Robotic garden mowers are most likely not tremendous excessive in your “want to purchase” checklist, however that does not imply they cannot be high of the “stuff you’d love to purchase.” They’re a luxurious buy, however having been testing varied fashions for the final couple of months, I’ve to say, I am completely bought on proudly owning one, regardless of their significantly excessive worth tags.
All summer season, robotic garden mowers have been maintaining my grass wanting completely marvellous. I began with the Segway Navimow H1500E (thanks on your service Navimow), however that has since been changed by the king of robotic garden mowers – Husqvarna. Consider robot lawn mowers and Husqvarna is a model that can little question come to thoughts. The corporate has a spread of various fashions on supply, however except you’ve a really giant garden or very particular necessities, the smaller fashions within the portfolio will greater than serve home use. One of many smallest within the vary is the Automower Aspire R4, and it is nice.
Husqvarna / Pocket-lint
Husqvarna Automower Aspire R4
Really useful
The Husqvarna Automower Aspire R4 is perhaps the smallest within the firm’s vary however it is a mighty robotic garden mower. It delivers very good grass reducing efficiency, tremendous easy operation and packs in loads of good options that provide an enhanced expertise.
- Beautiful discreet design
- Glorious reducing efficiency
- Vary of good options
- Easy operation
- No impediment detection
- Prolonged preliminary setup
- Handbook reducing peak adjustment
Prolonged setup
Robotic garden mowers have come a good distance over the previous couple of years, and whereas they nonetheless aren’t as refined because the likes of their robot vacuum cleaner cousins, they’re smarter than they could first appear. The place the Segway Navimow H1500E makes use of GPS to map your backyard nevertheless, the Husqvarna Aspire R4 nonetheless depends on good old school boundary wire, guiding your mower round your backyard utilizing {an electrical} present.
There are professionals and cons to this technique. The cons are that it’s fairly laborious to arrange initially. There is a superb video on Husqvarna’s YouTube channel that provides step-by-step instructions for setup, however relying on the dimensions of your backyard, you may must put aside a few hours to get the Automower Aspire R4 up and working. It took me three hours initially.
The boundary wire is positioned across the perimeter of your backyard, in addition to round any obstacles, similar to a pond or a climbing body for instance, and you may must knock within the plastic pegs each few centimetres to get the wire as near the bottom as you’ll be able to. You may additionally use a spade to dig a mini trench across the perimeter of your backyard to drop the wire barely into the bottom, and that is one thing I extremely advise you do. It’ll take longer after all, however there’s a lot much less probability of the boundary wire being lower by the blades of the mower, or an animal pulling it up – each have occurred to me on quite a few events, so I’ve a number of additional connectors holding the boundary wire collectively round my backyard.
Together with the boundary wire, you additionally should hook up a information wire that connects to the boundary wire and runs by the center of your backyard – or through a transparent route – to assist the Aspire R4 get again to its charging base. Once more, you’ll be able to dig this into the bottom, which I’d suggest as having a wire run by the backyard may not be one thing you need.
As soon as you have arrange the boundary wire and the information wire, you may join the Aspire R4 to the Automower app. This a part of the setup takes a matter of minutes. Your Aspire R4 will mechanically present up underneath ‘Accessible Mowers’. As soon as linked, and you have set the time and date on the mower, it is possible for you to to set a schedule, in addition to arrange a spread of good options – extra on these in a second.
General, the preliminary setup for the Automower Aspire R4 does take longer than the Segway Navimow’s GPS mapping system that makes use of a cellphone, however the boundary wire technique is extra dependable total in my expertise. You by no means have to fret in regards to the Aspire R4 going wherever it should not go because it bodily cannot transcend {the electrical} present perimeter set by the boundary wire – or not additional than you permit anyway. For the primary couple of weeks, anticipate to have to repair the boundary wire with connectors when it splits, however ultimately, the Aspire R4 will do its factor with out you having to do a lot in any respect.
An not easily seen design
The Husqvarna Automower Aspire R4 is without doubt one of the smallest robotic garden mowers within the firm’s providing, as I discussed, and with that comes a really cute design and one which’s excellent for each average-sized gardens and larger ones too. It is small, refined and importantly, discreet, so it would not appeal to an excessive amount of consideration when it is parked.
