Questions we get asked
Six years of demos in Tampa Bay, distilled. If yours isn't here, call 813-434-0402 — you'll get one of the two of us, not a queue.
What are the benefits of a robotic mower?
It cuts a little every day instead of a lot once a week, which is what grass actually wants. The clippings are small enough to fall back in as mulch, so the lawn feeds itself and needs less water and less fertiliser. It runs on electricity, produces no emissions, and is quiet enough to work early morning or late evening without a neighbour noticing.
The part people underestimate is the time. The lawn is simply always cut — there is no Saturday where it needs doing, and no week where it got away from you.
How safe are they?
Safer than the alternative, by some distance. The blades are small razor-style blades set well inside the body rather than a large spinning disc at the edge, so there is nothing exposed to step near. Lift the machine or tip it and the blades stop immediately. Run it into something and it stops and turns away.
That is not the same as saying nothing could ever happen, and we would rather not pretend otherwise. Treat it like any other powered garden tool: it is not a toy, and children should be told so.
Can I buy one, or do you rent them?
Buy. We sell, install, service and warranty Husqvarna Automower® as an authorized dealer, and our pricing is for the machine installed — survey, siting, setup and a supervised first cut included.
Managed mowing, where we own the machine and look after it on your property, is something we can still talk about for the right commercial site. Ask us and we will tell you honestly whether it makes sense for you.
Will I actually save money?
Against paying someone to cut it, usually yes, and the payback is easy to work out — take what you pay a crew each month and count how many months it takes to reach the installed price.
Against cutting it yourself, the saving is smaller and mostly in time, water and fertiliser. There is no fuel, no oil, no blade sharpening, no engine to service. Electricity to run one is a few dollars a month.
For a commercial site the sum is different again: the machine does not replace the crew, it frees the crew to do the work that actually earns money.
What size property can one mower handle?
It depends entirely on the model, and the acreage printed on the box is a best case measured under ideal conditions. Our Sizing Guide explains what each figure actually measures and why the homeowner line and the professional line do not mean the same thing by it.
Larger properties are often better served by two machines working their own zones than one machine working very hard. We size it properly at the survey rather than guessing from a map.
Do you have to dig up my yard to bury a wire?
Not for the machines we sell today. The current Automower® range is wire-free — the iQ series uses satellite guidance and the EPOS machines use a reference station, so the boundary is drawn in software and there is nothing buried in your lawn.
Wire only comes into it on older wired machines. We still service those, and if you have one we can trace and repair a break.
What if my yard is an odd shape, or full of obstacles?
That is normal, and it is what the survey is for. We walk the property before anything is installed, identify what should be avoided — beds, pool surrounds, drop-offs, tree roots — and set those as exclusions.
Water features and genuinely steep sections get assessed case by case. Occasionally the honest answer is that part of a property is better left to a person, and we will say so.
Will it drive through my flower beds?
No. Anything you want left alone is mapped as an exclusion zone during setup, and the machine treats it as if it were a wall.
My lawn is uneven. Is that a problem?
Gentle undulation is fine — these machines are built for real lawns, not billiard tables. Actual holes, ruts or washouts should be filled before installation, because a wheel dropping into one is what causes a machine to strand itself and call for help.
We flag anything that needs attention at the survey, before you have bought anything.
Will it fit through the gap down the side of my house?
Often, yes. The narrowest passage depends on the model — some will work through a gap as tight as around two feet. If a passage is too narrow, the usual answer is a second zone rather than a second machine.
What if the grass is long when you arrive to install?
Cut it with a conventional mower within 48 hours of the installation. A robotic mower is designed to take a few millimetres off every day; it cannot reduce an overgrown lawn, and asking it to try gives a poor first impression of a machine that has done nothing wrong.
How do I start or stop it?
From your phone. Every machine we sell connects to the Automower® Connect app — start, stop, send it home, change the schedule, see where it is and what it has done, from anywhere.
There are physical buttons on the machine as well, for when it is right in front of you and the phone is indoors.
How long does installation take?
Usually two to five hours, depending on the size and complexity of the property. You do not need to be home for all of it — we stay in touch while we work and walk you through the finished setup at the end.
Will it run in the rain?
Yes. Rain is not a problem, and a mower that only worked on dry days would be no use in Florida. In genuinely extreme weather we would park it, and the machines are rated to operate in heat well beyond anything Tampa produces.
Can children and pets be in the yard while it runs?
The machines are built with that in mind: blades set well inside the body, and immediate shutdown if the machine is lifted or tipped. In our experience most dogs lose interest within a day.
We would still tell children plainly that it is not a toy and not to pick it up. If you would rather it never ran while the yard was in use, schedule it overnight — it is quiet enough that nobody will know.
Will it see a toy left out on the lawn?
Larger obstacles, yes. Small, low, lightweight objects are a different matter, and the honest answer is to keep the lawn clear of things that do not belong on it — the same as you would before running any mower.
The current iQ machines do carry object detection, which helps considerably, but it is not a substitute for picking the toys up.
What about things falling from trees?
Leaves get mulched along with the grass, which is a bonus. Larger debris — acorns, pine cones, fruit, palm litter — is worth clearing, because it dulls blades and sets off the collision sensors, which makes the machine work harder to cover the same ground.
Why does it drive in all those different directions?
Because it is covering the lawn rather than striping it. Cutting from varied directions avoids the wear pattern you get from always mowing the same line, and gives the even, carpet-like finish these machines are known for.
The satellite-guided machines can also mow in systematic parallel tracks where the ground suits it. The Sizing Guide explains the difference and why it matters to the acreage figure.
What if somebody tries to steal it?
Every machine is PIN-locked and alarms if it is taken outside its working area, and it is useless to whoever takes it — it is paired to your installation. Most of the models we sell also carry GPS tracking.
In six years of installing these around Tampa Bay it has not been a problem our customers have had.
Do I have to put it away for winter?
Not here. Grass in Tampa Bay keeps growing through the winter, just more slowly, so most of our customers simply reduce the schedule and leave the machine working year round.
If you do want it stored — you are away for a season, or the lawn is dormant — clean it, charge it, and keep it somewhere dry and indoors. We can store it for you if there is no room.
How often do the blades need changing?
Roughly every two to three months on Florida turf, though it depends on the grass, the property and how much the machine is running. They are a wear item, not a repair.
Changing them yourself is three screws and about five minutes — there is a walkthrough on our Service & Repair page, and blades are on the parts shelf. If you would rather not, blade replacement is included in the annual maintenance plan.
What does the maintenance plan cover?
$300 a year per machine, for four visits: inspect, clean, replace the blades, update the firmware. It also drops your diagnostic rate from $100 to $75 if something ever does go wrong.
It is mostly buying the visits rather than the parts, and nobody should feel obliged to take it. Full detail is on the Service & Repair page.
Will you service a machine I did not buy from you?
Yes. Bought online, inherited with a house, or a brand we do not carry — we will still look at it. Parts availability varies by brand and age, and we will tell you honestly when a repair is not worth doing rather than take your money for it.
Do I have to bring it to you?
No. We come to the machine. That is the practical difference between a dealer twenty minutes away and a box bought from a marketplace seller — no packing, no shipping, no queue.
The fastest answer is a conversation
Most of what people really want to know is specific to their own lawn — that awkward side passage, the slope by the pool, whether the oak is going to be a problem. A demo answers it in twenty minutes, on your grass, at no cost and with nothing owed after.