WORX WG794 Landroid M Cordless Robotic Lawn Mower with Rain Sensor & Safety Shut-Off

Update 8/16/2015 - added a video when I increased one of the areas into an area of the yard that had not been mowed in a month by anything, so you can see in the video how it does cut rather well. This grass was 6-7" tall in spots, it did need a few passes to get it all looking good. Added some comments below with an "Edit" tag. Currently going with 5-stars, but like most robot mowers you have to work around the issues that allow them to work best in your lawn. Starting with Cons - * Not yet selling an extra perimeter switch, making setup with fences between yards a bit harder. (They do sell another docking station for ~$110 which to be fair is not far off from the price of just a "perimeter switch" from other companies) * Not enough stakes included in the box for our yard size (11,000 sqft plus - to be fair our yard is on the upper end of what this mower was made for, zoning has made that better) EDIT: Local big box stores have metal stakes ($9.00 for 75) that work well enough, this helped me complete what I needed. * Does not always drive in a straight line, almost like it follows gravity or uneven terrain causes it to slightly turn if one wheel only hits that bump. I am still watching this trying to figure out what the cause is, might be a combo of the two. Not sure this is truly a bother, as it still gets the job done. * Complicated yard setups with lots of fences or features does prove problematic for when it needs to return for charging. Right now we have one spot where if it decides it needs to charge, it will try and follow the line under a fence and not give up. a. I can either move the charging station to this spot or b. add a relay and switch to control the boundary wire allowing me to effectively have a switch track control. EDIT: Fixed this by simply adding a new wire that returns from the other side. If you have a corner post, and the two wires, it will follow the wires around the corner post instead of trying to go straight on the wire that runs under the fence. This helped me create a zone out on the side yard. For the front yard I simply hinged a few of the fence boards and it will push that open to get to the front. It returns to the back yard through another hinged spot on the opposite side. Works rather well, and with the zoning feature makes it easy. * Rain timer seems to have a bug - the mower went off to mow shortly after the morning sprinklers got it wet. Going to email their tech support on this. Now for the good things. * My yard looks really good, even the tall grass it was able to handle after a few days work and I did not have to get the big mower out like I had thought. Just give it a few days and it will be under control and maintained. * My yard has never been cleaner! Since I had to find all the rocks, twigs and such before letting it wander off to work. * Handles the carpet grass fine, the Bermuda grass is fine, and the few spots of turffalo (short Buffalo grass) all get cut well. * Nothing prepares you for how silent this thing is - you hear it actually cutting things over any motor noise. Walk around in the dark and you might be surprised by it. EDIT: Needed extra wire, ended up using yellow pet fence wire from the local big box store (500 feet for $25). After a few days I could not see the wire and it spliced in just fine with no errors or confusion from the mower, works fine even when buried. Setup was not all that bad, did take me a few hours as I had to get rocks up and out of the ground and do some tree work. I did make my own set of measuring jigs as I was not all that impressed by the cardboard measuring tools that they give you. So I just cut two sticks out of some spare PVC, one to 14", the other to 2.5' as this really helped me speed along while setting the wire and pins. I did update the firmware before turning on the mower, this was a rather painless process as long as you are comfortable with a screwdriver and USB memory stick. I am glad it now has "Zones", as that was one thing I did not like about this model when reading other reviews in the past. It has been stuck a few times, so in those spots I just level out the dirt or make an incline a bit smoother. Programming is easy enough, and with the Texas sun I programmed it to run well into the night. I did not like that the starter program would have it mowing in the morning dew, I wish they would think about changing that. Runtime seems pretty good so far, and as the batteries get a few more cycles on them I can see three hours being doable. I will update this review as time goes on, we do plan to make a barn for it with some sort of auto door as my wife fears some jealous neighbor might try and swipe it. It is pretty hard to see at night, so I do not think it will get much attention from anyone passing by. So far we are much happier with this mower than our lawn crew, or doing it ourselves with allergies and the heat. Plus our lawn looks better than it ever has, so that was an unexpected bonus. I do want to try the Bosch mower blades to see if they make any difference to how much it cuts on one pass, or to how long the blades might last. Payoff is around six to eight months, depending on how many times the lawn care company was doing things.

