Should you let a robot mow your lawn?

Is it time to fire the neighbor kid and hire a robot lawnmower instead? Last year I wrote that “in all but a few scenarios, robot lawnmowers still aren’t worth your money,” but there’s a new class of Roombas with razor blades ready to tackle bumpy terrain and dodge crazy chickens. Realtor and smart home reviewer Brandon Doyle joins me to talk about our experiences with 2026’s newest robotic mowers and to let you know if they're finally worth all that money. Further reading: It looks like Apple’s iPhone 18 really will skip the fall launch this year Flock CEO: ‘We got this one wrong’ Cats and dogs are missing meals after a popular smart feeder went down I finally found a robot lawnmower I’d trust with my yard I put four robot lawnmowers through a brutal backyard battle — and only one person got injured A hacker ran me over with a robot lawn mower The US government just banned Roombas 5 Robot Mowers, 90 Days, 1 Winner — My 2026 Picks (and One to Avoid) Subscribe to The Verge for unlimited access to theverge.com, subscriber-exclusive newsletters, and our ad-free podcast feed. We love hearing from you! Email your questions and thoughts to [email protected] or call us at 866-VERGE11. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

• 0:02Speaker 00

  Welcome to The Vergecast, the flagship podcast of robot lawnmowers. I'm Jennifer Patterson-Thurley, The Verge's senior smart home reviewer. It's officially the dog days of summer. And if you've been spending the last few weeks watching your grass grow and wondering whether it's worth shelling out a few thousand dollars for a robot to cut it for you, then this is The Vergecast for you. I've been spending the last few months testing around a half a dozen of these robot lawnmowers to see if they've gotten any better than the last time I tried, when I came away hot, sweaty, frustrated, and with a few scars. My husband's, not mine. Today, I'm going to be joined by Brandon Doyle, a smart home reviewer, podcaster,

• 0:47Speaker 00

  real estate agent, and columnist for Realtor Magazine, who has been going through a similar gauntlet, only with fewer scars. We're going to chat about our experiences with the latest crop of auto mowers to see if they're worth your money. But first, here's what's happening on The Verge today. This is 90 Seconds on The Verge for Thursday, August 13, 2026. We may be one iPhone short at Apple's upcoming hardware event, which usually hits around the first week of September. According to statements from Apple supplier Pegatron during an earnings call, the base model iPhone 18 will skip the fall launch and instead arrive in early 2027. That's a bummer, as the entry model 17 was the best of the bunch last year. I know I gave my whole family one.

• 1:32Speaker 00

  Foldable stands, however, fear not. The rumored Ultra model, the foldable iPhone, appears to still be on track for fall, as is the 18 Pro line. Popular tech company, sorry, wrong company. Deeply unpopular surveillance tech company Flock has announced it's implementing new safeguards after officers were caught using the tech to do exactly what people feared it would be used for: stalking people. Reports of police officers abusing the tools to stalk ex-partners and others have prompted the Flock CEO to admit "they got this one wrong" and roll out updates to prevent abuse of its license plate reader technology. The changes include shortening the default period it keeps data from 30 to seven days,

• 2:15Speaker 00

  moving closer to the limits suggested by its critics like the ACLU, who called the moves "more focused on addressing a perceived PR problem than the significant harms its products create." And finally, a service outage for a popular pet tech company Pet Libro left several critters without their kibble, according to user reports on Reddit. The outage prevented the company's smart pet feeders from dispensing food on schedule, despite Pet Libro claiming they should still work even offline. Pet Libro says all services are now fully restored, but some pets are still reporting missing meals. You can read more on all these stories at theverge.com. That's 90 Seconds on The Verge for Thursday, August 13.

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• 4:01Speaker 00

  Hey, Brandon. Thanks so much for joining me. I can't wait to dive into our robotic lawnmower experiences, because I know we've both had some interesting ones.

• 4:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm really excited to get started. Thanks for having me.

• 4:12Speaker 00

  My first year testing robot lawnmowers was two years ago, and I had held off for a while, because they, for many years, had a reputation of being very expensive, very fiddly, and they didn't really work well unless you had, like, a super expensive, top-of-the-line model.

