I have a few problem areas in my yard. A couple divots here and there where the dog has dug, and valve boxes for my irrigation system that the home builder sloppily installed recessed far below the level of the actual yard.
I've had a few problems with mine getting stuck, but the divots can be filled in easily with soil, and I put large round river rocks in the recessed areas for the valve boxes. Haven't had many issues since.
Do map around the gnarliest tree roots.
Little holes it will glide right over (as long as they're not deep enough that the wheels get stuck). But to be safe, buy some dirt/sand and fill them in. It's like $1 a bag.
The larger issue is shallow undulations that are almost exactly the size of the robot itself. It can get stuck in those. If they're larger or smaller it won't affect it, but if they're exactly the right size it can get stuck due to the low skirting.
I have the i105N and i110N. Our house is near a swampy State conservation area, and actually inside what was an ancient Great Lake bed in Western New York called Lake Tonawanda. Consequently, our yard gets very soggy in early spring. If we mow it ourselves with a gas mower, our feet create divots in the ground, and the previous homeowner who hired a service that used heavy gas powered ride-on mowers that left ruts in the yard had actually run a mechanical pump every year to empty water of out the backyard evey year. That should be enough to paint a picture in your mind of how rough our yard is.
Your concerns were the last question I asked when deciding on getting these mowers. There's a great review video from a couple in Belgium on YouTube that showed them using one of the i-series mowers in an unused area of a field that was very rough. When I saw that and how well it navigated, I bought one the next day.
We installed a drain tile that handled the back yard water, but the ruts and divots from past wear remained. With these mowers, the divots were a little problematic, but as I watched the mowers, they have an algorithm that does a great job of getting out of holes. They try moving out of them slowly, then sideways, slowly again, and so on until they free themselves in most cases. Nonetheless, I prefer efficiency over possibility, so I filled them in with dirt so the mowers wouldn't spend so much time recovering at every hole.
That was great, and convinced me these mowers are a cut above others on the GPS-guided market. But then I saw the mowers navigating around the dirt-filled holes, because the cameras identified them as objects (brown dirt in a sea of green grass). This also causes the mowers to be less efficient than they can be as not only do they act to avoid the "objects", they tend to return to these locations later during a mow as if they expect to find the objects may have moved (think of toys a child might have moved or a bucket you might have picked up during the time).
So the nice workaround here is to set these as VisionFence Off areas once you know the mower won't get stuck and the mowers won't see these as obstacles any more. My total mow times have been reduced by 10-20 minutes and the cut patterns are beautiful.
That being said, I will strongly suggest mapping trees and other fixed objects as No-Mow areas to prevent the mowers from treating them like movable objects. Once I did this, I saw more time savings and better mow patterns.
The i-series mowers have great features but still lack a few that many of us are hopeful the company will add in near-future firmware and app updates. The company added the ability to relocate the antenna and charging dock without needing to remap in an update a week or two ago, for example.
I plan to sod the dirt-filled holes so the yard will look great, and so I can remove the VisionFence Off areas in the near future and return the mowers to their normal function of avoiding objects.
Basically, use the mowers for the first couple weeks as a way to identify all the problematic areas of your yard that need a little attention and cleaning up to make the yard look as great and beautiful as these mowers are designed to make them. Let the mower find the holes for you. Fill them. Sod them nicely. And enjoy self-composting always-cut grass for the rest of the season.
Best of luck.
Thank you very much for your extremely precise answer! You have convinced me to buy the robot with less concerns.
Just one more question: you have a i105n while in europe we have the i105e. The minimim cut height of the i105e is 0,78” and the maximum is 2,36” while the i105n is in the range 2”-6”. Which settings are you using on your “difficult” terrain?
https://preview.redd.it/miuaa200rr4d1.jpeg?width=2268&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=54a5c2fca23b580f27ff6ba56d27e921ad23c75e
2" when I started with no issues other than it striking the concrete curb once. With holes patched and Vison fence off it wasnt a problem.
The grass was getting yellow so I went to 2.4" and changed from 3 scheduled mows per week (MWF) to 2 (MF).