This product is not ready for public release. It woks well when it works. But the #1 problem is that the unit shuts off during charging and because of this does not follow the weekly programming. This is a real problem as it doesn't automatically cut. You have to manually reset the device. USELESS. 8/9/2015 So the unit had some issues with it running out of bounds at a specific spot. I reworked the boundary wire to make sure no overlaps were present. It still managed to go out of bounds. And once while it was out of bounds someone stole it. The good news is that they figured out they can't use it without a pin and returned the unit after a few days. Now here is where I have a major issue. I call WORX technical suport. After waiting 10 -15 minutes I get connected to a support advisor who really doesn't know anything about the unit. She tries to help me but after a few minutes I get disconnected. She probably just disconnected the call because she wasn't really able to help me. I call the support number again to wait 10-15 minutes and finally just decide on to let worx give me a call. Terrible customer support. Some issues are going to be expected with a new unit like this but a company should stand by their product with great support. WORX is not doing that. What good is a 3 year warranty when the support people have never even heard of their own device? ****************************9/20/2015*************************** After writing this negative review a customer service representative directly contacted me. I told them my issue and the only support they gave me was asked me if I updated to the latest firmware update. I told them more than a few times that I did. He told me that he has to get in touch with the service manager and he will let them know what needs to be done. A few days later he sends me the link to the update that I already applied. OF COURSE THIS IS NOT GOING TO FIX MY PROBLEM. I bought a $1000 paper weight. Be happy that your unit is working right now because when the unit breaks it will take forever before the company will take back the unit. I don't have many regrets in life but purchasing this piece of junk is one of them. I would have been better off losing $1000.

I have this little Landroid mowing 1/3 of an acre of nothing but grass. My lawn is level with only a septic system as an obstacle, so it was idea for a little robot to mow. However, it even handles a few foot deep recesses in the yard without issue. First off, this isn't a "power mower". So many people expect a robot mower to be like their traditional power mower. No, instead it is more like a robotic goat: Eating away a little bit of lawn with each pass, eventually getting the whole thing. But in just a few days it catches everything, and you don't have to worry about any high spots. Installation: Why didn't I install it earlier! I bought this on Black Friday, and waited for six months before installing it. Mowing my yard every two weeks, which was a chore each time due to the fast growing grass. I kept telling myself that installing the mower would take all day. In the end, it took as long to install as a single session of mowing. I installed the charger base right next to my porch, with about one foot behind it to the wall of the house. This is similar to how it is shown in the install video. Ignore the "6ft" on both sides in the instructions. You need only about 4 to 6 feet of wire in front of the charger for it to dock properly. The perimeter of the area I was installing is 400ft long. There was more than enough wire and stakes to do that entire space, including surrounding a few obstacles. The included wire is very tough, and held up to lots of adjustments and tugging as I went along. Tip: Don't put the perimeter wire at the bottom of a slope, ensure it is flat on both sides, or the Landroid goes quite slow as it has to keep moving back to the wire if it rolls down the slope. Two week review: The lawn has never looked better. It's April here in Texas, and everything including the lawn is growing very fast. Typically I have to move every week during this time of year. But the Landroid is taking care of it for me. There isn't a missed spot in the whole lawn that I can find. It is very quiet. The noise level isn't even an annoyance when the mower is right near you. It is about a quiet as a running fridge. The sound of it hitting some taller grass it louder than the motors. It moves quite slowly. While trimming the edges of the yard, I can beat it around the whole perimeter. It handles downward slopes, and dips well. My dogs also are not bothered by it at all. I don't mind it working slowly, as it works all day. I have it set to run 6 hours a day, 7 days a week. During the past two weeks, I has only gotten stuck twice. Once on a rock I forgot to move, and once when it hit its charger at just the wrong angle, and lifted up a bit. It automatically stops, and is easy to reset. It has rained twice during this time. Each time it parked itself properly and waited for the rain to stop. It seemed to handle damp grass without any issues. I will post updates over time, but for now, I am happy with my purchase. I only wish it could handle the much steeper and complex nature of my front yard. One Month Review: The robot has gotten itself stuck a few times more, mostly when moving along loose rock near the boundary edge.The manual specifically does say to not run it on gravel, but I can't help it in some parts of my yard. Each time it just waits for me to notice, move it and then goes on its way. The boundary wire has broken three times. The first was due to a puppy eating everything it can find. The second was due to the robot actually catching the wire in a spot where I didn't stake it down well enough. The third time seems to be a spot where I had too much tension on the wire in a place where there was also a factory splice in the wire. Just a weak spot I guess. However, repairing the boundary wire only takes a few minutes. Purchase yourself some Solder Seal Electrical Connectors, these are waterproof electrical connectors that you simply put a wire into each side, and heat it using a torch or heatgun. The solder needed is already inside, and the whole things seals up. It makes fixing a broken boundary wire take only a few minutes. I am still very happy with my Landroid. It just does its job with very little fuss. The yard looks amazing, like it was mowed just yesterday! One year later review: It has now been a year since I installed the mower. The mower is still going strong. Other than a safety label peeling off the side, there is little sign of wear. It mows 6 hours a day every day. We did have two months of heavy rain, so I had to re-adjust the boundary wire to cut off a portion of the yard that was a near-swamp. The boundary wire has broken a few times more, the included stranded wire seems to be spliced lengths at the factory, and brakes at those splice points. I will be replacing it with a solid-core wire with a thick surround. I decided not to bury the wire, it does end up hidden in the grass, but I can still adjust it. I just found out that Worx has discontinued this mower, so get it while you can.

