Initial research prototype
Guided lawn questionnaire, navigation recommendation, suitability scoring, reason codes, UK model dataset and post-recommendation Amazon affiliate links.
CONSIDERED GARDEN TECHNOLOGY TOOL
Robot Lawn Mower Selector
Tell us about your lawn, layout and garden conditions. We’ll explain which robot-mower technology is likely to suit you, then rank current UK models against those requirements.
✓ Recommendations are based on suitability, not retailer commission✓ Compares wired, RTK, vision, LiDAR and hybrid navigation✓ Explains limitations instead of hiding them behind a score
A rated lawn area is not a guarantee of suitability. Trees, buildings, slopes, narrow passages, disconnected zones and internet/satellite coverage can matter just as much as square metres. Manufacturer specifications can also change, so verify important limits before purchase.
1. YOUR LAWN
How much grass?
Use the total grass area the robot needs to maintain, not your whole plot.
2. TERRAIN & ACCESS
What must it physically cope with?
3. NAVIGATION ENVIRONMENT
What can the robot see?
This is particularly important for satellite-based systems.
4. PREFERENCES
What matters to you?
NAVIGATION EXPLAINED
Why the technology matters
Boundary wire
A physical cable defines the mowing area. It takes more installation effort but does not depend on satellite positioning or camera interpretation of the lawn edge.
RTK / satellite positioning
RTK can provide centimetre-level positioning, but buildings and tree canopy can make the signal environment harder. Modern systems increasingly add vision or LiDAR as a fallback.
Vision navigation
Cameras and software identify boundaries and obstacles. It avoids an RTK antenna, but performance depends on the mower being able to interpret the scene reliably.
LiDAR
LiDAR measures the surrounding geometry using light. It can work where satellite visibility is awkward and is increasingly combined with cameras for obstacle recognition.
Hybrid navigation
Some current mowers combine RTK, vision and/or LiDAR. The attraction is resilience: one positioning method can assist when another is compromised.
Rated lawn area
The manufacturer's maximum area is not the same thing as an ideal recommendation. A mower near its maximum may need to spend much more of the week mowing and charging, so this selector rewards sensible headroom.
How the recommendations are calculated
The selector first checks hard compatibility such as stated lawn capacity, slope limit, wire preference and any published minimum passage width. It then ranks compatible products for capacity headroom, navigation suitability, complexity, obstacle detection, terrain/traction, edge preference and budget.
Heavy tree/building obstruction reduces confidence in RTK-only approaches and increases the score of LiDAR, vision and multi-sensor systems. Rough or steep terrain favours AWD. A model is never ranked higher merely because it has an affiliate link.
Research status: v0.1.0 is an initial 2026 UK-market dataset assembled from manufacturer UK pages. It is intentionally not exhaustive yet.