In some international locations, robotic garden mowers are extra widespread. The place my household dwell in Sweden for instance, there are Husqvarna robotic garden mowers on most lawns. Within the UK, they’re much less widespread so when in motion, they do get individuals stopping and staring.
Nonetheless, the Automower Aspire R4 is a superb dimension – smaller than the Husqvarna Automower 305 and so much smaller than the Segway Navimow H1500E. There is a gray and orange color scheme – which is kind of widespread for robotic garden mowers – and so it blends properly right into a backyard setup. On the rear is a gap for the charging pins to fit into place, whereas the entrance has the Husqvarna emblem proudly positioned within the centre.
Two bigger wheels are on the entrance, each with Husqvarna logos of their centre, together with a smaller wheel on the rear. The blades sit within the centre on the backside, they usually supply 4 reducing heights, which you want to modify manually relatively than within the Automower app so be sure to choose proper. I’ve my Aspire R4 set at two, which provides me brief grass however not too brief that it cuts the boundary wire, which the primary setting did once I tried that.
Additionally on the underside are two specifically-designed holes that permit the Aspire R4 to be hung up when not in use. You’ll be able to both grasp it independently in your storage or shed wall, or you need to use the Husqvarna Aspire Storage system, which lets you grasp different Husqvarna merchandise like a strimmer on a neat and tidy rail.
Elsewhere, there’s not an amazing deal extra to say in regards to the Aspire R4. There isn’t any fancy show or something on high of the Aspire R4, however you additionally do not want it as it may be managed through the Automower app. You will discover a big Cease button for when you want to cease the Aspire R4 immediately, and there are additionally a few guide buttons, together with Begin, Garden Protection, Mow and Park. These buttons have a small quantity of their high proper corners too – price mentioning as it’s the way you enter the pin code.
A plethora of good options
The Husqvarna Automower Aspire R4 has much more than what meets the attention by way of options. Many of those come within the type of the Automower Join app because of the lack of on-device display screen as I discussed, they usually embody fundamental options like setting a schedule to extra superior options like establishing Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant. Sure, you’ll be able to ask Alexa to mow your garden with the Aspire R4 should you set it up.
When it comes to fundamental capabilities, you’ll be able to alter what number of centimetres previous the boundary wire the Aspire R4 will mow for instance, activate Frost Guard that can delay mowing if frost is detected and activate the climate timer so the Aspire R4 mechanically adjusts its timers based mostly on how a lot the garden grows. There’s additionally a function known as Spiral Reducing that modifications the motion sample of the blades when longer grass is detected to chop sooner.
Elsewhere, there are a variety of operational choices, similar to altering the start line distance from the bottom. Mine is about for 60 centimetres, however you can select to have your Aspire R4 start mowing nearly instantly when it leaves the charging base should you so want. It’s also possible to use the Garden Protection perform if you wish to steer your Aspire R4 to distant components of your garden and people lined by totally different information wires in an effort to ensure that your whole garden is mowed. I discussed that the reducing peak needs to be completed manually relatively than within the app and that is the one function I might like to have seen moved into the app – the Segway Navimow permits you to do that remotely.
Nonetheless, there are a number of very good options on board the Aspire R4. I discussed Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa integration beforehand – which is tremendous easy to arrange – however there’s additionally IFTTT integration. For people who do not know, IFTTT stands for If This Then That. If permits you to set sure parameters to then make one thing else occur. For instance, you’ll be able to hyperlink the Aspire R4 as much as your Google Calendar and you probably have “Backyard Social gathering” or one other key phrase you select in your calendar, the Aspire R4 will not mow till the get together is over. It’s also possible to use IFTTT to cease your mower mowing at evening to guard nocturnal wildlife, and join it to a climate app, so it is aware of to not mow if heavy rain or frost is predicted in your space. You’ll be able to even get the Aspire R4 to e mail your neighbour if it runs into downside.
