REVIEW – I’ve been really jealous of the other Gadgeteers who’ve gotten a robot lawn mower to review. Seriously. A robotic lawn mower has to be the coolest toy/tool going. Remember back when it was the robot vacuum? Pssh. They’ve got nothing on this. Who wouldn’t love having a robot cut the lawn on a hot, humid summer day? Most of the mowers that have been offered have been for larger yards and have to have a charging station outside. With my yard being on the small side, I guess I understand why everyone else got dibs. But then the Yardcare V100 came along, specifically designed for small yards, and I got it. WOO HOO! No more sweltering Florida summer days spent pushing a stinky, messy, LOUD gas mower. Or is it?
⬇︎ Jump to summary (pros/cons)
Price: $499.99
Where to buy: Yardcare and Amazon
What is it?
The Yardcare V100 is a perimeter wire-free robotic lawn mower with vision navigation, obstacle avoidance, and battery operated with low noise.
What’s included?
- Yardcare V100
- Battery with charger
- Spare blades
- User manual
Tech specs
Cutting area: 4300 sq. ft.
Cutting height min/max: 20 – 60mm
Cutting width: 180mm
Hill capability: Max slope 25 degrees
Battery: LI ION 18V
Design and features
The Yardcare V100 uses visual navigation for obstacle avoidance. You see that little blue snout? That’s the camera. There’s no information that I can find on the Yardcare website saying what kind of camera is used or what exactly is doing the processing of the images it sees. Whatever it is, it recognizes a well-defined edge of your yard. It can tell the difference between grass and, say, the edge of your patio for instance. It can also tell when it’s getting close to a fence. When that happens, it slows down and moves slowly up to it. Then turns off in a different direction to cut more grass.
That cheeky little grin for a bumper also acts as a sensor. If it bumps into anything, the V100 will also change direction and continue mowing.
The V100 also has an adjustable height for the cutting head that allows for a cutting height of 20mm or .8 in to 60mm or 2.4 in. It’s very easy to set with the large black knob on top of the robot. As you can tell from the control panel’s lack of numerous buttons, the controls are simple as well. There’s a power on/off button, the GO button, a spiral cutting mode button, and an OK selection button. Since I’ve mentioned the spiral cutting mode, I should say the V100 has 2 different cutting modes to use. There’s the primary random mode and the spiral mode. The big red stop button can be used if you need to move the V100. Press the big button to stop operation, lift it from the rear, and carry it away.
If you look at the far right of the picture above, there’s a handle so you can easily carry the mower around. Dead center is the cutting heading. While most of the exterior is plastic, the circular cutting head and shroud are metal. Here’s a little better look at the cutting head and blades. You can see that changing out the blades only requires a Phillips head screwdriver.
The V100’s drive train is operated by the 2 large, toothed wheels. It maneuvers like a tractor, in that when turning, one wheel will turn slower or even stop while the other keeps going.
Meanwhile, the front swivels around on a plastic wheel that is unpowered.
The V100 also comes with an 18V battery in the form factor of those used in hand tools. It has a very similar charger as well. I don’t think you’ll be swapping them out with your DeWalt batteries any time.
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Assembly, Installation, Setup
The setup of the Yardcare V100 lawn mower was very simple. Once the battery is charged, you just have to insert the battery into the slot behind the rear door, power it on, press the go button, and then ok. There’s no app, no home base. You press the buttons and let technology take the wheel.
Performance
It was after I pressed that Go button that everything went downhill. I was so excited to use this thing. Again, how cool is it to have a robot cut your grass? It’s very cool until it isn’t. I had tons of problems with the V100. It got stuck numerous times in the same spot in the same bush. So, obstacle avoidance isn’t stellar. I would go out every so often to check on it, usually to find it stuck. Sometimes it had powered off, so I started it again. Since I couldn’t choose a straight pattern, I stuck with random. The problem with the random mode is that the V100 kept going over areas it had already cut. As far as I can tell, it doesn’t really track what’s been cut and what hasn’t. And since there’s no app for it, you don’t get any alerts. It just sits there until you go check on it.
I tried it in my backyard first, which is square, fenced in, and small. It only has a couple of shady spots, which I thought nothing of. But after going out to find the V100 stuck time and time again and setting off one more time, I noticed it seemed to avoid those areas. I took it upon myself to set it over in one of those spots and tried to start it, but it wouldn’t start. I kept getting an error code in the form of flashing LEDs. Looking at the manual, all it said was camera communication error. I tried it in a couple of other shady areas and got the same thing. I then took it out to the front yard and basically had the same experience. Start the mower. Go inside. Come back in a bit to find it stuck. Start the mower. Go inside. Come back to find it stuck. Then the battery was dead, so wait for it to recharge…. I tried for about a week to get my yard cut once.
Oh, and the spiral mode? The only thing I could find out about it is it’s for spots the V100 missed. You’re supposed to move the V100 to one of these spots, start spiral mode, and let it spin in place to cut that area. I could be wrong about that, but it’s all I could find online. I know I should’ve tried it out, but I was so frustrated with having to babysit the thing that I just gave up.
Final thoughts
I can say without any shadow of a doubt that the V100 is NOT the droid you are looking for. Even Uncle Owen would pass on this one, with or without a bad motivator. I’m not sure what conditions are necessary to get the V100 to operate as intended, but my yard was not it. I could not in good conscience recommend the V100 to anyone who is looking for a robot mower. I’d like to say maybe it’s a software issue that could be fixed in a firmware update, but without an app, you couldn’t apply one wirelessly, and there’s no sort of port on the V100 itself to allow you to plug in a flash drive. As far as I can tell, there’s no way to update the software at all. There’s no learning the terrain or areas to avoid if it gets stuck; it just avoids shady spots and gets stuck over and over until the battery dies. So, the rest of you Gadgeteers who have a robot mower that you love, feel bad for me. I’ll still be mowing my grass with a push mower like a plebe.
What I like about Yardcare V100 robotic lawn mower
- I like the idea of a small, easy-to-use robot lawn mower for smaller yards
What needs to be improved?
- The price for what you’re getting
- Obstacle avoidance needs work
- Why can’t you run in the shade?
Price: $499.99
Where to buy: Yardcare and Amazon
Source: The sample of this product was provided for free by Yardcare. Yardcare did not have a final say on the review and did not preview the review before it was published.
Check out these other robot lawn mower reviews!
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ANTHBOT RTK Wall Mount Kit for Genie600/Genie1000/Genie3000 Robot Lawn Mower
$79.00 (as of July 21, 2025 12:36 GMT -04:00 - More infoProduct prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on [relevant Amazon Site(s), as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.)
