At a glanceExpert’s Score
Professionals
Simple setup and mapping
Delivered a good, thorough minimize from the primary mow
Impediment detection is promising (though it nonetheless wants work)
Cons
Considerably underpowered for its measurement
Rear-wheel drive solely
Underwhelming efficiency on slopes
Our Verdict
The Eufy Lawnbot E18 is a good robotic garden mower for smaller, flatter yards and for individuals who don’t need to spend so much of time setting one up.
Worth When Reviewed
This worth will present the geolocated pricing textual content for product undefined
Finest Pricing In the present day
Worth When Reviewed$1,599.99
Finest Costs In the present day: Eufy Lawnbot E18
Analysis and improvement efforts aren’t low cost. Outsourcing is among the methods producers can extra affordably develop their product choices, and a few good residence manufacturers—together with Anker’s Eufy good residence division—have taken this method fairly than creating their very own merchandise in-house. On this case, we’re speaking about robotic garden mowers.
The Eufy Lawnbot E-series robotic garden mowers that Anker debuted at CES final January are literally rebranded TerraMow fashions which have been obtainable in Europe since mid-2024. Other than battery measurement, the 2 Lawnbot E-series mowers are equivalent, with the mannequin E15 able to dealing with as much as 0.2 acres, whereas the mannequin E18 reviewed right here is appropriate for as much as 0.3 acres.
Specs
Each Lawnbot E-series mowers may appear small in comparison with a lot of the competitors—suburban and rural American yards are usually very massive—however you don’t must personal an acre or extra of turf to understand a robotic garden mower.
The Eufy Lawnbot E18 will look acquainted to European readers, because it’s primarily based on the design of the TerraMow S2100 that got here to market in that area in 2023.Ed Oswald/Foundry
These are smallish, rear-wheel drive mowers, however don’t let their measurement idiot you: Each machines are filled with smarts. The GPS navigation that so many different trendy mowers use, nonetheless, is just not one in every of their options. These mowers map your yard utilizing laptop imaginative and prescient alone.
Transferring from unboxing to mowing occurred extra rapidly with the Eufy Lawnbot E18 than some other mower I’ve evaluated to this point.
The mower maps your yard utterly by itself: you solely direct it to the parts of the yard you need it to map after which draw pathways between these areas. I had the Lawnbot E18 up and operating in my yard in lower than half-hour.
Whereas it’s thrilling to see a mower that doesn’t rely on GPS satellites or require a fancy set up involving antennas on tripods and the like, I actually had my doubts a few mower that depends solely on imaginative and prescient, however these have largely dispersed—at the least relating to Eufy’s (and TerraMow’s) bots.
Setup
The Lawnbot E18 will memorize the placement of its storage base station and use the sample printed on its inside again wall for exact docking. Ed Oswald/Foundry
The preliminary setup of the Eufy Lawnbot E18 entails discovering an appropriate location for the mower’s base station, plugging it in, after which turning your consideration to the mower itself. Whereas the mower comes with sufficient cost to finish setup, we charged it to 100%, which took lower than half an hour (Eufy says a drained battery ought to attain a full cost inside 90 to 110 minutes).
After that, you can begin mapping from throughout the app. Place the E18 anyplace inside a grassy space (the app will information you) and permit it to calibrate. The mower will spin in a circle, using its cameras to find out its location on the planet.
Watching a robotic doing donuts in your yard will appear odd, however that’s how this mower determines its exact location with out the help of GPS. As soon as that orientation course of is profitable, the mower will proceed to map all the space of grass.
I’ve a fancy yard, so I set the Lawnbot E18 free on the simplest patches of grass first. It dealt with these spectacularly, needing lower than 10 minutes to map the 400 sq. ft. The mower struggled within the sloped parts of my yard, nonetheless, usually trying to map areas that have been too steep for it to navigate. This required me to set no-go zones and limits throughout the app to stop it from getting caught. All-wheel drive would have helped with this, however the E-series mowers solely drive their rear wheels.
The Eufy Lawnbot E18’s smaller measurement permits it to extra simply navigate slim pathways in your yard in comparison with most robotic garden mowers.Ed Oswald/Foundry
The mower additionally insisted on returning to its base station after every zone was mapped, which I discovered irritating. When it got here to mowing areas removed from the bottom station, this added a substantial period of time to the mapping course of. This habits is perhaps necessitated by the Lawnbot E18’s reliance on laptop imaginative and prescient for navigation.
