I Tried the Navimow X4 Robot Mower for 2 Months

[00:02] This video is not sponsored and I can confidently say after using this robot mower for about 2 months, it's the best robot mower I've ever tested. The cut drive and articulating front wheels means it can get into tight places and

[00:16] the lawn thanks to the traction control system and has a great combination of NRTL, Wi-Fi, 4G, physical sensors, and cameras to navigate very close to edges within inches without ever getting lost.

[00:31] parents' house for the past 2 months and not once has it ever stopped, been stuck, or had any issues at all. It's truly a hands-free mower and without confidently say this would be a great purchase for you, for any elderly

[00:46] relatives, or even for a vacation or rental property that maybe you don't regularly visit. Now, it's been a while since I started a video off with such a strong endorsement, but I really do like this thing. There are some downsides

[00:59] that many. Compared to the rest of the landscape of robot mowers that all make some pretty big tradeoffs in navigation and cut quality and drive and and range, this one seems to nail pretty much everything. Now, there are two models of

[01:12] everything. Now, there are two models of this, the X430 which covers 1 acre and the X450 which covers slightly larger 1.5 acres. This one right here is the X450. Generally, they're exactly the same model, just slightly longer range

[01:25] about that later. As far as mapping and setup goes, this is really simple. You have hands-free auto mapping if you want. Uh if you have open fields, it but it does a really good job of detecting the edges of sidewalks and

[01:39] flower beds and driveways. And if your lawn is mostly contained by fences and driveways and stuff, then you can do this. Manual mapping uses your phone a single joystick and it drives around the edges and it maps it fairly easily

[01:53] as well. You're looking at about 2 and 1/2 ft per second, so you can cover a time. Now, when you create the map, you have several different things you can do. You can add cutting zones, no go zones, channels between zones, and you

[02:07] the idea here is that different zones might be cut on different schedules, to different lengths, they might be separated physically, and you might need Maybe, for example, at my parents' house, they have like a sand mound,

[02:20] which is separated by their driveway, and then they have their main lawns. And the map, when you draw it, is going to be showing like a 2D basic map, but times, the cameras will be able to create basically like a satellite image

[02:34] the, you know, just the cameras on board, and drawing out what your map edit the map, it navigates to certain points on the map, and you can cut out don't get it right the first time, you can always adjust that. Now, one little

[02:48] it up, uh this is something that I found a little hiccup with this, and I've read other people had the same thing, and this is probably the most common complaint I've seen online, is that people complain about where the mower's

[03:01] actually going to be placed. So, this uses what's called NRTK to navigate, than just having a single tower. And essentially, what this means is when you put down the mower in one spot, it needs to have a pretty clear view of the sky.

[03:14] So, right at the edge of your building is most likely not going to be the best it near the edge of a building, thinking it was kind of on a corner, I could maybe see the sky pretty well, and it just wasn't able to get signal. So, I

[03:26] bed. Once I did that, it had great signal right away, and I had no you're going to have to put this mower slightly away from the house, so you have a better view of the sky. As far as mowing goes, this has two 180 W cutting

[03:41] motors, so two discs on the bottom. Surprisingly good cut, like noticeably better than most of the other robot mowers I've used. Looking at like the time I go to my parents' house, I'm impressed by how good and clean the cut

[03:54] quality is. You don't have any kind of ruts or ripples. Everything just looks uh really like perfectly mowed. You have a 17-in cut width as well, and you're different patterns that I'll talk about in a minute. The blades actually retract

[04:09] in between two wheels. So, unlike most mowers which just have one wheel on the they're fully exposed, just screwed onto the wheel, this has two wheels. So, the if they hit something, it'll spin back

[04:23] in and retract, and the entire blade is covered by that by that metal wheel there, and only half the blades are in there. Then you have another wheel the back. So, you kind of have the blades that are staggered a little bit,

[04:35] especially on longer grass. So, in total, you're working with 12 blades. the B-roll I'm showing you right now helps to explain what I'm talking about. underside, you can see this also has a pretty decent rake on here on the front

[04:50] know, getting stuck on like sticks and things like that. The rear axle pivots a just like back and forth, so that's going to help uh if you're going through uneven terrain. And the front wheels have independent suspension, plus as I

[05:05] individually for turning, which is kind of interesting, allowing this to get into tighter spaces and mow really well, in my opinion, around smaller objects if that. Also, this can cut anywhere from 3/4 of an inch, which for robot mowers

[05:20] is incredibly low, although up to 4 in, which is a pretty large range. Most robot mowers don't have nearly that level of a range. And while it's moving, it can go up to 2.6 ft per second, as I mentioned before. That's going to give

