A freshly cut lawn goes a long way to giving your property a neat, well manicured look, but it takes a lot of work to keep it looking that way. If you’re tired of spending several hours a week pushing a noisy gas-powered lawn mower, consider investing in a robot lawn mower like the Greenworks Pro Optimow 50H ($1,599.99). As with most robotic mowers, the Optimow 50H goes out every day, mows the lawn, and returns to its base station to charge up for the next run. It did an excellent job of cutting grass in our tests and was very quiet, and it offers cellular connectivity, a thoughtfully designed app, and GPS tracking. That said, it lacks the onboard controls and Wi-Fi connectivity that you get with our Editors’ Choice winner, the $999 Worx Landroid M 20V Cordless Robotic Lawn Mower (WR140).
A Lawnmower With a Cellular Radio
Designed for lawns of up to half an acre, the Optimow 50H measures 12.2 by 20.0 by 25.0 inches (HWD), weighs 26.4 pounds, and has an IPX5 water-resistance rating that means you can wash it off with a hose. It sports a lime green and matte black finish and uses two 9-inch rear wheels and two swiveling 3.5-inch front wheels to traverse lawns with inclines of up to 35%. It has a handle above the front bumper, and as is the case with every robotic mower we’ve tested, the bumper contains sensors that will cause the mower to stop and change direction if it encounters any objects in its path.
A panel on the top of the mower contains a cutting height dial, start and stop levers, and four status LEDs, but that’s all you get in the way of onboard controls. The Operating LED glows solid green when the mower is in operating mode (mowing, charging, parked, paused), and is dark when the mower is stopped, if the safety key has been removed, or if the mower is waiting for a PIN number entry. The Connectivity LED flashes blue when the mower is trying to connect to the internet, glows solid blue when it’s connected, and is dark when the mower is powered down. The Security LED flashes yellow when a PIN code is required, and the Error LED flashes red when the mower has been stopped due to an error such as a break in the wire or when the mower has been lifted. All other programming and settings are handled via the Greenworks Tools mobile app for Android and iOS. By way of comparison, the Worx Landroid M 20V has an LCD and plenty of onboard controls that let you do things like create work schedules, check battery life, define work zones, and configure rain delay settings on the mower itself.
The Optimow’s brushless motor has a 60dB noise rating and is powered by a rechargeable lithium-ion battery that provides up to 150 minutes of cutting time and requires around 70 minutes to become fully charged. It uses a rotating disc with three pivoting blades to cut grass, and has an 8.7-inch cutting width and an adjustable cutting height of 2.4 to 4.0 inches. You don’t get Bluetooth or Wi-Fi connectivity with this mower like you do with the Ayi DRM3-600I, but it does contain a GPS radio for tracking the mower’s whereabouts and a cellular radio that lets you control the mower using a mobile app. You get two years of free cellular service with the 50H, but once the free plan expires you’ll have to shell out $29.99 for a two-year plan in order to connect to the app.
The well-designed mobile app makes it easy to create work schedules, check the mower’s current status, and start and stop mowing cycles. It opens to a screen that displays the name of the mower and shows you its current battery level and operating status (leaving, mowing, parked, returning to base). Tap the Park button to have the mower return to the base and tap the Resume button to have the mower resume its work schedule.
The Settings and Position button opens a screen where you can manually create work schedules to have the mower come out at a certain time on specific days of the week. Or you can use the Scheduling Wizard to create a schedule based on your lawn size. Simply use the slider to tell the wizard how big your lawn area is, select day or night for preferred working hours, and the wizard will automatically create a schedule based on your input.
Tap the Position button at the bottom of the screen to see where the mower is and where it’s been on a satellite map. The Settings button opens a screen where you can change the name of the mower, create a PIN code that’s used to restart the mower if it’s been lifted, and enable the Rain Guard feature that tracks the latest rainfall readings from your area and will delay a work cycle to allow enough for proper water drainage if necessary. There’s also a Frost Guard setting that monitors the current temperature and will delay the work cycle if there’s a risk of frost. Other settings allow you to enable push notifications, create custom starting points for large lawns, and enable an Energy Saving Mode that basically shuts down the mower and the cellular radio after a full charge. In this mode you’ll have to physically pull the mower out of the charging station and push it back in to restart everything.
Setting Up and Using the Optimow 50H
Getting the Optimow 50H up and running for the first time isn’t difficult, but plan on spending an hour or more crawling around the yard laying down wire and hammering in plastic spikes to keep the wire in place. I already had perimeter wire installed from a previous review and that took me a couple of hours (my lawn is 1,950 square feet). Alternately, you can hire a professional to install the wire for you.
After connecting the perimeter wire and the AC plug to the base station, I downloaded the app and created an account. I tapped Add a Device, selected Robotic Mower, and was informed that the mower needed to be charged for at least two hours before continuing in order for firmware updates to take place. Once the Optimow was charged, I tapped the Pair button and the mower was immediately discovered and added to the app. I gave it a name and the installation was complete.
The Optimow 50H did a fantastic job of keeping my entire lawn evenly trimmed. It was very quiet, never once wandered out of the perimeter, and navigated inclines and depressions in my lawn without issue. The sensors did their job, stopping the mower when it encountered garden barriers, tennis balls, and large fallen branches, and the Rain Guard feature worked as intended after a particularly heavy downpour.
I used the Schedule Wizard to create a nighttime work routine and the 50H followed it to a tee. The mower responded instantly to Start and Stop commands using the app, and the GPS radio did an excellent job of tracking its whereabouts.
Take Back Your Weekend
With the Greeworks Optimow 50H Robotic Lawn Mower, you can have a perfectly groomed lawn without breaking a sweat. It takes some effort to install the perimeter wire, but once everything is set up you can sit back and let the mower take over. The Optimow performed admirably in our tests and its mobile app makes it easy to create custom day or night schedules. That said, you’ll have to eventually pay for a cellular plan to continue using the app because the mower doesn’t offer Bluetooth or Wi-Fi connectivity. For a few hundred dollars less, our Editors’ Choice winner for robotic lawn mowers, the Worx Landroid M 20V, uses Wi-Fi to let you control it from just about anywhere and offers lots of onboard controls. If you want the ultimate in robotic lawn care or if you have a large yard with lots of hills and bumpy terrain, meanwhile, the Husqvarna Automower 435X AWD offers all-wheel drive, Bluetooth and cellular connectivity, support for Alexa and Google voice commands, and works with IFTTT applets. However, at $5,199.99 it’s easily the most expensive model we’ve tested.
