Husqvarna AutoMower 430V NERA Review

Design and features

• Integrated cellular
• Supports multiple zones and cutting patterns
• Designed for large gardens up to 4800m2

With last year’s Husqvarna AutoMower 305E NERA, the company introduced its first robot lawn mower that didn’t need a reference station or boundary wire, but the necessary EPOS module came separately and had to be installed. And, as good as that robot is, it doesn’t have object detection.

With the Husqvarna AutoMower 430V NERA, the robot is a more streamlined device. It still has all of the curves and good looks that I’ve come to expect from the company’s products. This model ditches the all-grey exterior for a swisher white finish.

It’s cutting quality that counts, but if you want a robot lawn mower that looks good while doing it, then the Husqvarna AutoMower 430V NERA is for you.

At the front, you’ll notice there’s a camera. Finally, Husqvarna has caught up with the competition, and the camera can spot and avoid common obstacles, whether that’s people, toys left on the lawn or animals.

EPOS is built in, along with cellular data. That means boundary-free mowing out of the box.

Positioning data is provided by integrated GPS and network RTK via the Husqvarna cloud. With the 305E NERA, network RTK required the robot to have a constant Wi-Fi connection; here, with the Husqvarna AutoMower 430V NERA, it can connect to the internet via Wi-Fi or a mobile network. 

Provided you’ve got mobile coverage across your garden everything should work perfectly, although there is still an optional reference station if you find one area is not covered well.

If satellite coverage isn’t very good in some areas then the camera can step in, and the Husqvarna AutoMower 430V NERA can navigate as long as it can ‘see’ grass in front of it. That kind of vision technology is similar to that used by the EcoVacs GOAT O1200, although that product uses vision and LiDAR only and is designed for smaller gardens.

Two powerful wheels sit at the rear of the 430V, with two smaller wheels at the front. According to Husqvarna, this model can climb slopes with a 50% incline.

Designed for very large gardens up to 4800m2, I had the Husqvarna AutoMower 430V NERA shipped to a friend’s house with a big enough lawn to really put it through its paces.

Installation is similar to that of previous Husqvarna robot lawn mowers. There’s a simple charging station that can be placed on grass and screwed into the ground, or, as in this review, placed on hard standing; the robot can move over a patio into a cutting area.

The lawn mower then needs to be paired with the app and connected to Wi-Fi so it’s ready to go, starting with mapping.

With the total cutting area approaching the limit of this robot, the garden was divided into two zones. Each had to be mapped by driving the robot around the area, which took around 30 minutes for each zone. There are rivals that will automatically map, but that kind of feature tends to work better in smaller, more easily defined gardens, so manual mapping isn’t such an issue.

A trickier job is marking out exclusion zones where you don’t want the robot to go, including any ponds, flower beds or areas that the robot might struggle with. With the test garden having areas with daffodils growing, there were many small areas that needed to be marked for exclusion, which took nearly two hours to complete for the main exclusion areas.

There was also a need to set up a transport path between the two areas, which tells the robot which way to drive. If you have two areas that are not connected, you can physically move the robot between zones. In the secondary zone, which doesn’t have the charging dock, the mower can run for a selected time or until its battery is empty.

It was decided to leave the trees in the lawn alone and let the robot move around them by itself. Overall, the setup was completed in less than four hours, but how long it takes you will depend on the size of your lawn and its complexity.

One of the benefits of buying from Husqvarna is that you can pay for a dealer to come and do the setup for you. If you’re not particularly tech-savvy or just don’t want to spend the time doing it, then this could be a good choice.

Each zone has its own controls, including cutting height. Husqvarna uses an electric height adjustment, moving the cutting deck up and down. With a cutting height of between 20mm and 60mm, all of the basics are covered, whether you want something more like a bowling green or a slightly longer cut.

Annoyingly, the app still has a bug in that the cutting height adjustment is listed in inches, and there’s no way to change this to metric. Pre-EPOS models could show the cutting height adjustment in mm. Husqvarna doesn’t have a date for when this issue will be fixed.

