The perimeter wire was robot mowing's original sin: a buried installation that punished every garden change and snapped at the worst moments. The wire-free generation navigates by satellite RTK, cameras, or beacons — setup is an app walk-around. This page compares pure wire-free options across budgets, including which navigation tech suits which Irish garden.
Price and availability accurate as of publishing; subject to change.
Buying guide: how to choose
Wire-free changed everything
Traditional robots need a perimeter wire buried around the lawn — €100–300 of installation or a weekend of your knees. New RTK-GPS and vision models map boundaries from an app walk-around. If your budget allows, go wire-free: relocation, repairs and layout changes become trivial.
Size honestly, then add 20%
Quoted capacity assumes ideal flat lawns and daily runs. Slopes, narrow passages, trees and complex shapes eat capacity. Measure your actual grass area (apps or Google Maps work) and buy the next size up — an under-specced robot leaves mohawks.
Mulching is the secret lawn upgrade
Robots cut a few millimetres daily and drop the dust-sized clippings as mulch — feeding the lawn continuously. Owners consistently report thicker, greener grass within a season, with no clippings to collect, bag or dump. It's lawn care that compounds.
Rain, slopes and Irish realities
All serious robots mow happily in Irish drizzle (most park themselves in heavy rain). Check slope ratings against your garden: 25–35% covers typical suburban gradients; banks and ditches need specialist models. Wet long grass in spring growth spurts may need a catch-up manual cut.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to bury a perimeter wire?
Only on traditional models. The current wire-free generation (Segway Navimow, Husqvarna EPOS, Worx Vision) maps your lawn via satellite positioning or cameras from a simple app walk-around. Wire models remain cheaper for simple lawns; wire-free wins for everything else.
Do robot mowers get stolen?
Rarely — they're poor theft targets: PIN-locked, GPS-tracked, geofenced (alarm + useless off their home base) and brand-flagged. Most insurers treat them as garden contents; registration and a gate latch do the rest.
Do robot lawn mowers work in Irish rain?
Yes — they're built for Northern European weather and mow fine in drizzle and light rain. Most have rain sensors that pause heavy-rain sessions (cutting wet grass clumps), then resume. Daily mowing schedules mean a paused day never matters.
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