• 4:30Speaker 03

  It's like the early days of robot vacuums, right?

• 4:35Speaker 00

  Exactly. So would you say that's changed? Have we, have we, what are robot lawnmowers able to do for us today?

• 4:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, you know, I think we're getting them to about 95% of what you're looking for.

• 4:47Speaker 00

  Oh, wow.

• 4:47Speaker 03

  There's still some areas where they struggle, and there's still going to be some required maintenance and, you know, some babysitting. But it's really come a long way in the last, I would say, two years.

• 4:58Speaker 00

  One of the big reasons, I think, is technologies. Would you say, what's the biggest change we've seen since, say, three or four years ago to today in how these robot lawnmowers work in our yards?

• 5:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's definitely going to be the navigation. Originally, you would have that boundary wire. Then they had RTK, which is a GPS-based system, often requiring you to put a post in your yard, but it needed good view of the sky. And so you have to run power to that, and in some cases, also Ethernet for, like, the Yarbo. And so that can be kind of a challenge of where you get that positioned in your yard. And of course, most yards have trees, and GPS isn't so good with that.

• 5:41Speaker 00

  I know, I know. It's like, seriously, people? Did you not realize?

• 5:46Speaker 00

  It was crazy. It's like, oh, no, you need to, I spent hours in my backyard sticking these antennas, like, walking around, holding an antenna. Where is the signal? And I live in the South, and we have oak trees everywhere. I was like, I can't, I can't do this.

• 6:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, it was, it was so frustrating. And I was like, this is not something a regular user is going to want to go and spend $3,000 or $4,000 on one of these things and then have it not work because of satellites.

• 6:17Speaker 03

  Yeah. We just have the one tree in our front yard, but I live in a suburban neighborhood, and so, you know, the houses are 10 feet apart from each other, or whatever it is. And even in the side yard, the signal would bounce and it would get slightly off. But there's not a lot of room for error here. We can't have it mowing. My neighbor is, like, landscaping. That would be a bad day. And so they've definitely had advancements there. I think the best case is when we're combining technologies. So taking a page out of the robot vacuums, some of them are using LiDAR, and then also either V-Slam or just cameras in general for that object recognition. And so if it gets in an area where a signal is weak, it can rely on those other technologies,

• 7:02Speaker 03

  which is nice. And then they've gotten rid of that base station requirement. A lot of the companies have switched to Net RTK.

• 7:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, I've tried that on a couple this year, and it was definitely better. So when I first tested M-Motion, theirs just would not work, refused to work in my yard, and it was very frustrating. And then I put it in my neighbor's yard, and it worked fine. So like, this is, you know, it's a real...

• 7:27Speaker 03

  Apparently you've got to cut down your trees. That's the solution.

• 7:29Speaker 00

  They don't let us do that here.

• 7:32Speaker 00

  And yeah, it was very frustrating. And then this time, they sent me the, the model for this year, and they, I think, right when...

• 7:39Speaker 03

  The Luba 3 all-wheel drive.

• 7:40Speaker 00

  There we go. And then, right when I got it, they launched this new iNAVI, I think they call it, but it's Net RTK. Now, this is the key, I would say, to one of the reasons robot lawnmowers have got better. Can you explain a little bit what the Net RTK is versus the RTK GPS positioning that most of them were using prior?

• 8:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, so essentially, instead of relying on an antenna that you put in your yard, it connects to one that is nearby, and they're regionally located. There is a subscription cost associated with them. They include it for, I think, three years or something, but like, that just is a sign of times to come, like, okay, it's free now. And it kind of reminds me of, like, the early video doorbells or AI cameras, where we have some of these features, or it's like, okay, well, that's really nice to have, and that, I want that. But then down the line, okay, the models change, and so you're reliant on that. However, I will say the shelf life of some of these robots isn't actually that long.

• 8:45Speaker 03

  And so at some point, we're going to be replacing them anyways.

• 8:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think subscriptions and longevity are definitely two areas to be concerned about when you're investing in a device like this. I mean, they, they're out in the elements, and they're doing hard work and a long time, like, they're constantly going. It's not like your push mower that you maybe take out once a week or once a month.