We’ve had ours for almost a year now and I deliberately waited until I’ve had it long enough to really get a good idea of what it can and can’t do. For what it’s worth, the negatives are far outweighed by the positives, and most of the negatives will be applicable to any other brand of robotic mower anyway. We named ours “Billy” after a little cartoon billy goat that eats everything in an old Tex Avery cartoon. We have a yard that’s a little more than a 1/4 acre front to back. It contains numerous trees, stumps, a garden surrounded by railroad ties, herb boxes, and other miscellaneous obstacles. In addition, a relatively narrow band of yard connects the front to the back. The boundary wire that came with it was insufficient to do the entire yard so for the first month or so it only mowed the back. When I spliced the remaining boundary wire to add the front, it had difficulty following it to the front yard as the line forced it to travel sideways on an incline and it kept wanting to slip. I finally had to move the line downhill some so that it could travel all the way to the front yard, which means there a narrow band of our yard it’s not mowing. Luckily, my neighbor just hits that patch when he mows. The literature for this says it only meant to handle 1/4 acre or less, but the truth is you can mow larger areas as long as you program it to spend more time meandering around your yard, and you set the zones so it makes sure to cover the yard evenly. The manual recommends a complex system of creating boundary loops around obstacles. Instead of this, I used various landscaping bricks and judiciously placed spikes nailed in the ground to turn Billy around. This works fine. The bad: No matter how much I try Billy just about always finds some way to get himself stuck somewhere once every few days. Sometimes he backs up just a little too far and gets caught on the fencing around the garden. Sometimes his treads fill up with too much mud and he loses traction and slips out of boundaries. Sometimes he figures out a way to hit an obstacle just the right way to flip himself upside down. Sometimes he gets mysteriously “trapped” in a reasonably open area. The upshot of this is, every day, usually a couple of times a day, I step out to see how he’s doing - an usually he’s doing his job. But, if I don’t see him working, I go looking. Usually I find him in some obscure corner somewhere munching grass, but sometime I find him stuck and I have to reset him. Maybe if your yard is simple and free of obstacles you won’t have this issue. The good: The yard ALWAYS looks freshly mowed. This was something I’d not thought of when I bought this. Not only do you not have to spend hours & hours pushing your mower around in the heat, the yard never looks anything but freshly mowed. Not only that, but the dandelions we used to always struggle with never get a chance to pop their little yellow heads up very far before he chops them right off. The time spent monitoring him to make sure he’s not hung up somewhere is more than worth the small effort considering how much this has simplified our lives. He’s entertaining and somewhat meditative to watch too as he slowly, aimlessly meanders about munching grass. When we first started using this it was amusing to watch people walking down the street pause to stare at it as it automatically mowed. Unless you simply enjoy mowing your yard, and I know some people find it pleasant, you can’t beat this. After finishing this review I stepped out back and snapped a pic of Billy doing his job.

We bought our Landroid in October 2018, so it saw no significant use prior to the winter. Just enough testing to make sure it worked. So now it is Spring, and the last few days I have been giving it a shake-down. Sadly, we are not quite there. Working inside a rectangular fenced-in pet yard -- about 25 feet by 50 feet -- the robot cannot be relied upon to work without supervision. It gets 'trapped', even along a straight length of fence. So I have to check up on it and reset it several times per job. Aside from the trapping issue, the robot's programming could probably use some tweaking. I sat and watched it mow for an hour or so today, and felt it was spending far too much time coping with the fence. To my mind what it should do is, when it encounters the fence, turn 180 degrees and go back the way it came. Since the unit never tracks entirely straight, it would be unlikely to retrace its path exactly, but rather overlap it a bit, mostly cutting new grass. That strategy may seem wasteful until you see how it currently behaves. If I could guarantee it cut at least 10% new grass with every pass it would be an improvement. Of course my small, rectangular yard may not be typical. My strategy might not work at all with a large, complex yard. Or maybe it would. A real-world test would be interesting. I don't think it would be enough to do computer simulations. My guess is a simulation could not replicate the real-world randomness of an actual mowing job. And randomness is what would make it work. As for support -- I've had issues. I'll leave it at that for now. Worx is being somewhat responsive, but they've fallen down in several respects where they should really be solid at this point. Update, April 26, 2019: Worx has discontinued production of model WG794. I was told they are expecting to introduce a new model "in a few months". I find it surprising that they would pull their only existing model from the market at the beginning of the spring lawn care season. The only reason I can think of is quality issues have made the current model unprofitable. I am disappointed that my model of the Landroid has gone out of production so soon after purchase. It gives me more justification to not recommend Worx robotic lawnmowers.

