14 DAY TRIAL // Appearances can be deceiving, and that's certainly the case when it comes to the Miimo robotic lawnmower. Or maybe it should be called a vacuum cleaner that can chop green things to tiny bits.
Lawnmowers don't exactly qualify as glamorous, or even smart-looking. Indeed, the cheapest look pretty crude, like a spiraling set of saws held up and driven by two wheels.
Even in the case of electric lawnmowers, you still need to push it, or at least steer it. Not so for the Miimo though.
Created by Honda, the Miimo Lawnmower looks more like an oversized dustpan of indeterminate shape. Well, a fancy dustpan, but still a dustpan.
It is half-circular, half-cylindrical, while also being very, very squat, and colored black and white. Well, black and shiny gray, or chrome, whatever you want to call it.
It doesn't ultimately matter though, or at least that's what many people will tell you when they realize that the Miimo is autonomous.
That's right, this thing will mow your lawn all by itself, while you lounge in a garden easy chair and have a mocha.
All you have to do is make sure the thing only mows the lawn and not the flower beds, or escapes to the road.
And that's accomplished easily enough, by laying a wire loop around the lawn, setting boundaries for the Miimo essentially.
The wire is low-voltage and should disappear into the grass over the course of a few days, so you shouldn't be worried about the visual worth of your grassy yard being killed.
The only thing left after laying the wire is placing the base station / charging unit somewhere out of sight. Preferably behind the shed if you have one.
Finally, you need to program the Miimo, which is done via the onboard programmer, after which it will run off with a beep.
Once the Miimo is done with your lawn, you should have no more weed problem, and the grass should be low and level (the mower takes 2mm clippings).
The blade motor is a 56-watt contraption, while each wheel has a 25W motor of its own. All in all, the thing will probably look like it's tearing across the yard randomly as if drunk and hyperactive at the same time, but it has the job done, and it's hilarious to watch too.
Too bad the price of £2,200 / $3,703 / €2,700 won't win it any favors. Then again, everything has its downsides.