• 9:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:08Speaker 00

  Just to keep on the navigation real quick, you mentioned combining these technologies. I'd noticed that this time around, that a lot of these mowers will do, now do all of them. Do you think that's a good solution? Or is there one in there that's just better than the rest?

• 9:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm a big fan of LiDAR. Obviously, if your yard is too big, you know, on a golf cart, LiDAR is not going to work because it can't go that far. It relies on seeing things. That would be my go to. The Net RTK is great. I do have concerns about subscription costs in the future. Obviously, as reviewers, you know, they're including that for us. But we got to think about the consumer and like, would I go out and pay my hard earned money for this and knowing that I might have that attached? And then I like the cameras for object avoidance. I think it does a really good job. It didn't kill any of my puppies. I still have all my toes, so I would say that it's been successful.

• 10:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, I have, I have a flock of chickens in my backyard. You know, we're talking like at least a dozen and it's really fun to watch it kind of dodge them and go around them. And the chickens kind of like face it down.

• 10:17Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. Our dogs like just grew up with robots. So like, I have video of them riding a Roomba when they were first born. They just don't even move for any of them anymore. They're just like, no, you go around me. This is my house, even outside with the lawnmowers.

• 10:35Speaker 00

  Do they ride the lawnmowers though? Because that, that would be a video I would watch.

• 10:39Speaker 03

  That would be fun, but I haven't, we'll have to try. I'll have to see if they'll, they'll go up there. But yeah, when they were little, they would go up on, on the robot vacuum and that was a lot of fun. Now they're way too big.

• 10:51Speaker 00

  Well, and that's the other thing about these devices is these are not small lawnmowers. I mean, these are big hulking things that you have to find space for. And for some reason, I found myself carrying them a lot. I don't know why. I mean, they don't.

• 11:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, because they get stuck.

• 11:06Speaker 00

  They get stuck.

• 11:07Speaker 03

  We got to babysit them.

• 11:08Speaker 00

  You really do. That was my biggest frustration with these. When I first started testing them in 2024 was I, I was picking them up because they were like, they dug themselves a hole in the sand in my backyard. I live in the south. I live near the coast. My soil is not designed for robot lawnmowers. In fact, I spoke before I started all my testing last year, I spoke with Husqvarna, who is the company that originally developed the first robot lawnmower. And they said, yeah, basically the original robots weren't really designed for American yards. They weren't designed for sandy soil. They weren't designed for much terrain or rough terrain. And what's changed now and Husqvarna's newest models and many of the new models we tested,

• 11:52Speaker 00

  they have like all wheel drive and much better traction. Give us a little feel for how your yard is and whether this has helped having all wheel drive versus how they worked before.

• 12:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, dare I say, too much traction in some people's cases. Might rip up your yard a little bit, but my yard is a typical suburban yard. So I think we're like a third of an acre. But when you're picking out a robot mower, it's important to know that the size on the box is not the size of your lot. It's the size of the grass. And so since you have a house sitting in the middle and a driveway, you actually subtract that out. So you may need a smaller, or you could get by with a smaller robot. And they base that off of like, how many times does it have to go out within a 24 hour period?

• 12:42Speaker 03

  You really would like to size up if you can, because it means that the mower might not have to go back as often. And with the way batteries work and how they degrade over time, you'll be able to use it a lot longer. So something to think about there. But our yard, you know, I'm in Minnesota, so I've got clay and then we have a wetland behind us. We have a longer grass, so we do require the high cut versions of these mowers. And so some people might notice there's different ones and it's not always intuitive which to get. But here we cut our grass to about two and a half to three inches. I have a slope on the side of our house because it's a walkout backyard.

• 13:27Speaker 03

  And again, I mentioned earlier, it's about 10 feet between the houses. So that can be a challenge, not only because of the slope, but also with the signal bouncing. And then in our backyard, which I really call the gauntlet, we've got a wetland behind, which that grass tries to get underneath the fence there. And then we have garden beds and landscaping. And so any of those robots with the caster mowers or caster wheels, those might get caught like on the landscaping edges, which is frustrating.

