Mammotion LUBA: four mowers in three years

A fourth mower after wet-ground rescues

Help! Our home in the Arctic Circle has bought yet another robot mower. That's right—this is the fourth robot mower we've bought in the three years since moving here. Don't criticize us. It's not because we have money to burn; we've genuinely run into problems. This summer was the most stressful one we've had here. Northern Finland has been especially rainy this year. The robot kept getting stuck. To rescue it, we called on every neighbor and friend nearby. We owe everyone a huge favor now.

When he finally got back, Director Zhu said, Now we won't have to ask anyone for help. And I can just mow that 30% of the drainage ditches around the perimeter by hand. But weirdly, every time he mowed, it rained. Last time, he came back covered in mosquito bites. He stayed up very late that night, as if he'd made some kind of decision. That's when I knew there was no talking him out of it. As if he'd made some kind of decision.

That's when I knew there was no talking him out of it. A new member of the family was coming.

Unboxing the larger LUBA-family machine

It finally arrived. He excitedly started unboxing it. The moment he opened it, he got even more excited. Whoa, it looks so cool! Isn't this the Shooting Star from the Mini 4WD series I watched as a kid? Especially the front-wheel suspension. Isn't that straight out of racing design? He was excited, but to me, it looked almost identical to the previous generation. Apart from being a little bigger, it looks way too similar. We wasted money again. Director Zhu said, “That's not true. This one is different.”

360-degree LiDAR and the navigation change

“First of all, it's got a ball on top. See it?” “A 360-degree radar—that's its eye.” “With this, we don't need that RTK signal tower anymore.” “This one uses 4G and can receive signals from all around.” “It can connect to dozens of satellites at once, so positioning is extremely precise.” “It won't get lost and fall into a ditch because of a weak signal anymore.”

Two discs, 12 blades and bumper control

“And look at the mowing deck. It's twice as big now, with 12 blades in total.” “So the efficiency has doubled, right?” The previous generation could only avoid obstacles visually, so it often treated grass as an obstacle. When it encountered grass growing along the edges, it got scared and backed away. The grass kept growing, and the mowing area kept shrinking. This one also has a tactile bumper. You can turn off visual obstacle avoidance and use only the bumper.

It only stops when it senses resistance, so it can go straight through tall grass and cut right through it. He excitedly installed it as he explained, and since these are consecutive generations,

Reusing the existing mower garage

the size hasn't changed much, so we can keep using the garage we bought before and save some money. He drove out the old robot, removed its charging station, installed the new one, connected the power, secured the boundary wire, and slipped the new machine into place. The green light came on, showing that it was charging. Done. Then he started setting up the app. When we opened the pairing screen, we saw that our old YUKA was offline. Why did the neighbor have a black YUKA just like ours?

They must have seen ours and copied us. Honestly, since we started using a robot mower, five of our neighbors have followed suit. Sorry, but we Chinese are a generation ahead again. Before we even had time to create a map, we drove it around for fun. The first-person camera is incredibly smooth.

Testing slopes above 40 degrees

He tested the new machine's hill-climbing ability, which was the main reason he bought it. This little thing is heavy, large, has dual rows of wheels, and is also four-wheel drive. After testing it, we were thrilled. It had no trouble at all. The old one could only climb slopes of just over 20 degrees, while this one can climb slopes of more than 40 degrees. It can basically pass freely through the drainage ditches where the old one used to get stuck. Now we know what it can do.

Next came map creation. This should have been a particularly troublesome step, but Director Zhu has already trained four generations of robot mowers and handled it with ease.

Mapping six front and five back areas

After mapping, there were six areas in the front yard and five in the backyard, covering almost all the drainage ditches. We left a small ring around the rocks where it could easily get stuck, plus a tiny section beside the steep slope where the angle was too high, for hand mowing. It can handle everything else. Next, we set up no-go zones. Some areas where the lawn had been dug up in summer had just been refilled with soil. The ground was too soft and needed time to recover, so we marked out a few small no-go zones for now.

In each area, it mows in this order: two loops around the no-go zones, then straight lines, and finally the edges. Compared with the first generation at our house, whose programming had it bumping around aimlessly, this logic is an incredible improvement. And that's in just two years! After everything was set up, we suddenly noticed a problem: the system was now a little too smart. We suddenly noticed a problem. The system was now a little too smart. Here's what happened.

Keeping the mower off the asphalt road

It has to move between different areas, right? Lawns have slopes and resistance. We found that it would wander onto the asphalt because that was the easiest way to travel. But cars drive on the asphalt! So Director Zhu enabled the electronic fence function, drawing virtual fences along the roadside. That way, it knows the area outside is unsafe and absolutely must not leave.

Working through the deep V-shaped drain

Also, in this relatively deep V-shaped drainage ditch, the mower would sometimes charge down and hit its bumper, braking suddenly. In the past, it might have displayed an alert and asked someone to come rescue it. But this generation bumps forward little by little, gradually adjusts its angle, and soon turns itself around. No need to ask anyone for help.

815-square-metre task preview and night mowing

Once everything was set up, the test run went well, and we were astonished to discover that the total lawn area it could mow had increased from just over 580 square meters to more than 800 square meters.

[Text: Task Preview 815 m² 4 h 58 min]

Our plot is 1,100 square meters in total. The buildings take up less than 200 square meters, and the front- and back-yard parking areas [inaudible] about 100. By that calculation, it basically covers the whole property. Director Zhu said, “That's not all. At night, the neighbors don't even dare come out to mow because they're afraid of disturbing people. But this little machine has light-controlled headlights, makes no noise, and can quietly work at night.” It's true—the progress has been incredibly fast. Chinese technology really is amazing.

Maybe next summer we'll finally be able to go back to China for vacation without worrying about the lawn. There's just one thing I still haven't figured out. How much did this machine actually cost? A few days later, Director Zhu told me very mysteriously, “Dayu, come to the backyard for a moment. Look at the lawn. Come and see this.” I took a look. Wow, is this a new feature? This is incredible—so impressive! Looks good, right? Looks good.

Romantic, right? Romantic. Put it on the expense report. How much was it? A little over three thousand.