Husqvarna Automower 115H 4G Robotic Lawn Mower with Patented Guidance System, Automatic Lawn Mower with Self Installation and Ultra-Quiet Smart Mowing Technology for Small to Medium Yards (0.4 Acre)

tl; dr: was skeptical at first, but I am rather pleased. I was in no way compensated for this opinion.I have a dog that doesn’t like grass, much like tall grass. She (dog) has an area in the back yard that is fenced to the space of about 60′ x 50′ that she can freely go without a leash. But, I live out in the sticks and that is also where the septic system is located – meaning it grows like crazy. I work and am getting older and find it difficult to mow as often as is needed, and then as often as she would prefer. I like the warmth of summer, but hate the dread of constantly and continuously fighting with the grass. When I have the time or energy to mow, it rains and ruins everything – and the grass grows.I was aware of automowers, but somehow Amazon made it super easy to justify purchasing one with their credit card and no interest payments for a year and as luck would have it, this little 115h was in stock for way less than others, after several youtube videos, I decided to try it, but it was going right back in the box and back if it could not handle the incline. It arrived via Amazon delivery on a Monday. I didn’t even open the box until Friday or Saturday. There are 3 areas of my yard in the picture, the back with the blue fence indicator, the front and the side on the other side of my driveway. I had intended to main zone the back yard, and then secondary zone the front yard and across the driveway.It was drizzly and cold when I put the boundary wire in. I did not bury them, I staked them in and the wet actually made it easier to get the stakes in the ground. I did NOT mow beforehand as recommended. The basic process is that you determine where you want the boundary to be, you stake it to the ground by crouching or kneeling, you get up, move over about 3 feet (ish), crouch down, insert another stake, etc for what is about 1,700 feet of boundary wire. After a minute, it hurts. The orange line is from one spool, the yellow is from another and you see where I got. My neighbor actually mows the part I did not stake, so….The boundary wire is also used as the guide wire with use of a connector (4 connectors included, needs one for the guide wire, I used 1 connector where orange and yellow meet on the side of the house in the image- I have 2 left for when or if I want to expand to the other side). There is also a “low voltage” wire included which goes into the power supply and acts as an extension cable to the charger unit for more flexibility in dock placement. I am limited as I have 1 spot in the back yard that is flat and it is up on an incline and that is right by the house.Challenges of the main area: the prior homeowners dug a rather large burn pit about 12-15′ in diameter. I did originally form an island entirely around it. Also, the incline that is most pronounced closer to the house but is inclined throughout. There are also areas that are dipped that are smaller, maybe1-2 foot. I had originally packed these smaller ones with top soil from Lowes.Challenges of the front yard: there is a pit closer to the driveway and the road about a foot deep, wide and about 3 feet long with ditch shoots from it. And there are trees, several of them. And then right by the house where the two lines meet, there is a 8×12′ patch on the other side of the sidewalk.Mowing the Main Area: my mower has a name. It is Tiny. Tiny did not like that I did not mow the yard prior to first use. It was also wet and he did slip some on the hilly area. I do not let Tiny mow in the rain. Tiny also did not like the crab grass that is thick and makes up about 10-15% of the back yard. He did get stuck repetitively on a few of the dimples in the yard. I did wind up observing Tiny over a few days and did take the weedwhacker at the crabgrass and other areas where I noticed it repetitively stopped and turned around (though he will turn his ash-end on to it and cut things all the same). Honestly, after the 2nd day, the back yard was fantastic.Mowing the front area (Secondary Area): the flowery weeds were about 10″ tall and he repetitively ran into the trees and got caught between the line of trees and the boundary wire closer to the road. But more annoyingly, he found the hole…a lot. With some supervision and bump-stopping him with my feet, he did mow the front yard satisfactorily.Then I got Tennessee chert mixed with some sand and over the week after work I filled in the burn pit, and the several other divits in the back and front yard, packed them down with my feet and body weight. The day after it rained and Tiny did not mow. The following day, Tiny became basically unsupervised without incident in the back yard. He can do the job just as well in the front yard, but since that is more visible to the neighbors and road, I don’t want him to get stolen. Yes, he is pin-coded and every time you pick him up, you have to put that code in or he won’t work, but that would not keep someone from running off with him and then I wouldn’t have it to mow the yard.Tiny does have just the knack of finding himself on the path to the dog whenever the dog actually wants to potty. My annoyances with Tiny are that there isn’t a keypad to put digits into every time you have to put in the pin (arrows up, down, sides only), that if you put him in park on the app you still sometimes have to tell him to start manually, and that he won’t clean my house too. Otherwise, Tiny is a good lil autobot.