• 13:58Speaker 00

  And those are like more, the smaller wheels that don't have as much traction.

• 14:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, think about like a shopping cart.

• 14:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:05Speaker 03

  It would have on the front. So easy maneuverability. They use the big wheels in the back to turn as opposed to ones that have those Omni wheels where they kind of turn on like the back wheels are still doing the turning, but the other ones kind of are able to turn the other way as well. And then a few of them have turning wheels in the front now, which I think is really the way to go, more like a car.

• 14:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:30Speaker 03

  We've got the Yarbo, which is a tank tracks, which is just a recipe for ripping up your yard if you have a smaller yard. Not such a big deal if it's a big yard, but.

• 14:39Speaker 00

  Well, we had.

• 14:41Speaker 03

  It's too big for the space.

• 14:43Speaker 00

  We had, yeah, that, I have not tried the Yarbo. We actually had, Sean Hollister of The Verge did get to have a run in with the Yarbo because it had some pretty poor security issues. And he actually had one run him over. So.

• 14:57Speaker 03

  Oh, no.

• 14:58Speaker 00

  They have addressed those flaws, but this is one of the other problems that you're going to notice going forward with robot lawnmowers is that they will fall under the new FCC ban on robotic mowers. So the ban is actually on all mobile robots that operate in and around a home or businesses in, in the US. Your companies are not going to be able to import new robot mowers without a special waiver. So if you are interested in a robot mower, it's the ones that are currently available that you're going to, you're going to be able to buy. But new ones coming, we're going to wait and see what happens here. But right now it looks like those, we may see slowdown on innovation, although some

• 15:43Speaker 00

  of the innovations we've seen already in the pipeline are quite exciting. So I, I hope, I hope they find some ways around this. But yes, security is one of the problems. These are outdoor, so in terms of privacy issues, somewhat less of a concern, but they have blades. They are remote control robots with blades. Is that, you mentioned you didn't have any issues with that. Do you think that is something people should be concerned about?

• 16:09Speaker 03

  Oh, definitely. I mean, don't be picking them up. When you're moving them, it's important to be careful because the blades are on the bottom and you lean it against yourself, you're going to get cut. I know you.

• 16:20Speaker 00

  My husband did that.

• 16:23Speaker 00

  And I noticed that, because I wrote about that in my review and I noticed that all of the ones I unpacked this, this time all came with polystyrene around the blades. It's like they all read my review.

• 16:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, they're listening.

• 16:34Speaker 00

  I mean, they are little tiny razor blades. So like this thing, it's not, this isn't like having an actual robot lawnmower. Like you're thinking about the lawnmower that you push around your garden. This is not that. These aren't big giant spinning blades. They're just actually little tiny razor blades that sit on a cutting disc. And this is one of the things that I actually really loved about lawnmowers this year because they worked, because they could get around my yard and they could connect. So they did actually do the job right. And that is that because they only cut a tiny bit of grass, it actually really helps your lawn get better. And my lawn looks so much better this year than it has ever looked. And I put it all down to the robot lawnmowers. What about you?

• 17:18Speaker 00

  Have you seen an improvement in your yard since you started using them?

• 17:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, definitely. And I am by no means a lawn care nut. Like I just, it's there. I don't like mowing the yard. I want my time back. It's kind of a set it, forget it type situation. And yeah, definitely improvements in the yard overall. And you could even see it in my videos, like if we look at older ones to newer ones, like it's much more green and fluffy looking, if you will.

• 17:45Speaker 00

  No, they, they do help.

• 17:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, for sure. It still struggles around the garden beds and the fence, of course. It's not getting all the way up to there, which really highlights my lack of trimming that I personally do, because now that I'm not mowing weekly, or whatever it was previously, I don't really feel the need to get out there with a trimmer, but I probably should.

• 18:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, and so one of the things that I wasn't expecting, and this is only on a couple of the models, but that my husband is like, oh my God, these are amazing. They can do the stripes. And I mean, that is something that you can't really, well, if you're a professional or you're a real lawn geek, you can, you can get your own lines. But the, the idea of just being able to like, sit one of these robot mowers down in your backyard, press go, and then like in two days, you've got these beautiful lawn stripes. It's like, that's, that's a good selling point, I think. Did you manage to get stripes in your yard?

