Best for:

The Segway Navimow is the best robot lawnmower for people with large yards. It’s relatively easy to set up and covers a huge area on a single charge. This model is definitely for people with larger lawns. Using a mower like this in an urban setting might be overkill. The mower was also the easiest with an RTK beacon to set up and use, which is a nice bonus. An RTK (or Real-Time Kinematic) beacon is a device that corrects a mower's coordinates so it can get accuracy down to a centimeter. 

Why we recommend it: 

The Segway Navimow X390 is my favorite mower, by a slim margin over the much cheaper Eufy E15. The mower is small and fast with spiked wheels for easy driving. It smartly negotiates difficult terrain, which doesn't sound like much. But not only does it climb hills well, but when it gets stuck, it uses a variety of techniques to get back underway. You can really tell that Segway put a lot of thought into how the mower can free itself.

The app is easy to use and set up. Adding to and editing the map is very straightforward. The one hiccup I had from a software perspective was getting the mower to mow the area I wanted it to when I accidentally assigned it to the wrong space. Convincing the mower to do something else was tricky. The initial cut the Segway makes left tufts of grass uncut, which was not the best. A second trip around the lawn largely corrected things, but I was hoping for better results on the first pass.

All that being said, the Segway quickly became my favorite mower of the pack. Yes, this particular model is by far the most expensive in the list at $5,000 full price, but Navimow sent its biggest mower. There are smaller mowers in the X series that should perform as well. The software is intuitive, the mower itself is attractive and I ran into the fewest issues when running it. It's an easy recommendation.

Who shouldn’t get it: 

If there's one large flaw with this mower it's the camera system. My part of Illinois has a type of grass that can grow seeds and small leaves at the top of it (if it gets long enough). Dandelions are also problematic. The issue I ran into was the mower refused to mow those things half the time. I imagine the camera system might have mistaken them for plant beds, which is fair, but I don't think it's asking too much for my lawn mower to recognize, you know, lawn. If you have a smaller yard, you may also be better served by the Eufy E15 or Sunseeker X3 Plus.

Best for:

This mower is good for people who don't want to mess with an RTK beacon or satellite coverage. The mower relies on vision sensors to determine its position, rather than an RTK beacon, which means it's dead simple to set up. The mower is also very efficient, though it has the slimmest cutting radius of all the mowers (tied with the Sunseeker below), so it will take longer to complete a larger yard. The biggest challenge with this mower is if you don't have any kind of barrier between your property and your neighbor's, like a sidewalk, fence, or driveway, the mower may inadvertently wander off your property, so keep that in mind. Normally priced $1,700 (currently $1,500 on sale), it's also affordable.

Why we recommend it:

It's easy to love the Eufy E15 mower because, within 20 minutes of taking it out of the box, it was already mapping out my lawn. Less than an hour later, it was mowing, and it finished its first pass almost flawlessly. When it had trouble, the app quickly let me know, and it even suggested setting up no-go zones on the fly wherever it ran into trouble. The cutting was quick and effortless, with good results. Cutting efficiency is excellent -- this mower didn't leave anything untouched.

The reason this mower is so simple is that it doesn't use an RTK beacon to correct its GPS coordinates. The Eufy E15 has a standard GPS receiver (with accuracy down to a few feet) and supplements that with visual data to determine its position. That means two things. First, it cannot run at night because there is no visual data. Second, if there is no physical barrier between your property and your neighbors -- a fence, sidewalk and so on -- the mower may wander out of its zone 

The mower works more like a robot vacuum -- you do not set up a barrier or a perimeter. You just set the robot loose and let it wander around and see what's what. Once it's done, it mows. It's ridiculously simple and if you have barriers between your property and your neighbor's, this is the mower to buy. If not, it's probably possible to set up one large no-go zone to keep it from going where it shouldn't but with a neighbor as… colorful as mine, that was not a risk I was willing to take. So if you want something dead simple to set up and use, and your lawn meets the right requirements, this is the easy choice.

Who shouldn’t get it: 

If you have a big yard, the Eufy E15 isn’t going to be the best fit. It’s better suited for a small yard like mine (3,000 square feet). It’s also not a good option if being able to set a no-go zone to keep it out of your neighbor's property, since that’s not something it can do without a physical barrier to contain it. It also won’t work at night since it relies on visual data. 

Best for:

The Sunseeker X3 Plus is an adorable mower, like the Eufy E15, so it's not meant for larger lawns. The bump sensor can be a bonus for yards with a lot of obstacles, but it can be troublesome because of how low it sits to the ground. If you have thicker grass, that can get annoying quickly and leave sections uncut. If you have consistent grass coverage and no thicker patches, you'll probably be OK. This model is best for people with medium-sized lawns and especially those with no barriers at property lines.

Why we recommend it:

The Sunseeker X3 is an adorable little robot mower with an unusual configuration. While most robot mowers have drive wheels in the back and omnidirectional wheels in the front, Sunseeker goes the other way with drive wheels in the front. I find this provides a more stable platform for the mower overall, which is a nice add on. But this mower has one not insignificant flaw.

Like most robot vacuums, this mower has a bump sensor in front. That's not a bad thing, but this bump sensor is very sensitive -- so much so that larger tufts of grass will trip it. This tends to leave portions of the lawn unmowed, which is, obviously, undesirable. The mower also has cameras in front, which makes the inclusion of a bump sensor a bit confounding. 

