually do the job right. And that is that because they only cut a tiny bit of grass, it actually really helps your lawn get better. and my lawn looks so much better this year than it has ever looked. Um, and I put it all down to the robot lawnmowers. What about you? Have you seen an improvement in your yard since you started using them? Yeah, definitely. And I am by no means a lawn care nut. Like I just it's there. I don't like mowing the yard. I want my time back. It's kind of a set it, forget it type situation. Uh, and yeah, definitely improvements in the yard
overall. And you can even see it in my videos, like if we look at older ones to newer ones, like much more uh green and fluffy looking, if you will. No, they do help. Yeah, for sure. It still struggles around the uh garden beds and the fence, of course. it's not, you know, getting all the way up to there, which really highlights my lack of uh trimming that I personally do because now that I'm not mowing weekly or whatever it was previously, I don't really feel the need to get on there with a trimmer, but I probably should.
Yeah. Well, and so one of the things that I wasn't expecting, and this is only on a couple of the models, but that my husband is like, "Oh my god, these are amazing." They can do the stripes. Mhm. And I mean that is something that you can't really well if you're a professional or you're a real lawn geek, you can get your own lines, but the idea of just being able to like sit one of these robot mowers down in your backyard, press go, and then like in two days you've got these beautiful lawn stripes, it's like that's that's a good selling point, I think.
Did you manage to get stripes in your yard? Oh, I'll take it one step further. They actually allow you Yes. So you can put the different shapes and things. And so I did one in our backyard and I just wanted to see like how long would it take for my wife to notice. It didn't take her long actually. It's just like is there a heart in our backyard? I was like yes there is. Oh, you did a heart. How sweet. Then I removed it and to see like how long it would take for it to disappear. It didn't take long. So how long was I haven't tried that yet.
How long was the process? Yeah. So, I mean, it's the spring season here, so the grass is growing pretty darn quick. And we've had a lot of rain. Uh, so a couple weeks until it was very noticeable that it was there, and then it took probably a week until you didn't notice anymore. And back to just being the strays. You're listening to Deepgram Grim Flux TTS. Different voices, same model, all ready to speak. Flux TTS is a streaming texttospech model built for voice agents.
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I've noticed this new batch that I've tested this year, and we're going to we'll go over quickly which ones we tested. I know we haven't mentioned them in detail yet, but um is that they're much faster. They seem to complete the job a lot quicker. I think that's also because they've gotten bigger. To my point earlier about they've realiz the manufacturers have realized for most American yards um you need a bigger machine that's going to cover more space and have a longer work period. Um, but yeah, I've definitely noticed that they've wor they work faster and also you can adjust the speed which is for some of them which is nice to have that sort of flexibility, you know, if you
want it done quickly or if you want it much more methodical. Um, what are some of the other things that you've liked about robot lawnmowers and then we'll talk about some of your favorites and then we'll talk about some of the issues and Yeah, definitely. Uh, so I think navigation's got to a point where I can actually recommend it for most people in most yards, uh, which is not always true. So that's big. I'm not worried about them running things over. I think the obstacle avoidance is plenty uh, with where it's at. I think you for most people, you should be able to mostly set it and forget it. Uh, this year, the thing I was the most excited about was trimming.
M. However, I feel like uh for me that fell short just because of our fence in our garden beds. Lots of people have fences in garden beds. Yeah. So, if I didn't have that though, I would say that the goat did the best job of the three that I tested with trimmers. Uh because that one it could do it on its own. So, it didn't require supervision and it did get a pretty good job of it. But with the fence, uh that's a little bit challenging. And that's the Eovax, right? Ecoax Goat A3000 Pro, right?
Yeah. It was one of my favorites from last year. So, at CS when I saw they added a trimmer on there, that made me really excited. Uh, that one also uses LAR for navigation, which I found was pretty good. Although, I did Austin Powers itself in between our garden beds and it managed to get stuck. So, Austin Powers itself. What do you mean? Yeah, if uh people of my age might get the reference, but uh there was a movie where uh the main character was going through the tunnel and he tried to turn around in this little cart and then he managed to get parallel and he was stuck and so it's just him going back and forth and yeah.