• 18:43Speaker 03

  Oh, I'll take it one step further. They actually allow you.

• 18:46Speaker 00

  Did you do a doodle?

• 18:48Speaker 03

  Yes. So you can put the different, different shapes and things. And so I did one in our backyard and I just wanted to see like, how long would it take for my wife to notice? It didn't take her long, actually. It's just like, is there, is there a heart in our backyard? It was like, yes, there is.

• 19:04Speaker 00

  Oh, you did a heart. How sweet.

• 19:07Speaker 03

  Then I removed it and to see like how long it would take for it to disappear. It didn't take long, so.

• 19:12Speaker 00

  How long was, I haven't tried that yet. How long was the process?

• 19:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, so I mean, it's the spring season here, so the grass is growing pretty darn quick and we've had a lot of rain. So a couple of weeks until it was very noticeable that it was there. And then it took probably a week until you didn't notice anymore. And back to just being the stripes.

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• 21:34Speaker 00

  I've noticed that this new batch that I've tested this year, and we're gonna, we'll go over quickly which ones we tested. I know we haven't mentioned them in detail yet, but is that they're much faster. They seem to complete the job a lot quicker. I think that's also because they've gotten bigger. To my point earlier about they've realized, the manufacturers have realized for most American yards, you need a bigger machine that's gonna cover more space and have a longer work period. But yeah, I've definitely noticed that they've worked, they work faster. And also you can adjust the speed, which is for some of them, which is nice to have that sort of flexibility. What, you know, if you want it done quickly or if you want it much more methodical. What are some of the other things that you've liked about robot lawn mowers?

• 22:19Speaker 00

  And then we'll talk about some of your favorites. And then we'll talk about some of the issues.

• 22:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, definitely. So I think navigation's got to a point where I can actually recommend it for most people in most yards.

• 22:31Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:32Speaker 03

  Which is not always true. So that's big. I'm not worried about the running things over. I think the obstacle avoidance is plenty with where it's at. I think you, for most people, you should be able to mostly set it and forget it. This year, the thing I was most excited about was trimming. However, I feel like for me, that fell short just because of our fence and our garden beds.

• 22:56Speaker 00

  Lots of people have fences and garden beds.

• 22:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 23:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:00Speaker 03

  So if I didn't have that, though, I would say that the goat did the best job of the three that I tested with trimmers, because that one, it could do it on its own. So it didn't require supervision. And it did get a pretty good job of it. But with the fence, that's a little bit challenging.

• 23:15Speaker 00

  And that's the EcoVex, right?

• 23:17Speaker 03

  EcoVex Goat A3000 Pro.

• 23:19Speaker 00

  Right.

• 23:20Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah, it was one of my favorites from last year. So at CS, when I saw they added a trimmer on there, that made me really excited. That one also uses LiDAR for navigation, which I found was pretty good. Although I did Austin Powers itself in between our garden beds, and it managed to get stuck, so.

• 23:37Speaker 00

  Austin Powers itself? What, what do you mean?

• 23:42Speaker 03

  People of my age might get the reference, but there was a movie where the main character was going through the tunnel, and he tried to turn around in this little cart, and then he managed to get parallel, and he was stuck. And so it's just him going back and forth.

• 23:58Speaker 00

  Back and forth, trying to get out.

• 23:59Speaker 03

  And yeah.

• 24:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, it is funny watching them get themselves stuck and trying to figure their way out. Also, not, it's, it's good if you see that happening, then you can stop it, because this is, if you don't stop it, you can end up with a buried robot lawnmower that's dug its way into your garden.

• 24:17Speaker 03

  I was out of town, and last year I was testing so many robot mowers that I had to rely on my neighbors for some of the testing. And so this one had gone out and was working on my neighbor's yard. But somehow, between when it went out and that time, something got in the way of its path. I think like his son had came home and blocked the driveway. And so it would try to go back to the dock, but then realized it couldn't. And so it would try to go back the other way. It was blocked. And so it's just in an endless loop, going in circles in his front yard. And he's messaging me like, hey, man, you gotta make this thing stop. Like, it's, it's just going back and forth. And I'm like, well, try moving the car. That didn't work.

