Moebot Acre Eater – first look
The Moebot Acre eater is a very clever AI and wireless positioning mowing robot. It maybe the answer for those with difficult-shaped, sloped, or just a lot of lawn to mow.
At my place, I have a lot of lawn. Like many, I like having a lawn, but I don’t like mowing it. This lawn is not just a flat lawn either. There is a sizeable part that slopes downhill, with lots of trees scattered around. All of this makes mowing the lawn harder and even more time-consuming. Coincidentally, I have been happily integrating robots into my home for some time. Robots to clean the floors, clean some of our large glass doors, and, the latest addition, cleans the pool. They all do a good job – but some models are better than others.
Enter Robot My Life’s Moebot Acre Eater
I was keen to get it to work keeping the lawns tidy at my place. The Moebot Acre Eater is not the first robot I have tested. But it is the first model I that offered a far less arduous set-up experience. It also didn’t require me to install wire guidelines and other sizeable infrastructure to get the robot mowing in the right places.
The Moebot Acre Eater (website) promises to make cutting large lawn areas simple and efficient. It’s designed for Australian backyards and aims to save you time and effort. This all sounded good so far. I have found that Robots need time to show you how effective they are at doing the job they promise, so for Acre Eater, this is a first look. Over the coming weeks, I will let the Moebot do its thing and then report back with a longer review.
When I tried out other mowers in the past, the hardest part was the set-up phase for models that required the establishment of a wire boundary. This does not work at my house because the area is large, and adding wire to the boundaries is a big job. With the arrival of AI and other smarts, Acre Eater promised a simpler setup. I wanted to see whether this would help improve the user experience.
Positioning – AI, wireless, and satelite – No messy, unreliable, inefficient boundry wires
The Moebot Acre Eater uses a mix of positioning features that mean the robot will cut where you need it to. Instead of a wire boundary, Acre Eater uses satellite positioning technology and AI smarts. The mower and a wireless mast talk directly to orbiting satellites. The mower uses a radio frequency to judge distance from the mast and correlates its position with the satellites.
In essence, the mast knows where it is, and the mower knows where it is. The two work together to provide a horizontal distance from each other in the garden.
The mast needs to be correctly positioned. No overhanging trees and a direct line of sight to where the mower will cut are necessary. I have placed the mast in the garden following these rules, and so far, so good.
App Features
The next part of the installation needs the app and the mower. At this point, the operator needs to place the charging station and then ‘walk out’ the property boundary. You are using the app to control the mower in a manual walk around, mapping the garden. During this phase, you also outline any ‘no go’ areas. Objects are flagged while you teach the mower where the garden flows so it can be mowed once you begin. We also outlined the pool, retaining walls and other items in the garden. I don’t want the mower getting stuck under some low-hanging tree branches, so I flagged these too.
Setting Up the Moebot Acre Eater
For the test, I outlined the whole lawn area to be mowed, but I can see a benefit to focusing the mowing in the area of the garden where a user spends more time. For us, this is right next to the pool and under a large tree where there is a hammock. Other areas of the garden are used less, so if we didn’t mow there so often, that would not be so much of an issue.
Once the lawn mast is in, the charging station located, and the lawn mapped, it is time to let Acre Eat use the final piece in the location arsenal – AI. The goal is to set and forget the robot, allowing it to learn as it does its job. My lawn is not easy to mow with a push lawn mower, so it is a great place to see how the teh Moebot Acre Eater performs. The mower learns where the objects are but also learns the most efficient way to mow the lawn. Where should it start mowing first? Should it mow the hilly area first or second? It will work all this out.
Battery life
From here, it mows in 4-hour blocks to fit in with the unit’s battery life. This should be enough to mow most lawns, but I expect my mowing will be a daily event. When the battery gets low, the Moebot Acre Eater automatically returns to its charging station, tops up, and then returns to work where it left off. This feature takes the hassle out of lawn care and keeps the mowing consistent.
I am off on holiday now, and I can see the mower moving around the garden from the security camera. From here, the lawn looks cut! I’ll give it another week, and then I will report back on the results.
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