Yeah, it is funny watching them get themselves stuck and trying to figure their way out. Um, also not it's got it's it's good if you see that happening then you can stop it because this is if you don't stop it you can end up with a buried robot lawn mower has dug its way into your garden. I was out of town and last year I was testing so many robot mowers that I had to rely on my neighbors for some of the testing and so this one had gone out and was working on my neighbor's yard. But somehow between when it went out and that time some something got in the way of its path. I think it like his son had came home and blocked the driveway. And so it would try to go back to the dock but then realized it couldn't. And
instead it would try to go back the other way. It was blocked. And so it was just in an endless loop going in circles in his front yard. And he's messaging me like, "Hey man, you got to make this thing stop. Like it's it's just going back and forth." And I'm like, well, try moving the car. That didn't work. So, I had to like remotely stop it and then manually drive it back from another country using the camera, which was quite the feat. I might say I couldn't get it to do when I got it back into my yard. Uh, then it could figure it out on its own. So, robots are going to take over the world one day, but they currently can't figure out how to go along your driveway. Yeah, there's a lot of AI references there where I'm not too worried.
Um, but what were your favorites after your testing? What would you Yeah. Which ones would you buy for your yard if you were going to shell out the third $3,000 or so dollars that most of these things cost? I mean, definitely get it when it's on sale. There's always sales on these things. So, I think 2500 is probably about where you want to be. 2,000 if it's on sale. Uh, but the Motion Luba 3 all-wheel drive is probably my favorite. I kept that one. And then the Eovax Goat A3000 Pro, which has that trimmer attachment. That one was really impressive. I've got that in my front yard still uh because there's the fences and up there. And so, that one's nice cuz I don't have to worry about the
edging. It can get right on that landscape line. It handles the hills perfectly. Um, that one I haven't had any intervention uh since I've installed it. So, those are probably my two go-to ones. Yeah, if you were already invested in the works system, like you have a bunch of their batteries already, that was kind of neat because it uses the same battery system. So, like it comes with that. I thought that was kind of cool. But, uh, if you have a really big yard, but my yard is way too small. Yeah, I'm still not sure about the Yo. I'm gonna we'll wait for the next generation, I think. Um, yeah. No, I agree. I the Motion I really liked the first time around I tested it. I just couldn't get it to work in my yard. Um,
and this new one, the Luba 3 now with the net RTK does work. But I do worry about that subscription. And also when you're relying on anything that requires the cloud to operate, um, that's a bit of a concern. Um, I wish they could maybe get to the point where it could learn and like keep your location in its memory so it doesn't have to constantly be pinging um the GPS or the RTK system. I would say I'm actually a big fan of the Dreamy um A3 all-wheel drive Pro cuz these guys have great naming. Is that you got the all-wheel drive?
