Let’s be honest. No one wants to cut the lawn. It’s either stupid hot outside or the grass is dewy and gross. Your shoes that used to be white are now stained green. And you’re all itchy from the grass getting on you. Maybe it’s just me because I have allergies but doing things outside have always been a big yuck for me. That’s why when I was offered to try out the LUBA mini 2 AWD I jumped at the chance. And the results of me trying it? Well, read on to find out what issues I ran into and how I fixed them.
Easy-ish set up
My initial idea was to set this up under the awning where we would park our car if it wasn’t too wide. In the instructions it said to situate it in a spot where rain wouldn’t collect. So I figured there would be best. Until I realized that because the concrete has a step down into the backyard it wouldn’t work. I also needed to ground the charging unit into the uh… ground. Basically you just screw these little spikes in to keep it secure. That part was easy since the ground was soft from the rain a couple days before. I live in the Midwest so when it rains, it pours. And lucky for me that meant an easy installation.
The problem that I run into a lot of the time is that my house does not have outlets on the outside. When I lived in California we had outlets around the house, but not here. I’m not sure if it’s a Missouri thing but I haven’t really asked around and just assumed it was the norm. Anyway all of that to say I had to run the cord through a window to plug it in. The charger needs to be plugged in for obvious reasons. It’s essentially the charging base for a lawn mower roomba. Which is what the LUBA mini 2 AWD is.
App and Syncing
The app is pretty easy to use. You connect the LUBA mini 2 AWD via Bluetooth and set it up to your WiFi connection. In the app you can set up the perimeter of your desired mowing area, view the grass from the camera atop the unit and send it out without having to touch anything but your phone. You can also connect it to your Alexa or Google set up so you can just use voice control to send it out and mow your lawn. Pretty cool.
Setting Up the Perimeter
Setting it up was really fun. Because you can control it with your phone it kind of works how you would play with a drone. There is a remote control where you can walk around with it and get it exactly where you want it to cut. This was the best part for me.
You can do more than one lawn but you need to have them connecting with a path. Unfortunately I have that weird step in the backyard so I couldn’t get it to connect to the front lawn. I am thinking about making a ramp though in the future to see if I can get it to go back and forth that way. But for now I’m just regular mowing the front and this LUBA mini 2 AWD is responsible for the back.
How Well does it Work?
Initially I was worried because my grass had gotten so tall. I also have a weird perimeter that I had to set up because there are a couple areas with rocks. I also had a couple of bird feeders in the middle of the grass which I left up because I wanted to see if it would detect them. It unfortunately did not and ended up getting stuck on one. That’s probably because the feeders were on a thin pole and it didn’t have a large enough volume to trigger the avoidance system. A thin pole is nothing compared to the volume of a soccer ball.
The LUBA mini 2 AWD did a pretty good job. My whole backyard which is 2000 square feet was mowed in around 3 hours and 30 mins. The mower had to dock once to recharge but it was actually really fast. After it mowed you could tell that the grass was cut. It looked like I had done it by hand. I’ll share pictures here of how tall my grass was and how it looked after.
It’s always nice to look out in the backyard and see it freshly mowed. It makes me want to play with the kids outside, not that I’ll actually do it but it’s a nice thought.
Would I recommend the LUBA mini 2 AWD?
Absolutely! I think this is a great option for those who are unable to mow their lawn regularly. If you think of how much it costs to pay mowers to come weekly or bi-weekly this mower pays for itself. The LUBA mini 2 AWD is around $2,000 USD. If you have the budget definitely get this. I think that it would be best for elderly folks or those with a disability who literally can’t mow the lawn. If you’re going to pay someone else to do it anyway and you calculate what it would cost for one summer season, you’ve probably almost paid for the thing.
You can check it out by clicking the link here. They also have other mowers for larger lawns which would be great for more rural areas.