I am going on my second season which is about 10 months of use. I just bought a second one for my mother's yard, that's how awesome this is. The reasons why I got this. 1. I was in the market for a new mower or a riding mower and this is in that price range 2. I traveled a lot at the time and didn't like my weekends to be consumed by yardwork 3. when considering paying someone to mow, this unit costs about as much as one season so ROI was high 4. I have seasonal allergies, so mowing means medication and time out afterwards to recover 5. It's a robot, its awesome and the rest of my home is automated so why not my yard too Pros. 1. my yard is always mowed, the clippings are tiny and my yard is healthier than it's ever been 2. it's whisper quiet, no noise pollution 3. it's environmentally friendly, no fumes or exhaust 4. once you nail down the installation and clear it's path, it works great 5. depending on how long it lasts before maintenance, it is economical 6. contrary to some others, I have had great experience with customer support 7. the only issues I've had has been user issues on my end trying to get the boundary too tight to edges 8. replacement blades are cheap 9. total cost of ownership is lower than a lawn service, a riding mower, and over time an upper end push mower 10. your neighbor will be jealous Cons: 1. it is an investment, but not as expensive as others, so features are on the low end. In the EU they sell other models with some advanced features you cant get in the US 2. the boundary wire can be a challenge when neighbors aerate and don't tell me and cut the boundary wire, which is hard to fix on your own 3. the algorithms could be a little more efficient to get out of jams 4. the menu can be a little tricky 5. you will need more petfence wire and 300 more staples than what is provided to install 6. the threaded holes for the blade screws are plastic and I am concerned over time from changing blades I will need this part, but for now I am very careful when changing blades. 7. needs a push/reset every few days when it gets trapped or out of bounds Tips and tricks: Follow the installation instructions, watch youtube videos. I tried to get my boundary wire as close to walkways etc.. so I didn't have to trim as much, but this can cause the mower to get stuck. Also try not to have sharp angles but curve the wire into a smooth radius. When there is a downhill slope, the mower can cross the boundary wire if it picks up speed so be careful there too. Keep your yard free of sticks and other debris, they can get stuck underneath and it may get trapped. The traction is strong and can chew up the ground and get stuck on tight right turns and can also dig up the border wire and cut it. The razor blades have four sides to flip and rotate and they take 5 mins to change, I do this monthly which is good for the grass to have a razor cut. I made a "dog house" for mine to keep it out of the elements, there are a lot of youtube videos on this, some very complicated. Mine is very simple and it keeps it cool, dry and hidden. I also connected a SmartHome sensor to the front so I know when it leaves the charger to mow and when it returns back as well as triggers an alarm and turns on a security light if someone takes it off the charger at night for added theft protection. Lessons learned: The only frustration I have had has been with the boundary wire. It helps when installing to use a trimmer to cut a line a little down in the dirt. The grass will grow over it and you won't see it. I have had the line cut in 7 places from aerators, even though I painted the location of the wire with landscape paint. I was reimbursed for the repair. I tried to find the cuts with the AM radio trick but that is challenging. There are tools you can search for that can help find wire breaks or call a dog fence company to come repair (or install) if you don't have time. If you follow the instructions, you will have better results. I keep the mowing height high enough, about 3.5 inches so it clears dog poop and doesn't make a mess, but it helps to clean up after fido often but it hasn't been an issue. The yard should be policed often for little toys, sticks, rocks etc. This was my favorite purchase last year, hopefully again this year with #2.