Uhhuh. Yes, I know. So, I tested the A1 last time, which doesn't doesn't have the all-wheel drive, and that one used to get stuck all the time, but the all-wheel drive on this one is really good. Um, and I also like that it acts as a security camera, so you can have it patrol at night and patrol your backyard, which is that's I mean, when you add the cost of not having to buy outdoor security cameras into that, that you've got bit more of a value prop there. Um, and it did a really good job and it has an edge trimmer. it shifts its cutting blades out to cut along the edge. Um, so that one's been really good. But the Navamo, the new Navamo X430, which is also an all-wheel drive
one, has the coolest way of like it can turn its front wheels entirely uh 90° and just like spin on a dime. It's really fun to watch it go. And so that one I've found really worked very well in my backyard. Um, although it does rely on GPS to start and I had to spend a good 45 minutes finding a tiny sliver of my yard where it could catch a satellite, but once it got it, it didn't need it again. So, that has been useful because it uses like four different types of navigation. So, it knows where it is and now it can navigate. It hasn't got lost once and my backyard has got is full of trees. So, yeah, that one's been I've been impressed with that. There are also cheaper models if you just have a small front yard or backyard. You can get
that. So, Robar Rock has its new Rock Neo that I've just started testing. That's under $1,100, $1,200. I think Segue has a couple smaller ones. I think you tested a sub $1,000 one, right? Yeah. Anthbot was surprisingly good. If you have a smaller yard, I think it's perfectly adequate. Yeah. Uh I like that one a lot. It's interesting that the robot vacuum manufacturers, so Dreamy, uh, Robo Rock, Eovax have really come in and kind of taken over this space. There are a few specialized robot lawn mower companies like um, you mentioned works and then Husqavana, Mimotion is sort of a general robotics company, but it's interesting to see how the robot vacuum companies are kind of
taking over this space. Um, I'm I'm really interested if they're allowed to continue selling models here, new models here, what kind of innovations we're going to see. In particular, there's one innovation I'm excited to bring or see come to the market. And you've had some experience with this, which is, can they open my gate for me? So, tell us about your experience there, and then we'll kind of wrap it up. Yeah. So, Navim Mo actually has a gate. It recognizes the robot as it approaches and it releases the tension on it and so it's able to push its way through. So the robot in theory could it could work with other brands if you could turn off
uh its sensing cuz normally it wouldn't want to ram into a solid object. But for this one it's going to tell the robot okay this is okay and it can go through. So I have that available. I haven't installed it yet just because this is a very uh permanent change and um you know I'm cycling through these and if we move like you know is this going to be a negative for the next person if they don't have it and so we'll see maybe I'll set up a demo rig somewhere where we can test this out but uh it's certainly going to get a lot of attention and you know is it a solution or is it are is it better to just have two I kind of compare this to you know in your house if you stairs. Yes, they're creating these robot vacuums
that can climb stairs or an exoskeleton that can go upstairs, but like do we really need that? Is it more expensive or would it be cheaper to just get two robots? And I think that we're still at the point where like we probably can just get another robot and it' be easier and less permanent. So, well, we'll get to the point I think maybe where they have little arms and they can just reach out and open the gate and that won't be terrifying at all. So, we'll all be fine with our robots with limbs and blades roaming around our backyard so that we don't have to mow the lawn. Yeah. Unfortunately, I don't think it's happening anytime soon. I mean, we saw the Switchbot robot attempt to do laundry.
Yes. Uh I don't know if you tried the Yarbo or the Robo Rock that has the arm of the vacuum. It's so limited in what it can do. It's like, well, if you perfectly place the sock or it's folded in a way that it could grab it and then you only have a certain type of shoes that are incredibly lightweight, it can pick them and move them into a designated spot. But any other scenario, um, no, that's not going to work. Yes. No. I So, I think you're I think it sounds like you agree with me that robots are useful today, but currently still not at that level where we perhaps everyone needs one. And also, you don't need to be worried. They're not taking over anytime soon.
I do think we're going to see more purpose-built robots. I don't think that we're going to see a general use robot anytime soon in a household. Agreed. Excellent. Well, thank you so much for spending time with us today, Brandon. It's been really useful and helpful to get your insights. I appreciate your time. Um, is there anything you want to tell us about your what you're doing next or what's up or where people can go find your work? Yeah, you can find my articles on Realtor magazine. They're actually written for consumers. So, it's uh published every month. I pick a different category, something that's exciting to me, I share it there. And
then on social media, it's just @ Brandon Doyle MN. So, you can find me on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, all that. I share uh behind the scenes of testing and yeah, really excited about all that. Great. Well, thanks so much, Brandon, for joining us and we'll talk to you soon. Thanks for having me. Take care. That's it for today. As always, we love to hear from you. Send your thoughts and questions to vergecasterge.com or call the hotline 866Verge11. To support everything we do and to get access to adfree episodes, subscribe to The Verge. The show is produced by Josh Khas, Eric Gomez, Brandon Kefir, and Travis Larch. Thanks for listening.
