- RATING
The MOVA 1000 does an impressive job tackling your lawn and gives you that time back to do other things. It is an efficient whisper quiet robot that just gets the job done with very little set-up of maintenance required.
The robots are now taking over our lawns after learning the ropes on our floors and carpets inside. Products like the MOVA 1000 are taking those smarts into the backyard.
Tech Guide has been reviewing the MOVA 1000 for the last few weeks and it has now taken over most of the lawn mowing duties.
The MOVA 1000 is 77cm long, 48.1cm wide and 30.9cm tall and weighs 11.7kg.
It has large all-terrain back wheels so it can get around lawns of all shapes and sizes easily even if there are twigs and large leaves on the grass.
It also comes with a charging station which needs to be positioned with access to power in an open and easily accessible area.
The breakthrough for the MOVA 1000 is the wire-free technology.
This means, unlike older robot lawn mowers, it does not need a boundary wire.
There is also no need for any boundary posts either.
This is thanks to the MOVA UltraView environmental perception technology.
It has a 3D LiDAR sensor on top of the unit which can also spot and avoid obstacles.
Set up includes linking the robot to your wi-fi via the MOVA companion app.
Next you have set the zone for the MOVA 1000 and this is achieved by driving the mower like a remote control car using the app around the edges of the mowing area.
There is room to store two maps – one for the back and one for the front.
From here it’s a matter of leaving the MOVA 1000 to its own devices.
The idea is for the MOVA 1000 to go out three times a week and maintain the desired length of your grass.
There is no catcher but the MOVA 1000 mulches the cut grass and puts it back into the lawn like fertilizer so it can help keep your lawn looking great.
MOVA 1000 does a great job navigating your lawn and can easily dodge larger obstacles like furniture, balls and larger toys.
When detected, the mower will give them a wide berth.
But for smaller things like hoses it will run straight over the top of them.
We made the mistake of leaving our sprinkler in the yard while it was still attached to the hose.
What we found was the mower stopped and tangled in what was left of the hose.
Luckily it only ruined the blades from the mower only cut the top part of the hose which we just cut off and continued to use.
Now if you have pets – your cat or dog will move out of the way before the MOVA 1000 has to sidestep them.
But it would be a good idea to clean up after your pets before the MOVA 1000 starts its scheduled runs. The result could the mower spreading it around your yard.
The best feature of the MOVA 1000 is that you can set and forget it.
It did an impressive job mowing the lawn but we did have to complete the job and trim the edges and the areas around the clothesline and a trees stump which it avoided by about 30cm either side.
We did notice after a while that the MOVA 1000 was missing entire sections of the lawn despite there being no change to its mowing schedule and no obstacles in its path.
There was a firmware update we had to run but we decided to set up the mowing zone again from scratch.
And that fixed everything – it gets around the yard even more efficiently now.
We have a decent sized yard that’s about 90 square metres and it can get through a full run in less than an hour and a half.
It has developed an efficient cutting path.
Users can also create custom mowing patterns to make their grass look fancy.
The unit is of course weatherproof but when it detects rain it will return to the charging station – cutting wet grass is a lot harder for the robot.
There was one occasion when it returned the station on a perfectly sunny day after it detected rain but we promptly sent it out again.
Another great feature of the MOVA 1000 is its whisper quiet operation – you can hardly hear it when it’s working.
It won’t be bothering you – or your neighbours.
The MOVA 1000 can also handle sloping yards as well at up to a 45-degree angle – our yard was pretty much flat so it was no sweat for the mower.
The MOVA 1000 is available now and is priced at $1,799 (down from $1,999).
VERDICT
The MOVA 1000 does an impressive job tackling your lawn and gives you that time back to do other things. It is an efficient whisper quiet robot that just gets the job done with very little set-up of maintenance required.