• 25:02Speaker 03

  So I had to like remotely stop it and then manually drive it back from another country using the camera, which was quite the feat, I might say. I couldn't get it to, get it to dock. But when I got it back into my yard, then it could figure it out on its own, so.

• 25:19Speaker 00

  Robots are gonna take over the world one day, but they currently can't figure out how to go along your driveway.

• 25:24Speaker 03

  Yeah. There's a lot of AI references there where I'm not, not too worried.

• 25:31Speaker 00

  But what were your favorites after your, your testing? What would you, yeah, which ones would you buy for your yard? If you were gonna shell out the third, 3,000 or so dollars that most of these things cost?

• 25:43Speaker 03

  I mean, definitely get it when it's on sale. There's always sales on these things. So I think 2,500 is probably about where you wanna be, 2,000 if it's on sale. But the MAMOTION LUBA 3 all-wheel drive is probably my favorite. I kept that one. And then the EcoVex Goat A3000 Pro, which has that trimmer attachment. That one was really impressive. I've got that in my front yard still, because there's the fences up there. And so that one's nice, because I don't have to worry about the edging. It can get right on that landscape line. It handles the hills perfectly. That one, I haven't had any intervention since I've installed it. So those are probably my two go-to ones.

• 26:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:24Speaker 03

  If you are already invested in the Works system, like you have a bunch of their batteries already, that one's kind of neat, because it, it uses the same battery system. So like, it comes with that. I thought that was kind of cool. But if you have a really big yard, Yarbo. But my yard is way too small.

• 26:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, I, I'm still not sure about the Yarbo. I'm gonna, we'll wait for the next generation, I think. Yeah, no, I agree. The MAMOTION, I really liked the first time around I tested it. I just couldn't get it to work in my yard. And this new one, the LUBA 3, now with the net RTK does work. But I do worry about that subscription. And also, when you're relying on anything that requires the cloud to operate, that, that's a bit of a concern. I wish they could maybe get to the point where it could learn and like, keep your location in its memory, so it doesn't have to constantly be pinging the GPS or the RTK system.

• 27:24Speaker 00

  I would say, I'm actually a big fan of the Dreamy A3 all-wheel drive Pro. Because these guys have great naming conventions.

• 27:34Speaker 03

  Key is that you got the all-wheel drive.

• 27:36Speaker 00

  Yes. I know, I tested the A1 last time, which doesn't, doesn't have the all-wheel drive. And that one used to get stuck all the time. But the all-wheel drive on this one is, is, is really good. And I also like that it acts as a security camera. So you can have it patrol at night and patrol your backyard, which is, that's, I mean, when you add the cost of not having to buy outdoor security cameras into that, but you've got a bit more of a value prop there. And it does a really good job. And it has an edge trimmer. It shifts its cutting blades out to cut along the edge. So that one's been really good. But the Navamo, the new Navamo X430, which is also an all-wheel drive one,

• 28:19Speaker 00

  has the coolest way of like, it can turn its front wheels entirely 90 degrees and just like, spin on a dime. It's really fun to watch it go. And so that one, I've found, really worked very well in my backyard. Although it does rely on GPS to start. And I had to spend a good 45 minutes finding a tiny sliver of my yard where it could catch a satellite. But once it got it, it didn't need it again. So that, that has been useful, because it uses like, four different types of navigation. So it knows where it is, and now it can, can navigate. It hasn't got lost once, and my backyard has got, is full of trees. So yeah, that one's been, I've been impressed with that. There are also cheaper models.

• 29:04Speaker 00

  If you just have a small front yard or backyard, you can get that. So Roborock has its new Rock Neo that I've just started testing. That's under $1,100, $1,200, I think. Segway has a couple smaller ones. I think you tested a sub 1,000 one, right?

• 29:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, Anthbot was surprisingly good. If you have a smaller yard, I think it's perfectly adequate.

• 29:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:28Speaker 03

  I like that one a lot.

