When I reviewed the Luba 2 AWD 3000HX in September, I was seriously impressed. It's quiet, very capable, kind of fun, and made me feel like a neighborhood hero while sending it from house to house mowing everyone's yards.
Since then, Mammotion sent me the US$2,799 Luba 3 AWD 3000HX for a review. Clearly, Mammotion wasn't content with simply being "awesome." Though the Luba 3 very much looks and feels like the Luba 2, it acts significantly smarter.
The short version?
I don't see how you could go wrong with the Luba 3.
The longer version:
First of all, setup was an absolute breeze. Mammotion has done away with the need for an RTK entirely on the Luba 3, as long as there's cell coverage in your area. While it really wasn't that big of a deal to set up the RTK with the previous-gen Luba, it's still a million times better not needing one more lawn ornament that you have to rely on for mower positioning. You simply plug in the base station to power, fire up the mower, and within a few minutes (after the updates, of course), you're off to the races via NetRTK using Wi-Fi or 4G service. Should you not have cell or Wi-Fi coverage in your area, it can still use an old-fashioned RTK for that same centimeter-level mowing precision.
My first real-world test was a fifth of an acre (9,257-sq-ft / 860-sq-m). The robomower knocked out 51% of the lawn in 2 hours and 21 minutes before returning to charge with 8% battery left. After it topped up, it headed back out and finished the entire job in 4 hours and 4 minutes with just that single recharge along the way. The results were literally perfect to the point of being boring.
Very much like the previous-gen Luba, this thing just gets the job done and with virtually zero protest. In fact, after creating two large zones and marking off three no-go zones to protect the garden, the little robomower performed flawlessly. Not a single issue whatsoever – which honestly makes me feel like reviewing it based on that alone would seem inauthentic – so I asked the neighbor across the street if I could test it in his yard, because he has legit danger zones in his yard with irrigation swales, vertical drops, the whole nine yards.
I was determined to put the Luba 3 in a position to fail by not marking out any of the hazardous areas and letting it just figure it out. It did eventually fail, but not in a spectacular fashion like I'd hoped. Instead, it was a very slight mistake that would have led to the mower turtling to its back, had I not caught it.
When it would near potential danger – in this case, a vertical drop into a ditch deeper than the mower is tall – it would slow and move more cautiously before doing the best it could to mow along the obstacle that it recognized as a danger-zone. In turning around, a single front wheel slipped off the edge. Rather than simply reversing to save itself, it continued its zero-turn rotation, causing the rear tire to slide off the ledge as well, before I caught it and saved it from doom. A reasonable person would have marked that as a no-go zone.
It also ended up in that same drainage ditch (albeit from a less dangerous, less flippy angle) when it did the same drop-a-wheel-during-a-zero-turn. It cruised around in the bottom for exactly 78 seconds, apparently contemplating its life choices, before it found an escape route and kept on truckin'. Impressive.
It's really difficult to figure out anything else that I don't like about it, or that it doesn't do well ... well, except two things: the base station does not come with a roof. Should you want that, you're going to have to shell out another $200, which is silly at this price point. And when manually mowing tall stuff, the bumper can be too sensitive for my bull-in-a-China-shop tastes. If it gets bumped too hard, it'll cut power to the mow deck, forcing a ~5-second delay before I can start cutting again. That's kind of annoying. I've also read a few others on Reddit mentioning connectivity issues, but I've yet to experience anything like that. The thing just works.
Otherwise, having tested out several brands and models of robomowers, I have to say that Mammotion sets the bar very high in all aspects of its products.
The app is the best of all brands I've tested thus far – it's very intuitive, friendly, easy to understand, and with a wide range of options to fine-tune every lawn parameter. Or if you're not into that, it's also as simple as a "just go mow my yard" option. The app has it all. The app also does a great job of communicating with you; it will let you know when the mower goes to charge, when it resumes the task, when it pauses for whatever reason, the mower's current location and progress ... many things I realize I take for granted when testing other brands that don't have those same features.
For example, when you're creating a zone, and you make a mistake by driving off course, reversing the robomower will effectively undo what you've just done as it drives in backwards over the exact route you'd just mistakenly made. No other mower I've tested does that. It's pretty awesome, and just one of the many small details that make the Luba so good.
In addition to the dual AI camera system, the Luba 3 has LiDAR on it now – a little spinning laser on top that 3D maps its surroundings in detail – effectively making it more intelligent and in tune with its surroundings. That means better accuracy under trees or along the sides of buildings or other areas where GPS signal might not reach, which I very much tested with boringly reliable results.
That being said, I am more concerned about it flipping over than I was with the previous non-LiDAR model. And not because it's any more or less prone to flipping, but because of the expensive hardware on top of it. Let's just hope that never happens.
Specs at a glance:
- Coverage: up to ~32,300 sq ft (3,000 sq meters / 0.75 acres) per day*
- Max slope: 80% (38.6°)
- Navigation: Tri-Fusion = 360° LiDAR + NetRTK + dual AI cameras
- Obstacle recognition: 300+ object types
- AI processor: 10 TOPS
- Cutting width: 15.8 in (400 mm) dual-165W-disc deck
- Cutting height: 2.2–4.0 in (56–102 mm)
- Battery: 15 Ah
- Charge time: roughly 120 min
- Connectivity: 4G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth (4G is only free for 3 years)
- Multi-zone support: up to 100 zones
- Minimum passage width: 27.5 in (70 cm)
- Waterproofing: IPX6
- Weight: 41 lb (18.6 kg)
Mammotion says the Luba 3 AWD 3000HX can knock out 0.75 acres per day. In my testing, it reliably cranked out about 2,276 sq ft per hour while set to roughly half speed. So yeah, it'll handle a three-quarter-acre property in an all-day affair – which is totally fine when you're not the one pushing a mower for 14-and-a-half hours.
Another thing I like about the Luba 3 is that it will support 10 separate maps, meaning if you have more than one property, you can chuck it in your trunk, and haul it to another lawn and map those out as well. Obviously, you might need multiple base stations if the mower can't do the whole yard on a single charge (if you move the base station, it messes up your map), but still, the option exists.
And if you don't feel like mapping out other yards, it has a new feature called Dropmow, where you can literally just yeet the mower into some random patch of grass and say, "Figure it out." It won't save a permanent map when using Dropmow; it'll just do the job using LiDAR and vision, and then await exfil.
On that note, because it has 4G built in, you always know where the mower is, even if it's outside of your Wi-Fi range, and even if some baddie just swooped it up and took it across town. If the latter happens, a "recovery party" with your favorite SWAT team members is a viable plan.
Something I'm seeing more and more lately in various tech bits is the ability to set a maximum battery charge. When the Luba is dormant between scheduled tasks, to extend battery life, it will only charge to 80%. Just before it's time to mow, it'll juice up that last 20% before it heads out. This is a really nice feature that could extend the battery health by years. Not only that, but it has off-peak charging capabilities, waiting to charge until energy prices are lower.
Did I mention that it's quiet? Because it's very quiet. If you were so inclined, you could let it run at 3 AM and not bother anyone with it.
The Luba series also comes in different flavors for different needs. The 1000, 3000, and 5000 (which represents the square meters area they are rated for), all of which come in SX or HX versions (for short cut and high cut).
I'm moving in a couple of weeks to a decent-sized lot with over an acre of estate-like lawn. I called to see what it was going to cost me with a lawn service to take care of the property, and it was north of ten grand a year, yikes! Suddenly $2,800 seems like a bargain. Normally, I give away, give back, or donate these machines that I test ... But I'm keeping this one until the wheels fall off.
Product page: Mammotion Luba 3 AWD or Amazon
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