[05:32] little bit more efficient, but you can customize all of this in the app if you want it to go slower and do, you know, a more deliberate, slow cut, maybe on a an adaptive blade, which means that it can adjust on uneven terrain for a more

[05:46] consistent cut, so it doesn't, you know, high center itself and scalp a lot. And you also don't have any extra long areas where you have a hill that suddenly goes pretty decent job of cutting taller

[05:58] also, unsurprisingly, able to handle some very steep slopes. They rate it for some very steep slopes. They rate it for up to 84% or 40°. I don't have any hills that are that steep, but every hill that I've had it go over, even draw, you

[06:11] know, driving laterally on steep slopes, it didn't slide down. The four-wheel really good job. It also can climb over objects up to 2.8 in tall, so little it shouldn't have a problem. Like I said, I didn't do much clean up on this

[06:27] there was nothing out there, and it still never got stuck. There were sticks edge of the woods, and it didn't have a problem. Also, one of the biggest particular, where I had it running for the past 2 months, has a very wet area.

[06:43] really high because it was too wet for a push mower and way too wet for a riding mower. You would leave big ruts in there. It would get so muddy. And once the grass gets a little longer, then it takes way longer for the grass to dry

[06:56] much air flow and as much light there. But this is a fairly light machine that able to cut there without any issue at all. And because it's always short grass, it's mowing every single day, the lawn also dries a lot quicker than it

[07:10] used to. So, cut quality, I give it a big thumbs up. As far as navigation and than 2 in from the edges. If you're going to do mapping as opposed to manual mapping. There was, however, one spot that it

[07:25] seemed to miss. And this is like a weird little corner of the lawn where it drives, it goes around, and it comes back. And where it makes that turn, there's a small patch of grass in the middle that it just doesn't mow. And I'm

[07:37] up and mow that. Maybe it didn't realize it wasn't mowing that, but it was missing one spot. That's the only complaint I've had as far as, you know, as far as how it's positioning itself, it's using two main things. One is NRTK,

[07:52] which is network RTK. There's no subscription. This is free for the life it, and it gives you tri-frequency network RTK. I'll talk more about that in a second. The second thing it has is vision enhancement. So, you have what

[08:05] cameras looking all the way around the robot, and that's going to be for, you mostly for obstacle avoidance and detection. We're talking more about the network RTK. So, you have an RTK station that you put up, and you could just use

[08:19] local RTK, but using network RTK allows you to go in many more places that most robot mowers, which rely on local RTK, typically struggle with. So, I've seen people mow very long grass roads with this. Uh normally, that would be way out

[08:34] doesn't work. I've heard about people mowing underneath solar panels with way around a house, which most other mowers get lost on the opposite side of a house or around bushes. This has not had a problem with any of that. So,

[08:49] locating with NRTK seems to be doing incredibly well. The cameras are used to, mostly in my opinion, avoid obstacles. They allegedly detect 200 different obstacles. Um I guess that could be like squirrels and stuff like

[09:02] that. Honestly, from my testing, I I had it navigate around a couple things. One, I had my tripod set up for a time lapse of it just mowing, and it navigated around my tripod without hitting it. So, I suspect that means it's going to be

[09:14] good with chairs, tables, umbrellas, and other tall posts that are going to be in and never even bumped my tripod. It navigated around, it checked from all sides, and the vision can see in 360°

[09:26] like I said, but it can also see both on the ground and up a little bit above the or a chair or something like that, hopefully it should not be getting stuck. I've had previous robot mowers from other companies that are not able

[09:39] to see above them and they wedge themselves underneath a vehicle, then somebody doesn't see it, they pull away, and they end up running over the mower. Hopefully, that doesn't happen with this one. At least from my experience so far,

[09:51] avoidance. It also navigated around this little pink helmet here without hitting probably be pretty good at avoiding children's toys. However, the blades are retractable, so I'm not saying it wouldn't damage things if it did hit

[10:05] you don't have to worry about that breaking the mower. It did not, however, navigate around I just threw a red ratchet strap, very visible, but instead, it just ran it over. So, it didn't get tangled up. Maybe that was

[10:18] just fortunate chance here, but I would recommend ensuring you don't have loose strings, hoses, ropes, or anything like that in your lawn. It could potentially hit them. It also did navigate around me. I stood in front of it and I think

[10:30] this means it should avoid most animals. It also has not been a problem for the dog or actually for any other small animals there. Now, I do not have any hedgehogs here. In fact, they're actually illegal to have here, uh but if

[10:42] you live somewhere that has hedgehogs, you may know that uh robot mowers sometimes can be a big danger to them. They kind of just like curl up and hide up getting injured or severely injured or killed by robot mowers. Now, this