Other than that, the Lawnbot E18 was surprisingly clean at mapping, even in areas with view obstructions or obstacles. You received’t spend a lot time organising a extra fundamental yard; certainly, transferring from unboxing to mowing occurred extra rapidly with the Lawnbot E18 than some other mower I’ve evaluated to this point.
Efficiency
The Lawnbot E18 is underpowered in comparison with a lot of the rear-wheel drive mowers I’ve examined on this worth vary, and it will probably climb slopes of solely 18 levels or much less. In case you have something greater than gradual rises in your yard, you’ll probably run into hassle with this mower.
Whereas the Lawnbot E18 is smaller than most robotic garden mowers I’ve reviewed, its measurement—and the truth that its chopping blades are fairly near the sting of its deck—provides it at the least one vital benefit: Bulkier mowers can have issue maneuvering round obstacles, leaving unpleasant strips of uncut grass behind.
Slopes should not the Lawnbot E18’s forté, as its restricted to climbing 18-degree grades.Ed Oswald/Foundry
That stated, the E18’s small chopping radius—8 inches—leads to longer mowing occasions than many different robotic mowers. However I’m OK with that, supplied the mower does its job. And for probably the most half, the Lawnbot E18 does its job.
Whereas its imaginative and prescient navigation isn’t excellent, the mower carried out properly total, and the maps it created grew to become more and more extra exact with every run. This meant the E18 left fewer untouched patches of grass after just a few mowing classes. One other shock got here after I packed the mower away after which re-installed it later for a photoshoot. I put its base station in roughly the identical location, however I assumed the mower would want to create a wholly new map; as an alternative, it acknowledged the yard and adjusted itself accordingly.
A few of the most vital navigation points I skilled have been solar blindness and incorrectly figuring out tall grass and weeds as obstructions. You may change the course of its minimize by zone; nonetheless, there is no such thing as a choice for alternating the course it mows to stop its wheels from leaving tracks in your garden. Segway’s E3-series mowers have this function, and it’s nice.
The Lawnbot E18 can’t function at nighttime, both, regardless that it’s outfitted with an LED gentle that may be turned on whereas it’s in distant management mode. This implies you received’t be capable of mow your lawns at evening, as you possibly can with some competing mowers.
The Eufy app
From left to proper: the Eufy Lawnbot E18’s in-app scheduling operate, dwell view, and first display.Ed Oswald/Foundry
A few of the issues I encountered with the Lawnbot E18 can in all probability be chalked as much as software program/firmware points. Till June, the bottom station needed to be positioned inside a mow zone, or the bot wouldn’t be capable of discover it. And you possibly can solely set the mow course on your complete yard fairly than by zone. Additionally, an errant firmware replace in early June quickly prevented some Eufy mowers from working in any respect. These issues jogged my memory of what I handled throughout my Mammotion Yuka 1500 evaluate final 12 months.
In each circumstances, issues improved over time. Eufy’s Lawnbot app is now far more secure than after I first examined the E18 in Could. It additionally obtained higher at detecting transitions between grass and sidewalk. Walkway stones, then again, constantly tripped up the mower, as it might deal with them as a stable sidewalk.
Should you personal different Eufy good residence units—whether or not or not it’s safety cameras, video doorbells, good lighting, vacuums, or mops—you’ll use the identical app to regulate the Lawnbot. It’ll seem beneath the Clear tab. The app is usually simple to make use of, though a bug would generally trigger the mower to often disappear from the app’s House web page.
The app’s live-view function is usually helpful, supplied you may have good Wi-Fi protection in your yard, however it does take some getting used to. The mower’s actions are considerably jerky, so it will probably seem as if the machine is lurching in sudden instructions when it actually isn’t. I didn’t totally take a look at the app’s remote-control operate, nonetheless, as my Wi-Fi router doesn’t blanket my yard with protection.
Must you purchase the Eufy Lawnbot E18?
That the Eufy Lawnbot E18 is a rebranded TerraMow product doesn’t reduce its enchantment—at the least for householders with smaller lawns. Its reliance on visible navigation is novel, however that function will get you as near plug-and-play as you’ll get with a robotic garden mower. It’s an important choice for folk who really feel overwhelmed by trendy know-how. And when you personal different Eufy good residence merchandise, you received’t even must obtain one other app.
In case you have a bigger or extra advanced yard, the Sunseeker Orion X7 AWD will in all probability be extra appropriate. Or when you don’t need to watch for a mower to be taught the form of your yard, you may take into account the Mowrator S1 4WD, which you management with a gaming console-like distant as an alternative of counting on the mower to navigate.
This evaluate is a part of TechHive’s in-depth protection of the perfect robotic garden mowers.
