What Is the Life Expectancy of a
Robot Lawn Mower?
When serviced annually, a robot lawn mower can last you more than a decade.
However, although the robot mower itself can last you a long time, some parts and/or equipment still need changing from time to time within that time period. First thing that the robot mower alerts you of are the cutting blades that generally need to be replaced every 1 to 3 months. Same thing with the battery (lithium-ion) which will likely need to be swapped out every 2 to 6 years. Here’s an article on robot lawn mower running costs if you’re interested to learn more.
These are all rough estimates and the real numbers can vary depending on the size of the mowing area, mowing frequency, type of grass, temperature, quality of the aforementioned parts, etc.
How To Prolong a Robot Mower’s Life Expectancy?
Here’s a bunch of general tips and explanations on ways to make sure your robot mower lasts as long as possible.
These things are good to keep in mind and shouldn’t be taken as must do’s. Rather these things become a common sense thing to do once you’re made aware of them. Some of them might be something you already knew… I’ll leave out the super obvious things like cleaning and the like.
1) Recharge Before Storing Away
When you’re not going to use your robot lawn mower for a longer period of time, before storing it away, make sure it’s recharged and not too low on battery.
The reason for that is that batteries tend to self-discharge (see self-discharge rates by battery type) when stored away and not used. And when a battery becomes discharged to a point where the chemical processes in the battery cannot be fully reversed by charging, the battery may get damaged.
Most robot lawn mowers use a rechargeable lithium-ion battery which has several advantages over other types of batteries. However, lithium-ion, too, may get damaged when fully discharged. The damage, in case of lithium-ion, can include decreased effectiveness and overall lifespan, rather than being entirely destroyed.
2) Place the Charging Station In a Shaded Area
Although water resistant to an extent, making them handle rain just fine, too much humidity can still get to the sensitive electronics and cause damage to your robot lawn mower.
Some robot mowers are already equipped with sensors that measure humidity in the air. As time goes on, more and more robot mowers will be equipped with one. If humidity in the air went above a certain threshold, the robot mower would return to the docking station. And since you now have the charging station under a shaded area, all is good. Ultimately you would want the charging station sit on a little hill in case of flooding, but that’s a bit too tricky – now it might get hit by lightning instead.
Another reason to place the docking station under a shade would be to block out the sun. Direct sunlight can deteriorate the outer shell’s colors. If it was really hot outside, the extra heat generated by direct sunlight could potentially melt vital connections or entire parts within the robot mower itself and thus decrease its performance and perhaps even its overall lifespan.
You could also just build a roof on top of the mower now that you have all that time left on your hands from this little guy doing all the work for you. Or a garage… This would further safeguard the mower from drunk people with weird ideas passing by.
EXTRA READING
Best Cheap Robot Lawn Mowers in 2021 | post | Lawn Story
Robot lawn mower care & maintenance | post | Lawn Story
How much do robot mowers cost? | post | Lawn Story
Robot lawn mower buying guide | post | Lawn Story
How do robot mowers work? | post | Lawn Story
Robot lawn mower safety | post | Lawn Story