[10:56] one, uh like I said, has a big rake in the front, has obstacle avoidance, so obviously, I haven't tested it and if you live somewhere with hedgehogs, maybe you're able to, you know, protect those little guys by putting up little fences

[11:10] traction control system, which adjusts the torque to all four wheels, so it doesn't skid and tear up the grass if it's wet or driving up a hill. And I've actually seen this work very well in some dusty or muddy parts of the lawn

[11:24] where it's going up a hill, it adjusts the torque and it gets up just fine without ever spinning its wheels. And another testament to the navigation, I had to put this in a pretty tricky spot. Remember how I said before that the base

[11:36] again, this will drive around and mow and it navigates back to its own base put that base station in the middle of from the house, but I didn't want it sitting in the middle of the yard. And

[11:49] in order to get there, it was navigating between some pretty oversized shrubs, and it has had no issue at all getting in or out of the base station for the entirety of the season so far. As far as what the mow looks like, it I think

[12:01] pattern in the app, so it can either rotate and change the pattern every direction all the time. You can also have it mow designs in your lawn, like letters, basic shapes, numbers. Maybe if it's like someone's birthday. It's a fun

[12:17] idea. I haven't really tried that, to be honest. I mostly just have it mow good. But, let's talk about the design of this mower. It's a fairly large mower, no doubt. It's larger than most other, you know, more affordable tiny

[12:30] meant for a larger property. Need a bigger battery on there, four-wheel drive. All this stuff adds complexity and adds size and bulk to the mower. Which means one downside is that if the battery ever died, if it ever did get

[12:43] difficult to bring it back to the base station without having like a Or maybe you could pull it along with the wheels, but I think, you know, it's to move this back to the base station. This does have a large stop button on

[12:58] the top. That's a big safety thing. It also has bumpers on the front, also for mentioned, for safety. And it has a 3 and 1/2 inch LCD color display. It's not buttons on there. You've got like a, you know, toggling between things. You've

[13:13] you what the option is. You can toggle between different things. You can tell it to go home. You can tell it to cut. And you can actually change a surprising amount of settings on this. So, scheduling for this mower. The The point

[13:25] is for it to be autonomous. This could be mowing different zones, different heights. There's a lot of things you can change. There is also a rain sensor on inclement weather. If you wanted to cut at night, it has headlights. I usually

[13:40] like to because, you know, your kids are probably not playing in the lawn at be in the day. So, it's going to be nice that it's not in the way when they're even act as like a a deer or animal deterrent if it's driving around your

[13:54] lawn at night. This is not a push mower, of course, but hear me out. The whole point of this is to mow very differently than a push mower, and many people mow once a week, just like they did with their old push mower. But, truthfully,

[14:07] that is not the way robot mowers are meant to work. Ideally, this is going to every single day. Your grass is going to look better every day. It's also healthier for your grass, and because this is silent and really not in the

[14:19] way, it's honestly not even that noticeable, it's going to be much better highly recommend, don't do it once a week. If you want to not do it every day, maybe do it every like 3 days. But, ideally, this is going to be best at

[14:32] cutting a little bit of grass at a time as opposed to, you know, cutting off like 2 inches of grass all at once. Another thing to know, I've had no issues with this, so I have not contacted customer service, but I did

[14:44] I make these videos, so it's not just my experience, but I see problems that other people have and I try to replicate them. And one thing that kept coming up was the customer service with Navimow was actually really good. People were

[14:57] really happy with how responsive they've been. So, if you have any experience with the customer service from Segway or Navimow, leave a comment down below. information from other people who've tried contacting them down there. As far

[15:10] as durability and theft prevention, this is not a cheap device. This is right now on sale for I think like $400 off, and it's going to be $2,100. So, MSRP on this is like $2,500. But, theft prevention and durability obviously

[15:23] matter a lot. I've only used this for 2 months, so I can't say what it's going to be like in 3 or 4 years, obviously, but we can kind of make some inferences. but we can kind of make some inferences. One, the IP66 water and dust resistance

[15:35] that this is able to sit out in the rain, but I would highly recommend you spend an extra, I think it's like 40 or 50 dollars to get this little cover that goes over it. They call it the garage or like the base station garage, and

[15:48] little bit more. This also does have Apple Find My enabled, so just set that anything. There's no subscription for that. And that way, if it ever gets lost or stolen, as long as there's an iPhone nearby, you should be much better off

[16:02] finding it. This has GPS. This has an out of boundary alarm. This has a lift alarm. You have a PIN code. And it does come with a 3-year warranty on the device and the charging station and 2-year warranty on the battery. As far

