Lymow One Plus Review: Brute Force For Big Gardens

With the One Plus, Lymow has not built the most discreet piece of garden equipment on the market. It looks rather like a miniature construction machine sent out to deal with the lawn. This boundary-wire-free robot mower stands apart immediately for its two wide tracks, its considerable bulk and a cutting system built around two genuine mower blades mounted at the front.

The specification confirms that muscular intent. The Lymow One Plus combines RTK and VSLAM navigation, binocular AI vision and ultrasonic sensors with a 40 cm cutting width and a cutting height adjustable from 30 to 100 mm. The manufacturer also quotes the ability to tackle slopes of up to 45 degrees and a 528 Wh battery said to cover up to 2,300 m² on a single charge. This is a machine aimed at large plots, long grass, irregular ground and gardens that have kept something of a wild streak.

That proposition differs from the many robot mowers built around small pivoting blades. Lymow claims a cut closer to that of a traditional mower, with blades spinning at 6,000 rpm and enough authority to deal with denser vegetation.

Unboxing sets the tone quickly. The One Plus arrives with its charging station, power supply, an extension lead, fixing pegs and everything needed for the RTK station: antenna, mast, ground stake, wall bracket, cables and chargers.

The RTK beacon can be mounted on a stake or fixed to a building, which gives real flexibility depending on the layout of the garden. The one requirement is a clear view of the sky, since RTK positioning does not cope well with obstructed corners.

Underneath the chassis, the cutting system parts company with the competition. Instead of small pivoting blades there are two genuine mower blades mounted at the front. The cutting block is impressive for a robot, and it explains why the manufacturer emphasises its abilities in long grass and on demanding ground.

Before the app even enters the picture, one observation is unavoidable: the machine is very heavy. Handles are moulded into the chassis, but moving it about is far more laborious than with a conventional model. The mass contributes to the general feeling of robustness, but lifting its 36 kg is best avoided wherever possible.

There is also a preliminary step. A cover at the rear of the robot has to be removed in order to connect the removable battery, since the One Plus ships without it connected.

Setup then runs through the Lymow app. Pairing the robot, connecting it to the Wi-Fi network and associating the RTK station all went through without a hitch during testing.

Mapping is done manually, driving the robot with a virtual joystick from a smartphone. Pleasingly, the machine responds accurately to the controls, which makes tracing the boundaries easier. Paths back to the station and between the different zones also have to be created by driving the machine along them. The stage takes a little method, then, but it remains fairly standard for anyone who has already installed a boundary-wire-free robot mower.

Once the map exists, the app becomes the control centre for the One Plus. It holds the mowing modes, the return-to-base command, zone creation, map editing and settings for cutting height, travel speed, blade rotation and the spacing between passes. The set is reasonably complete and allows the robot's behaviour to be adapted to different parts of the garden.

Lymow also offers several well-judged advanced settings. Obstacle handling can be configured separately according to whether the robot is in the main zone, on the perimeter or in a corridor. It is also possible to change the mowing order, the direction of travel, the way edges are handled and the deck height used in corridors.

Not everything is finished, though. During testing the robot became stuck in a very narrow passage. The obvious response was to add a no-go zone to stop it returning there, and this is where disappointment sets in: the zone has to be traced by driving the robot around it, when drawing it directly on the map would have been far more convenient, as several rivals allow.

The map merge and split functions also appear to be work in progress, with the application simply inviting the user to come back later. Frustrating.

Edge handling needs attention too. Selecting the precise-edge option, which lets the robot overlap the boundary more generously, produced too much overshoot in places. Well-established planting, including mint and raspberry canes, ended up rather more exposed to the machine's appetite than intended. The setting had to be changed and the map recreated with that margin in mind.

Stability is not perfect either. After the unplanned stop, cancelling the task in progress proved difficult; the robot had to be restarted and the zone deleted before work could resume on a clean footing. The app also relaunched itself unexpectedly during certain actions. None of this prevents the robot being used, but it is a reminder that the software side still has maturing to do.

The app also provides mowing history and anti-theft controls: a PIN code, map-based geolocation and an anti-theft mode with a configurable geofence.

Once correctly configured, the Lymow One Plus follows its mowing plan diligently. RTK positioning proved accurate in the test garden, and the robot held to the defined trajectories even when routed very close to a shrub and beneath overhanging branches.

Cut quality is one of the model's principal strengths. Thanks to its two genuine blades, the One Plus does more than tickle the grass. It cuts cleanly and copes with long grass, ferns and vegetation denser than conventional robot mowers will tackle. It will also work across areas with leaves, small roots or uneven ground.

There is a trade-off. The One Plus is noisier than a robot mower using pivoting blades. That is no surprise given the cutting system, but it needs to be taken into account by anyone looking for a particularly discreet machine.

Obstacle detection was broadly convincing. A tennis ball placed in its path was correctly identified and avoided, and the shrubs and trees encountered during testing were recognised without a single collision. The app allows the avoidance level to be reduced so that the robot only stops on contact with its front bumper. That setting suits ground made up mainly of large trees and solid obstacles; gardens with young planting, fragile borders or flower beds benefit from the higher avoidance setting.

The tracks are a genuine asset for climbing over obstacles and limiting the number of times the robot gets stuck. It is far less troubled than a conventional model by uneven ground, leaves or broken terrain. On sparse, dry or already fragile surfaces, however, the tracks can leave marks. No particular problem appeared on a well-covered lawn, but the point is worth weighing on poor or parched ground.

Edge mowing remains the weaker area. Even with the dedicated settings, finding the right compromise between an over-cautious finish and excessive overshoot takes work; as noted above, the most aggressive option proved too generous around certain planting and forced a rethink of the map.

Anyone drawn to this model is probably drawn to its ability to go almost anywhere and mow large areas. Quieter but still agile alternatives include other all-wheel-drive models such as the Mammotion Luba 3 AWD, which also works with an RTK antenna. For plots where the signal is difficult, the Dreame A3 AWD Pro is another model suited to large, complicated gardens, but navigating by LiDAR instead.