Elsewhere, scheduling is without doubt one of the predominant options of a robotic garden mower and the one you may wish to be sure to arrange right away. It is this function that retains your garden wanting immaculate with out little or no enter from you as soon as the schedule is completed. I’ve set my Aspire R4 to mow between 08:00AM and 12:00PM within the morning and 16:00PM and 18:00PM within the night each day, although it’s price mentioning that it would not repeatedly mow for six hours a day – extra on that in a second. I’ve additionally turned the Frost Guard function on now, which sees the sensors contained in the Aspire R4 monitor the temperature exterior and pause mowing if the temperature drops under 5-degrees Celsius – one thing price doing for the winter when grass grows slower.
Glorious efficiency
The Husqvarna Automower Aspire R4 is superb in terms of efficiency, and it is very quiet too (59dB) so nobody close by will get aggravated should you ship it to work at 06:00AM. You will solely hear a quiet hum when it is in motion, in addition to the slicing of the grass, so that you’d should be subsequent to it to listen to it.
I had a few teething points for the primary two weeks once I set it up initially – primarily the place I hadn’t knocked some parts of the boundary wire into the bottom sufficient and so it was both dug up by an animal or the mower itself bought a little bit chop blissful. It is also had the odd connection situation, with the Bluetooth connection sometimes dropping. When this has occurred, a press on and off of the facility button on the Aspire R4 itself and re-entering the pin has sorted this. It is price noting that if the connection drops, you will not have the ability to entry some options within the app, so you may must restart. The Aspire R4 has no impediment detection, so it is going to run into something in its means – together with my Amazon supply driver (sure actually) – and pets too. It can also’t see pet waste in order that shall be getting lower alongside the grass if its on it, in addition to any toys or objects left in your garden.
When it comes to reducing efficiency nevertheless, the Automower Aspire R4 is outstanding. It navigates my entrance backyard brilliantly, from the a number of bushes surrounding the perimeter to the flower beds and the trail within the centre. There are some slender areas too, and it will get round these no downside, while additionally dealing with the uneven surfaces. The garden has appeared immaculate because the Aspire R4 was put into motion, and it is had a number of feedback from the neighbours too. You continue to want a strimmer to get to the corners and the inserting of the boundary wire might take a little bit of trial and error to get it proper – or the space you select to let the Aspire R4 go previous the boundary wire – however when you get that proper, that is an distinctive robotic garden mower.
Husqvarna says the Automower Aspire R4 will cowl 400m2 of garden and an incline of 25 per cent. My garden is flat and definitely not 400m2, however I’ve talked about it nonetheless because it’s essential to notice that even should you do have a reasonably substantial backyard, it’s attainable the Aspire R4 will nonetheless be greater than enough. The Aspire R4’s battery presents round an hour of reducing time earlier than it returns to its base to recharge, so whereas I’ve mine set for 4 hours within the morning, it is going to solely be reducing for round half of that. It will not depart the bottom once more till its 100 per cent charged. This additionally applies if you wish to get it to mow your backyard in the midst of the afternoon, but it surely’s at 50 per cent. It will not be budging off that base till it hits 100 per cent on the dot. It’ll then return to its charging dock throughout mowing when it drops to a sure proportion and solely restart once more when it has been absolutely topped up.
Final however not least, I like to recommend cleansing the Aspire R4 each few weeks, particularly if it has been raining and the bottom is comfortable. The mud and grass cuttings construct up on the wheels and mud and dry mud can even get into the charging gap and onto the metallic pins which might trigger charging points. To keep away from these, a fast dampen each couple of weeks may have it wanting pretty much as good as new in a matter of minutes.
Verdict
The Husqvarna Automower Aspire R4 is perhaps the smallest within the firm’s vary, however it is a mighty robotic garden mower. It delivers very good grass reducing efficiency, tremendous easy operation and it is so good at what it does, you may just about neglect it is even there.
The preliminary setup is a little bit laborious, I might love to have the ability to change the reducing size from the app relatively than manually and a few impediment detection could be nice. That is actually all there’s to complain about although. There are a selection of good options that ship an enhanced expertise from this robotic garden mower, the design is gorgeous, and the general efficiency is genuinely glorious.
The Husqvarna Automower Aspire R4 may not be the most cost effective buy you may ever make, however for what it delivers and the time it saves you, I can say for positive that it will not be a purchase order you may remorse.
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