I bought this in 2016. It worked fine for a couple of summers, but now it's 1000$ lawn ornament, and not a good one at that. Initially, I worked around a few things that were not documented (for instance, marking obstacles did not work as expected, as the robot for some reason stops fairly far away from the wire; it attempting to rotate sometimes when it could not advance on the perimeter wire, causing it to get stuck in a muddier portion), but overall it did work as expected. The third summer, it started acting strangely, while at base it was intermittently seeing itself as not at base, then after upgrading the firmware, it would intermittently see itself as out of bounds. I have a computer engineering background; the perimeter wires and sensors on it are fine, according to the diagnostics screen. After taking pictures, videos, and dumping logs and calling customer support three times, still no response from them after over a month. I understand they have two new models out now. Good luck to you if you decide to buy them, but I'd rather look at a company with a longer track record (they discontinued this model fairly quickly) of keeping products on the market.

Final update (8/22/15): I finally convinced tech support to send me a new robot. What's more, they cross shipped it to me, so I was not without a robot during mowing season. I guess my comments about tech support were taken to heart, so that is good. I'm boosting this up to three stars now, reluctantly, to account for the tech support and the fact this new robot does follow the boundary wire and does have a lot better traction, proving the old one has an issue. It does not solve all my problems. This robot will not mow your whole lawn. Over the summer, I've had to slowly cede areas that the robot just can't handle. There were already a few areas like this, but I've had to add more and more area to the manual mow list. Sometimes something as simple as a tiny twig after fallen a rain will completely alter the robot's course over your lawn. It might cause the robot to get stuck where it never previously did get stuck. There are a ton of caveats, but with a lot of work, and a non defective robot like I eventually got, you can get a large part of your lawn mowed. I'm leaving the old review below intact so others can see my trials and tribulations. UPDATE: sadly, I have to downgrade this review to one star. It simply isn't worth the time and effort. My robot develops problems faster than tech support can fix them. Now the robot simply can't return home. It reproducibly takes a sharp right turn off into the out of bounds area when following the wire home. A setup it has been fine with for weeks is suddenly completely unworkable. At this point, it's very clear this thing is either just plain defective, or they have advertized the robot to be capable of things it simply is not actually capable of. Tech support is VERY leisurely about solving the problem. The only thing they have done thus far is tell me to download new firmware, and I have been talking to them from the first week of owning this thing. They seem unaware that if they get around to solving my problem in December or January, it won't be very helpful for this summer and the mowing I need done right now. Honestly, the tech support I'm getting is seriously minor league. It's about at the level you would expect for a $20 product, or say for an app on android. It's not what you'd expect after spending $1000 on something. Be prepared to buy a conventional mower to finish the job. Old review: I really want to like this mower. I want the dream of mowing free weekends to be realized. I'll still need to use the edger, but that will be much easier. Unfortunately, after two weeks with this mower, and without having completed a single mowing cycle successfully in all that time, I can't recommend this mower to anyone in its current state. I have a mildly hilly back yard, where the mower is going to do most of its work. However, the steepest slope that the mower has access to is 17 degrees (measured with an accelerometer and orientation sensor, more gear than the robot has at its disposal). I have to say, the claim that the robot can handle 20 degree slopes easily is just wrong. It can basically barely handle them without falling apart. On the other hand, that's not really a big problem; it can handle slopes on some level, so just set it and forget it right? Unfortunately no. The robot always manages to perform some boneheaded maneuver, such as backing out of its base and then proceeding to just ram back into it three times and call it quits before mowing anything (see attached video for one of these maneuvers, luckily it seems an update fixed it). Or deciding to try and follow the boundary wire around an island on the way back to the charging base. Hello? Buddy? You're going to be driving in circles forever.... Obstacles in my yard are a nonstarter. It approaches them, backs away, and then reapproaches at EXACTLY the same angle of attack, ensuring three perfectly identical bumps followed by a "trapped" or "wheel blocked" error (this is the polar opposite of what the robot should do to actually get around the obstacle). I have been able to reproduce this 100% reliably and easily, so it is obviously a bug. UPDATE: It does seem that the latest update has fixed it. It also has a very tiny battery. I contacted tech support who told me that it can cover 1/4 acre before needing a charge. UPDATE: After working with the robot a lot, I found that the battery readout is terribly inaccurate. I thought it had only covered about 10% of my lawn with a full battery, but it turns out that it probably had only about half when I set it down, even though the meter read full. Sometimes if I set it to go charge and the battery reads full, once it hits the charger it will start charging with a message that it is 35% full.... So that can lead to some problems if you want