GARDENA 15201-20 SILENO Minimo Robotic Lawn Mower for 2700 Sq Ft Lawns

I have about a 1000 sq ft side yard I decided I would try this out on. It is a pretty much a rectangle with a fence on two sides, a retaining wall and paved off area for the other two. Totally didn't need this but it was one sale and I wanted to try it out. First thoughts: When I opened the box and looked at this thing with its tiny razor blade like blades, I thought there was no way this thing was going to work. It also looked pretty straight forward to set up but the directions are not nearly as clear as they should be. This is made by Husqvarna and like directions are on the same level as bad as some things from IKEA. You could condense the instructions down to a few clear steps and make it super easy but no. First run: Honestly, after the first five minutes of letting it run, I thought there was no way I was keeping this thing. My yard was wet and tall. I followed the directions leaving 14 inches between the fence and barrier wire (WHICH IS A MISTAKE). Ran the guide wire. For my sized yard, it came with plenty of wire and stakes. I let it charge and then tried to figure out the not very intuitive app. Got it to run even though it wasn't clear if it would. A combination of tall grass (which it did actually cut pretty well) and a rough yard kept causing the mower to think it was running into things. So it would go a few feet, stop and turn, and repeat. Then it came time to return to the dock. It failed. Turns out it failed for a few reasons. 1. There was a slight slope to the charging base. It did not like that. 2. Barrier wires were ran to close to the sides of the base and would throw off its alignment. 3. The guide wire was leading the mower to go off center of the base. So the tall grass was clearly my fault and I gave it a cut with my push mower. After sometime of tinkering with it, it now can reliably return and dock on the charger. Eventually I had several days of running without too many issues. The shorter grass stopped the issue of only going a few feet before thinking it ran into something. The yard was really looking surprisingly good. Didn't take too long to see the mower will only cut a few inches past the wire. There is a setting in the app to tell it go past the wire but setting it to the max did nothing to help. No choice but to rerun the wire. Pro tip: leave some slack in places in case you want to go back and adjust the wire. 2ish week later: Now that the guidewires are more or less in the proper place and the mower can work without faulting, it is doing a surprisingly good job of keeping my yard mowed. I would actually give it 5 stars despite my issues except for one sort of big issue to me, the mowing height. Its highest setting is not very high. In the summer here in SE Michigan, it will get very dry and if the grass is this short, it will brown in many places. So I give it 4 stars. I would actually order another one for my front yard if it didn't mow the grass so short.

The media could not be loaded. This is an extremely convenient little device, if like me you absolutely hate mowing, don’t mind a little setup and prep, and don’t care about a “perfect” lawn. So let me preface this full review with: I absolutely loathe mowing. I tend to avoid it as much as possible and as such my yard frequently gets out of control very quickly in the Florida rain. That being said, this little guy is exactly what someone like me needs, something to make my yard look presentable without all the hours of manual work. And it’s probably the coolest thing I now own. Prep and Setup I definitely suggest watching the YouTube videos from the manufacturer on how to unbox and setup the mower, the included guide was quite lengthy and a little hard to follow but after watching the videos, setup was a breeze. Unboxing everything was also easy, everything was packed and labeled nicely, and I was actually surprised with how compact the mower was. You absolutely need to clear out your yard of any large branches or obstacles that the mower might catch on. I did see it get stuck on some branches that I missed cleaning up. The hardest and lengthiest part of setup is definitely setting up the boundary/guide wire. This process involves outlining your yard with the included wire. These wires connect back to the base station where I’m assuming it then gets power to tell the mower where the boundary limits are. There’s also a guide wire that runs from the base station to the boundary wire where they’re spliced together with an included coupler. If you’re not familiar with cutting and joining wires this might seem a little daunting but honestly after watching the videos it was very straightforward. The biggest thing is to absolutely make sure the wire is firmly in the ground. The instructions give 2 options: One using stakes and the other to bury the wire. I opted to use the stakes, but I made the initial mistake of not using more of them closer together and the mower got tangled in the wire, this was an easy fix by making sure about every 2 feet of wire a stake was put down to hold it down (they included a lot of stakes). Running the mower As soon as you power on the mower you go through a simple install wizard to set your preferences and schedule. You also can override the schedule to test it out and let it run. You should definitely watch it the first time to make sure it runs smoothly but after that it’s basically set it and forget it. I don’t know if it could handle large brush, but I had mowed my lawn a few weeks prior, so it didn’t have to work very hard. I watched it go for about 30 minutes before I went back inside where I continually checked on it, it didn't get stuck and after a couple hours made it's way back to the base station to charge up for the day. Setting up the App There's another review on here that mentioned not having the Bluetooth model and not being able to use the app, which got me thinking the one I had also didn't have Bluetooth. Turns out all their models have Bluetooth, you just need to have the app open and turn off the mower while it's in the station and turn it back on. It was listed as P0.2 on my phone, I renamed him to 'Fenton'. My Android phone picked it up almost immediately and I was pretty happy with the options, which allows you to better select your schedule or spot mow a specific area where you place it and of course manually start it for a set period. Charging Station Cover The weather is quite sporadic here in Florida, getting the charging station cover or "Garage" is a nice addition to not have to worry about it. It provides a nice little cover from the extreme heat and the Florida downpours. While the guide says the mower is built for all types of weather, I do recommend getting the cover if you'd like a little more peace of mind. Install takes all of 5 minutes and looks like it's built to last. Final thoughts The mower is insanely quiet, I only ever heard the blade when it hit a taller piece of grass. I was also very surprised with how maneuverable it is. I have very soft, leaf ridden soil and so my push mower constantly digs into the always wet soil, and it makes it pretty difficult sometimes to mow. This little guy I guess is light enough that it hasn’t gotten stuck. All that being said, this mower is not a “do it all” type of device, at least not for my yard. I set my boundaries to basically a large open area, I’ll have to touch up the areas where I thought it wouldn’t work very well because of large brush or just obstacles that would get in the way. I would highly recommend this mower to people with very “simple” yard layouts and those who hate mowing. For me it’s extremely convenient having a freshly kept yard without doing any of the work.

I would have given it 5 stars. It is a good a robotic lawn mower. Simple and does the job. I even have a slight slope to my property and the Gardena Sileno Minimo has no issues with it (once its fully mowed of course). It took about 5 hours to setup fully and then maybe another hour of tweaking to get it right. It works and it is also very quiet. I reserved 1 star because the parent company Husqvarna has a robot that is very similar called to the Automower 115H which has all the same features plus 4G and gps for basically the same price. I bought one of these for my front property and it works great too. Both mow about the same but the 115h is a better value. That said, this is still excellent robot mower.