Beyond that, the mower performs well, and it's worth noting that robot mowers in general aren't meant for cutting long grass -- they're meant to maintain short grass. The bump sensor can still be tripped by shorter grass though. Sure, it's also tripped by things it should not try to mow, like brick borders and the like, but the bump sensor is so low to the ground it becomes maddening. This is even more of a problem during initial setup and even after a few turns around the lawn, so it doesn't quite make it as our favorite.

Who shouldn’t get it: 

If you have a big lawn, the Sunseeker X3 is another robot mower that won’t work for you. It works great on small lawns like mine that measure around 3,000 square feet. But for a bigger one, you’ll want the Segway Navimow X390. It also struggles with cutting longer grass due to the sensitive bump sensor.  

Best for:

If there is a Rolls-Royce of mowers, it has to be the Husqvarna. I tested the Husqvarna 410 iQ mower, which is new from the brand. Husqvarna has been involved in robot mowers for a long time. It developed the first robot mower back in the mid-1990s, which is surprising on a number of different levels. The mower is the largest I tested that actually cut my grass (more on that later), but it's more for lawns with straight lines. 

Why we recommend it:

From a sheer looks perspective, the Husqvarna 410 iQ looks like a luxury vehicle in its lines and design. I love the way it looks. It dwarfs most of the other mowers I tested (with one notable exception). The control panel on the back is easy to use and intuitive, which is a good thing, because you'll be using it a lot. It seems like every time the mower runs into a hiccup, you have to press some combination of the start and stop buttons, and every time you do that, you need to reenter your PIN, which is only four numbers, but you have to enter that PIN often.

One notable error I often encountered was a "Loop sensor problem," which only happened while the mower was on the charger but required me to re-enter my PIN every time. Husqvarna says this issue should be fixed in the next software update, so that's good news. 

The other annoyance about this mower is how you set up zones. Most of the other mowers just require you to drive around the circumference of the area. Husqvarna requires individual waypoints to mark the boundaries. If you have a rectangular area, that's easy. If you have a curve however, you have to drive, waypoint, drive, waypoint, drive, waypoint -- you get the idea.

At $3,000 at full price, it's less expensive than our best overall, the Segway Navimow X390, but significantly more costly than either the Eufy E15 or Sunseeker X3 Plus.

Who shouldn’t get it: 
The Husqvarna mower doesn't have a camera system, relying instead on a radar module on the nose. I didn't find that radar module to be very helpful, though since the mower tried to run over my foot -- twice. I did indeed test this. Not to worry, all my little piggies are still there, but that a tense moment. The lack of a camera also caused the mower to pop a wheelie on a low brick wall I have around a garden, so it'd be fair to say it didn't handle obstacles well. If your lawn is curved or has obstacles that need to be avoided, you also want to look elsewhere.

Best for:
The Ecovacs Goat A3000 LiDAR mower is one of five robot mowers I tested that worked successfully in my backyard. This is largely because it doesn't rely on GPS at all. Like the Eufy mower, the Ecovacs relies on optical data for navigation, but the Goat A3000 adds LiDAR to the mix. The result is a fairly quick and effective setup, similar to the Eufy E15. It maps and mows quickly and effectively and charges extremely fast.

The Goat A3000 will cost you $3,000, however, making it more expensive than the Eufy E15 ($1,800), so you're really paying for being an early LiDAR adopter. One key advantage LiDAR offers is that it eliminates the need for RTK. I might be a bit jaded, but that's a win in my book. It's worth mentioning that Ecovac's other mower, the smaller $1,000 Goat O1000 RTK, is less than half the price. LiDAR is expensive, but if it turns out to be the future of this industry, then smaller advantages now could turn out to be huge in the future.

Why we recommend it:
Setup for this mower is quite easy. It's one of the few mowers I've had that maps my lawn within 30 minutes of unboxing it. That seems to be a theme for mowers that don't rely on GPS. So if you have a large tree, or a lot of obstructions in your yard, this is a good unit to pick up.
Mowing is fast and efficient, as is charging. Ecovacs advertises that you can charge it to full in under an hour, which seems consistent with my testing. My backyard doesn't push the mower to its limits, so I never have to wait for a full charge. Speaking of which, Ecovacs also says that the mower can mow up to 5,383 square feet in two hours, including recharging time. That's extremely fast for a robot mower.

One thing to note about the Goat is that it usually moves very methodically, except in two situations. When the mower is moving straight forward, it can accelerate to a decent pace, roughly equivalent to a brisk walk. The other is when it’s turning, at which point it basically yeets itself in the direction it wants to go, which caught me by surprise.

One last little fun point, the Ecovacs Goat A3000 has point-of-view mowing and control. If you want, you can see through the mower's front camera to watch its progress. You can also use the remote in the app to navigate the mower and look around if you want. I’m not 100% convinced this is a feature as much as a party trick, but it’s still fun if you have some time to kill and want to clean up a few spots yourself.

Who shouldn't get it:
LiDAR is nice to have, but I didn't notice any particular mowing enhancements compared to other wire-free navigation mowers. One advantage that it should offer is the ability to run at night. The Ecovacs GOAT can run at night, but doing so disables animal protection, meaning the mower won't stop when it sees an animal in its path. While night mowing can be useful, I’ve tested two other mowers -- the Navimow X390 and the Husqvarna Automower 410iQ -- that have the same night-mowing capability, so I don’t consider it an advantage.