to move the robot and you think the battery is full. On the other hand, I tried moving it when I was sure the battery was full, and it was able to cover closer to half of my front yard on one charge. That's better, but it still ought to be able to cover the whole thing based on their specs. I also note that amazon sent me a clearly used robot (visible dirt in the box, scuffs all over robot, it had obviously been cleaned, torn cardboard inserts, used manual with cracked edges, etc.). My robot came with software version 0.86, it could not drive in straight lines, and it would randomly just freak out and say "not in working area", or "upside down" when neither was the case. By the way, the robot will think it has launched into the air and flipped over if it hits a tiny bump in my lawn. You literally need to have no bumps in your yard.... I downloaded and installed the latest update, v0.92, and it has fixed many of these problems, especially with the robot thinking it's upside down. It can now drive in closer to straight lines (but still in an arced path), and seems to handle the advertised slopes slightly better. I still haven't got a complete cycle out of it, but when I baby sat it tonight it had only a single fault during the first cycle. So, perhaps this weekend, i'll finally see the mower finish a job at least once. Until then, it's a one star device. There's really no excuse for the two weeks of hard labor I've had to put in to get this thing up to working order. Lastly, I've noted that this thing is really designed for utterly flat, perfectly square shaped, tiny yards, like the European lots it originally was sold for. However, if I have a super easy to mow, <1000 Square foot lawn that is perfect flat with no obstacles, why would I buy a mower like this at all? I could have it done in ten min myself. So, unless this mower can now at least moderately difficult lawns, the places I can easily mow but get tired of, it's essentially not worth the trouble. And let me tell you, it is a LOT of trouble, hard work, and sweat to set up. It's a multi day effort that can drag on for a while as you try to adapt your yard to the mower's finicky behavior. Prepare to play whack a mole with the problem areas, as the mower's inconsistency will you lead to think an area is solved, only for it to fail later. UPDATE: so, the mower basically has no problems with my front lawn (the much easier to mow area), and it looks like it would take it about 5-6 total trips to cover the entire 3500sq ft. However, since my rear and front yards are not contiguous (I run the boundary wire through a joint in my driveway), I will need to buy a new charging base to allow it to do its front yard duties for half the week The catch is that Worx tells me an extra charging base costs $186.17 with shipping. That's pretty steep, and it worries me that the simple charger with power supply for the boundary wire makes up such a significant portion of the bill of materials. The saga continues to bet it to succeed in the backyard, but at least with the new smarter programming it is no longer pathological; I can work with this. Added one star for the robot's potential in the front, once a new base comes in (Worx still hasn't told me how to actually BUY it though, and I've asked three times...) 2nd UPDATE: since the robot can handle the front seemingly OK, and Worx agreed to give me a slight discount on the 2nd base station, considering the hefty price, I'm happier with the robot. I still haven't received the charging base, but I'm hopeful it'll handle the front without too many issues when left unattended once I get the base. If I could give half stars I would. I can't justify adding a whole star up to three because of all the troubles it took to set this thing up. It still hasn't completed a cycle in my back yard yet, and there are a few drawbacks to mention that are totally independent of the trouble I had setting it up. These are: it doesn't do edges very well (but we all know this), but what comes as a slight surprise is how much of an indention in the grass the robot leaves when it goes around the edges. I get an outline around my yard, which doesn't shock me too much, but some might not be expecting it. The robot is also a bit heavier than I expected; there are places in the yard where it spins its wheel a bit and tears up the grass and dirt sometimes. The wheels in front are nonfunctioning, and can get caught in an errant tree root or even something very simple like a small bump in the yard. This is most obvious when it's trying to turn. When that happens the robot will try for a while to continue turning and will displace some dirt until it has moved its rear to the point that its satisfied that it can move forward. It definitely has traction issues unless the yard is absolutely flat. The way it turns is by spinning its rear wheels in opposite directions. The problem is that for this to work properly it needs ideal conditions: both wheels need perfect traction and neither of the front wheels can meet any resistance. If one rear wheel loses traction for a second it will move forward instead of turning. This can be an issue near a boundary wire. However, this isn't a big problem in my almost-flat front yard. Over all it has not performed as I would have liked, but it has some potential. Ultimately, I'll keep it, because I know that the other mowing robots are going to have the same problems, but they cost more. Perhaps the $2500 Husqvarna might do better, but I doubt it as the basic design is almost the same: two rear wheels with a dinky office chair caster in front (that is truly what it is). In fact, the Worx design might be better, since it includes two wheels in front which adds a bit of stability. This is not an example of you get what you pay for. The automower market is instead at such an early stage that we are pretty much beta testing, regardless of whichever brand you might consider.