[16:15] originally, I was worried that the articulating wheels that motor would get stuck on, you know, sticks and rocks. And I was worried that that would wear out and not perform that well. So far, I've had no issues with it. I mean, the

[16:28] only thing is it does show dirt a lot. I don't think that really matters at all, dusty. You might want to clean it off every now and then. Don't pressure wash it, of course, but just wipe it off. So, pros and cons. Pros, this thing is

[16:41] essentially silent. No more gas engines running twice a week. It's also every week. You just do a little bit of edge trimming with the weed whacker, and your lawn looks amazing. Not just once a week, but every single day as this thing

[16:55] mows, like I said, every single day. This is also able to handle very large areas with excellent cut quality. It can handle very intricate lawns, going around a lot of things thanks to NRTK. And because it's mowing a little bit at

[17:08] a time, you don't have grass clippings that are going to blow around into your to do any leaf blowing. This just mulches a quarter inch of grass that it cuts right into the lawn every day. It's also obviously safer than a riding mower

[17:21] have to worry about tipping over. It's a mower and if it tips over like nobody gets hurt. It's just a mower. And this last one I some people might chalk it up the positive side here. There is a cellular connection and it's not

[17:35] required. It's fairly affordable, which is why I'm giving it a positive here. Um a subscription." Like I said, this is optional and usually you see these subscriptions at like $10 a month or $5 a month. This is actually $32.90

[17:49] for an entire year to have that cellular connection, which like I said could help could help it navigate, you know, more tricky spots. Now, I used the Navimow X3 last year and compared to that the X4 is infinitely better. I've really not seen

[18:05] as much improvement generation over generation in a really long time among really any product. Navimow obviously worked really hard on this and I think you have pets and you have a gate and you want to mow two different places,

[18:18] something called the Mowgate. Now, the Mowgate looks like a a dog door basically, but it communicates with your mower and your mower drives up. It uses animals is nearby. It then opens the gate, drives in and closes the gate. I'm

[18:33] sure it's not foolproof, but it seems like a pretty cool idea that uh should your animals escaping. Now, I'll give you my conclusion on this in a second, ahead and buy it, I'll have a couple links down below. One of course for the

[18:48] product, but a second one is that they have a measure my lawn tool to figure don't know how many acres or square feet your lawn is, I recommend checking out that tool. They also have a tool to see the coverage of network RTK to see if

[19:01] this is relevant for you. If you're not in an area that that works, uh then different performance for navigation. So, I have those links down below. Check them out, but not everything is perfect. There are some drawbacks here. One, I

[19:15] mode that lets me view the camera while I'm away. Not that that's a deal cameras are on this device, that would be a really nice feature to have. Also, mentioned, moving this around could be a challenge if the battery ever did die.

[19:31] comes with for the RTK, the local RTK tower, is not very long. So, it's not meaning you're going to have this thing not on your roof. It's going to be kind yard. It may take a bit of repositioning, so setup is not

[19:46] necessarily hard, but if you're not tech-savvy, you may want to ask a friend maybe hire a handyman. Correct setup is absolutely essential to get this thing to actually function hands-free. And

[19:58] me, but I think this really could mow larger areas. Like, if it did, technically it's rated for 1 acre in a day, um but even though it's only rated for like 1 and 1/2 total acres, I think if you did 1 acre per day, and you cut

[20:12] the grass every 3 or 4 days, it makes sense. You should theoretically be able to do like a 3 or 4 acre area. But, there's actually a software lock in the app that limits the area you can map. They say it's for safety reasons. I'm

[20:25] be aware of that. A lot of people are going to say, "Can I do 1.9 acres?" Unfortunately, no. The software is going to stop you from doing that, at least at the time of making this video. So, my conclusion on this, this thing's pricey.

[20:39] At over $2,000, it's a real investment, but I think it's worth it, as most people with a 1 acre lawn would probably buy a riding mower anyway, which not only takes a couple hours of your time per week, but also costs at least like

[20:51] $2,000. Maybe a riding mower will last longer, other things, in which case, go ahead and do that. But, at least for me, I saves you a lot of time, is healthier for for lawn, leaves your lawn looking

[21:06] really good, and of course doesn't require you to own and maintain and store a large riding mower. So, that's my take on the Navimow X 4 series. Leave should I compare this to? I know a lot of people have been asking for a

[21:18] comparison with the Limo, um maybe the new Terramo would be interesting. Leave a comment and I'll make a comparison between the top four comments, not which ones get the most like. I'll be counting how many comments there are, so be sure

[21:30] to leave a new comment for what I should compare this to. Thanks for watching, guys. I'm Michael O'Brien and I'll see you in that comparison.