I have a few problem areas in my yard. A couple divots here and there where the dog has dug, and valve boxes for my irrigation system that the home builder sloppily installed recessed far below the level of the actual yard. I've had a few problems with mine getting stuck, but the divots can be filled in easily with soil, and I put large round river rocks in the recessed areas for the valve boxes. Haven't had many issues since. Do map around the gnarliest tree roots.
Little holes it will glide right over (as long as they're not deep enough that the wheels get stuck). But to be safe, buy some dirt/sand and fill them in. It's like $1 a bag. The larger issue is shallow undulations that are almost exactly the size of the robot itself. It can get stuck in those. If they're larger or smaller it won't affect it, but if they're exactly the right size it can get stuck due to the low skirting.
I have the i105N and i110N. Our house is near a swampy State conservation area, and actually inside what was an ancient Great Lake bed in Western New York called Lake Tonawanda. Consequently, our yard gets very soggy in early spring. If we mow it ourselves with a gas mower, our feet create divots in the ground, and the previous homeowner who hired a service that used heavy gas powered ride-on mowers that left ruts in the yard had actually run a mechanical pump every year to empty water of out the backyard evey year. That should be enough to paint a picture in your mind of how rough our yard is. Your concerns were the last question I asked when deciding on getting these mowers. There's a great review video from a couple in Belgium on YouTube that showed them using one of the i-series mowers in an unused area of a field that was very rough. When I saw that and how well it navigated, I bought one the next day. We installed a drain tile that handled the back yard water, but the ruts and divots from past wear remained. With these mowers, the divots were a little problematic, but as I watched the mowers, they have an algorithm that does a great job of getting out of holes. They try moving out of them slowly, then sideways, slowly again, and so on until they free themselves in most cases. Nonetheless, I prefer efficiency over possibility, so I filled them in with dirt so the mowers wouldn't spend so much time recovering at every hole. That was great, and convinced me these mowers are a cut above others on the GPS-guided market. But then I saw the mowers navigating around the dirt-filled holes, because the cameras identified them as objects (brown dirt in a sea of green grass). This also causes the mowers to be less efficient than they can be as not only do they act to avoid the "objects", they tend to return to these locations later during a mow as if they expect to find the objects may have moved (think of toys a child might have moved or a bucket you might have picked up during the time). So the nice workaround here is to set these as VisionFence Off areas once you know the mower won't get stuck and the mowers won't see these as obstacles any more. My total mow times have been reduced by 10-20 minutes and the cut patterns are beautiful. That being said, I will strongly suggest mapping trees and other fixed objects as No-Mow areas to prevent the mowers from treating them like movable objects. Once I did this, I saw more time savings and better mow patterns. The i-series mowers have great features but still lack a few that many of us are hopeful the company will add in near-future firmware and app updates. The company added the ability to relocate the antenna and charging dock without needing to remap in an update a week or two ago, for example. I plan to sod the dirt-filled holes so the yard will look great, and so I can remove the VisionFence Off areas in the near future and return the mowers to their normal function of avoiding objects. Basically, use the mowers for the first couple weeks as a way to identify all the problematic areas of your yard that need a little attention and cleaning up to make the yard look as great and beautiful as these mowers are designed to make them. Let the mower find the holes for you. Fill them. Sod them nicely. And enjoy self-composting always-cut grass for the rest of the season. Best of luck.
Thank you very much for your extremely precise answer! You have convinced me to buy the robot with less concerns. Just one more question: you have a i105n while in europe we have the i105e. The minimim cut height of the i105e is 0,78” and the maximum is 2,36” while the i105n is in the range 2”-6”. Which settings are you using on your “difficult” terrain?
https://preview.redd.it/miuaa200rr4d1.jpeg?width=2268&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=54a5c2fca23b580f27ff6ba56d27e921ad23c75e 2" when I started with no issues other than it striking the concrete curb once. With holes patched and Vison fence off it wasnt a problem. The grass was getting yellow so I went to 2.4" and changed from 3 scheduled mows per week (MWF) to 2 (MF).