• 29:29Speaker 00

  It's interesting that, that the robot vacuum manufacturers, so Dreamy, Roborock, EcoVex, have really come in and kind of taken over this space. There are a few specialized robot lawn mower companies, like you mentioned Works, and then Husqvarna. MAMOTION is sort of a general robotics company. But it's interesting to see how the robot vacuum companies are kind of taking over this space. I'm really interested if they're allowed to continue selling models here, new models here, what kind of innovations we're gonna see. In particular, there's one innovation I'm excited to bring or see come to the market. And you've had some experience with this, which is,

• 30:14Speaker 00

  can they open my gate for me? So tell us about your experience there, and then we'll kind of wrap it up.

• 30:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, so Navvimo actually has a gate. It recognizes the robot as it approaches and it releases the tension on it. And so it's able to push its way through. So the robot, in theory, could, it could work with other brands if you could turn off its sensing, because normally it wouldn't want to ram into a solid object. But for this one, it's going to tell the robot, okay, this is okay. And it can go through. So I have that available. I haven't installed it yet, just because it's a very permanent change. And, you know, I'm cycling through these. And if we move, like, you know, is this going to be a negative for the next person? If they don't have it. And so we'll see. Maybe I'll set up a demo rig somewhere where we can test this out.

• 31:07Speaker 03

  But it's certainly going to get a lot of attention. And, you know, is it a solution? Or is it, or is it better to just have two? I kind of compare this to, you know, in your house, if you have stairs. Yes, they're creating these robot vacuums that can climb stairs or an exoskeleton that can go upstairs. But like, do we really need that? Is it more expensive? Or would it be cheaper to just get two robots?

• 31:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:34Speaker 03

  I think that we're still at the point where like, I probably can just get another robot and it'd be easier and less permanent. So.

• 31:41Speaker 00

  Well, we'll get to the point, I think, maybe where they have little arms and they can just reach out and open the gate. And that won't be terrifying at all. So we'll all be, we'll all be fine with our robots with limbs and blades roaming around our backyard so that we don't have to mow the lawn.

• 31:57Speaker 03

  Yeah. Unfortunately, I don't think it's happening anytime soon. I mean, we saw the Switchbot robot attempt to do laundry.

• 32:05Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 32:05Speaker 03

  I don't know if you tried the Yarbo or the Robo Rock that has the arm of the vacuum? It's so limited in what it can do. It's like, well, if you perfectly place the sock where it's folded in a way that it could grab it, and then you only have a certain type of shoes that are incredibly lightweight. It could pick them and move them into a designated spot. But any other scenario, no, that's not going to work.

• 32:28Speaker 00

  Yes, no. I, so I think you're, I think it sounds like you agree with me that the robots are useful today, but currently still not at that level where we perhaps, everyone needs one. And also, you don't need to be worried. They're not taking over anytime soon.

• 32:46Speaker 03

  I do think we're going to see more purpose-built robots.

• 32:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:49Speaker 03

  I don't think that we're going to see a general use robot anytime soon in a household.

• 32:54Speaker 00

  Agreed, agreed. Excellent. Well, thank you so much for spending time with us today, Brandon. It's been really useful and helpful to, to get your insights. I appreciate your time. Is there anything you want to tell us about your, what you're doing next? Or what's up? Or where people can go find your work?

• 33:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, you can find my articles on Realtor Magazine. They're actually written for consumers. So it's published every month. I pick a different category or something that's exciting to me. I share it there. And then on social media, it's just @BrandonDoyleMN. So you can find me on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, all that. I share behind the scenes of testing. And yeah, really excited about all of that.

• 33:35Speaker 00

  Great. Well, thanks so much, Brandon, for joining us and we'll talk to you soon.

• 33:39Speaker 03

  Thanks for having me. Take care.

• 33:41Speaker 00

  That's it for today. As always, we love to hear from you. Send your thoughts and questions to [email protected] or call the hotline 866-VERGE11. To support everything we do and to get access to ad-free episodes, subscribe to The Verge. The show is produced by Josh Kahas, Eric Gomez, Brandon Kiefer, and Travis Larchuk. Thanks for listening.

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