Cutting height can’t be adjusted mid-cut, either. It’s worth starting high, and then reducing the cut height over time until you find the right setting for your particular lawn and how you like it to look. In my test lawn, a cutting height of 2.5 inches worked best for the slightly bumpy ground.

Cutting is handled by the 24cm-wide cutting deck, which has three razor blades that need replacing when they get blunt. On the very large test garden, the blades needed replacing after 400 hours.

There’s an option to adjust the cutting pattern, with a choice of parallel (strips), checkerboard or triangle. A satellite view of the property lets you align the cutting pattern the way you want it. Or, you can switch to an irregular cut if you just want the mower to randomly move across your lawn.

Schedules can be set per area, although on very large lawns, such as our test lawn, the robot will pretty much be out all the time. And, it’s possible to start the mower manually from the app if you prefer.

It’s possible to start a cut from the mower’s onboard controls, plus there’s a big red Stop button that can be used in case there’s an issue.

Performance

• Excellent cut
• Good obstacle avoidance
• Map often needs tweaking

With a near-on 1.5-acre area to cut, the Husqvarna AutoMower 430V NERA estimated that it would take 36 hours to manage the cut. That’s a considerable amount of time, but manually cutting the lawns would take seven hours a week. Not having to do anything is quite the time saver, and gives almost a day a week back to focus on other things.

General navigation is excellent, and the new AI obstacle avoidance works very well. While older AutoMower models would bash into obstacles, the Husqvarna AutoMower 430V NERA skirts neatly around them.

With that obstacle avoidance comes a few potential issues. The garden the Husqvarna AutoMower 430V NERA was working in has a lot of trees, so the lawns get a lot of twigs, branches and even large leaves. Often, the robot would recognise this kind of debris as an obstacle, and skirt around them, leaving sections of the lawn uncut.

Regular manual maintenance to clean up the lawn is required if you want a thorough cut.

The Husqvarna AutoMower 430V NERA did cope well with the trees in the lawn. It would approach slowly each time, and move cautiously around them, but I didn’t have a problem with it running into them.

Exclusion zones did need to be tweaked. A few times the Husqvarna AutoMower 430V NERA managed to drop a wheel into a flower bed, and needed manually rescuing, and the map then needed to be tweaked to slightly expand the lawn. Leaving a slightly wider gap when setting up exclusion zones can help.

Similarly, the Husqvarna AutoMower 430V NERA slipped down a slope at the start, crossing the boundary line. Again, the map needed to be tweaked to prevent this. On a large lawn, such as the one I tested on, fine-tuning the map is required.

There was also one slight issue with the transport path from one zone to another. As the robot takes the same path time and time again, it created a track, which became visible during the hot and dry spell in June. 

Widening the path didn’t help, so in the end the transport path was moved to a different zone. Husqvarna is looking into this, but for now, regularly rerouting the transport path is a good idea to prevent an issue.

On the very hilly part of the lawn, the Husqvarna AutoMower 430V NERA would always turn in the same places, digging up bits of grass. While the hills are within the 50% slope that the Husqvarna AutoMower 430V NERA can climb, if you’ve got a lot of rough terrain, an AWD drive model may make more sense.

Even so, the Husqvarna AutoMower 430V NERA moves well, navigating the area with beehives and cutting right up to them, as captured on the security camera.

Once running properly, the Husqvarna AutoMower 430V NERA does a brilliant job of a maintenance cut. Snipping small amounts of grass with each cut, the cuttings mulch down and feed the grass, keeping it lush.

Pattern cutting helps maintain a neat-looking lawn, and the overall cut is excellent. Is it as good, technically, as handling the job manually? Well, not quite. A regular lawn mower can pick up twigs and leaves, and you’ve got more control of how you cut; the Husqvarna AutoMower 430V NERA, and indeed all robot lawn mowers, don’t pick up anything, so there are bits of leaves and small twigs left behind, so the overall cut isn’t quite as neat.

It’s all about balance, and with larger gardens, having the Husqvarna AutoMower 430V NERA tackle pretty much everything makes a lot of sense, leaving a smaller section for manual care if you want to control the appearance of one area.

If you’re not so bothered and just want nicely cut grass with no input, the Husqvarna AutoMower 430V NERA can do that, too.

Should you buy it?