McCulloch ROB S400 Robotic Lawn Mower – Cuts up to 400 sq m, Manicured Lawn, Tackles 35 Percent Slop Gradients, Lawn Growth Sensors, Simple Set Up, Intuitive Keypad

I have had this mower for 18 months now and I love it. It took a bit of time to set up but this is my second year with it and it is just great. The lawn is always tidy and in better condition than I have ever seen it. Of all the things I have purchased for the garden this is the best, it save loads of time and effort. This week I sold my ride on mower as it has not been used for over 12 months. My only reservation is how long it will last as it looks quite fragile however if I get 5 years of more out of it I would happy buy another as it has saved me £180 a year servicing my ride on. My lawn is mostly flat and about 750 sqm it handles it without problem on 4 days a week 9am to 9pm.

I am in my mid-eighties and was finding some of the mowing fairly strenuous. Our garden has 7 lawns of various sizes, but the smaller ones were causing me the greatest difficulty because the mower, although self- propelled, had to be tipped to turn and pulled back from edges or under bushes. Also one lawn has an incline of about 10% and this was becoming hard work. I was sceptical about having a robot mower until I heard of other people’s experiences and am extremely pleased to have installed one . It ran for two months last summer and went immediately after charging when I set it off this year and, under manual it still seems to run for about 1 ½ hours before requiring to charge – even on the sloping lawn.After reading the reviews and watching Youtube videos I decided that I would purchase a McCulloch ROB 1000 as the specification of the cheaper models had little difference and it was the one claiming to cut the larger area. The installation was straightforward. We used a spade pushed in at about an angle of 60o, slightly easing the turf up and pushing the cable in about 2” and pressing the turf back. This allows for no worries when one is strimming edges. Two lawns I still mow with the conventional mower as they have long straight runs and it gives me exercise! Two lawns have the guide wire installed which is very useful, but the remaining three the mower has to be on manual but as it is so light there is really no difficulty in carrying it between the areas. If it continues to be reliable I will consider it a most worthwhile investment. I have not found anything in the design which I think requires improvement.

Purchased this product in the February, i didn't use it for six months as i kept putting off the installation of the wiring, so when i completed the installation was quite happy with the product and was nice to see mowing lawn without me.Used until late summer where the unit was then intermittently working, but as it was late summer packed it up thinking just a clog of grass and would clear up and use in the new year. Unfortunately, when i tried to re-use it just kept stopping. So contacted McCulloch/Flymo in the March to have sorted, didn't realise it was a Flymo machine, wanted it sorted ready for Spring/Summer. They stated it was just out of warranty.I stated i had hardly used the machine and they could check the mileage it had done by its internal clock and only really used for 18months. Was then referred to service-care for out of warranty repair, whom charged me £70 to collect and inspect. Thinking this would be a small issue agreed to this, but was then given a quotation for £594.00 to repair? Seeing i had already spent £70.00 machine repair would cost over £664?I paid £544 for the initial purchase, was obviously cheaper to purchase a new one and have a full warranty. I sent the repair quotation off to Flymo for comment and was told they would refund 50% of the £70.00 return cost. I stated i was not happy with the product and spending over £500 on a unit should have had a few more years out of the unit or the unit replaced/repaired for free, but was told no.Would not recommend this make or manufacturer and will be purchasing a completely different make and model number and will not buy their kit again.

There is little point me going over the performance of the machine, I think the other reviews capture it really well. However I want to bring to your attention the extra you pay for the S600 model. Firstly, it's hard to find what the difference is and from my research I found the S600 has an app you can install on your phone. So I personally thought it was worth the extra £120 or so at the time I bought it. However, after buying the S600 I realised it was a mistake. It's not because the app is bad or anything but has several limitations.1. The connection is Bluetooth only (not Wifi). That means a couple of things, firstly you can't decide while you're at work that you'd like the lawn mower to start mowing or get it to stay parked. You have to be physically there with your phone (which in my opinion defeats the object of having an app.2. Because it's Bluetooth and the charging station is far away from the charging point I have to get out of the house and get into the garden to be close enough to use the Bluetooth signal.3. What you can do with the app is very limiting. Basically you can change the schedule and you can see the charge status. That's pretty much it. Telling me the unit is "parked" is completely pointless because you have to be close enough to see the status anyway.So to conclude the functionality you get of buying the app version is close to zero. I would say you can change the schedule, but here is the thing. How often do you change the schedule? And because you have to be in the garden to be within range, the status of the machine can be seen by just looking at the robot itself.So please just be aware before you splash out on the app based version that it's literally money down the drain. Also the app based version (S600) has less cutting capacity from what I see with the less expensive R1000.Some other slight issues were: -The manual is a little lacking in certain areas. It refers to "winter storage", however, it doesn't tell you what conditions need to be met. i.e. is it when it's freezing, or when it's rainy, etc..Also the clips that hold the homing guide wire under the base, two of them snapped when setting up because they were really brittle. It wasn't so important as the final two held, but it did feel like something wasn't quite of the quality I would of expected.On the plus side, so many of the components had Husqvarna markings on it, I suspect that you are getting a more expensive piece of kit without the Husqvarna price tag. So from that perspective, I'm very happy.To justify the 4* rating (as it's really a 5* piece of kit), it's simply because the app and it's additional cost cannot be justified. I thought the days of sticking on an app (just so you can call it a product with an app) without any real functionality were history. So it does feel like the item is a little dated.Assuming the other models perform as well as the S600 I would give it 5*.