I tried out a robot lawn mower. It didn’t go as planned

Electric “automowers” save energy and keep your lawn healthier. They also can be very hard to set up.

When I moved into a house in upstate New York after years of living in apartments, I decided to get an old-fashioned reel mower—the kind you push yourself, with no engine to help—for the lawn. The exercise seemed like a good idea at the time. But after spending hours each week covering my half-acre lot, I decided to test the other extreme: a robot mower guided by GPS.

Husqvarna, the Sweden-based company that pioneered robo-mowers three decades ago, let me try out one of its latest versions, the Automower 410iq. Like other robotic mowers, it’s electric, avoiding the noise and pollution from a traditional 2-stroke mower. (Using a typical gasoline mower for an hour emits as much smog-forming pollution as driving a gas car for around 300........

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