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The Fox Report Barry Fox’s technology column Robotic mowers take some effort to set up properly I t sounds so appealing – instead of walking round a lawn, pushing a manual mower, or trying to keep up with a wayward petrol engine, or paying someone else to do it for you – just buy one of the many new robot lawn mowers now flooding the market. If only it were that simple. I ran a practical test, buying the PAMR 500A1 made by Parkside and sold by Lidl for the too-good-to-miss price of £199. That’s half the cost of one of the favourite alternatives, the Lawnmaster L10. Although all these devices have sensors to detect big obstacles, both the PAMR and L10 rely for guidance on signals radiated by a boundary wire laid around the lawn. For the Lidl mower, the wire guides the mower clockwise (by ± polarity) around the lawn when its rechargeable Li-Ion battery is running flat. In theory, the mower self-docks with the charger, but getting the wire in just the right position for an easy path ‘home’ needs careful planning. Again, in theory, the wire can be pegged to the turf surface, and this is a good way to find out where the device gets stuck trying to navigate tight corners or gets too close to the lawn plant borders. But as I soon found out the hard way, even when the wire is tightly pegged down, the mower is liable to cut the wire when set for cutting short grass. The only long-term fix is to bury the wire a couple of inches. Even if the turf is sliced to make a flap, rather than dug to create a trench, it’s a tedious, tough job. Sections of the boundary wire can run close together; for example, to skirt obstacles. Still, they must not cross over each other. By now, you will be getting the picture. Anyone who buys a robot mower with the happy hope that they can unbox, plug in, pour a drink and sit in the sun watching their lawn being beautified is in for a rude awakening. In the case of the Parkside/Lidl beast, things are much worse because – although the mower is surprisingly sturdy – the accompanying printed and online instructions are some of the worst I have ever encountered. Packed in the box are three printed manuals, one for the battery (which is screw-sealed inside the mower casing) and two similar but not identical 40ish-page booklets. There’s also a colour picture sheet without any text, just green ticks and red crosses, plus a QR code for decidedly iffy online help. The online help is in German, so I had to auto-translate it to English. It links to an online manual, which I hoped to search by keyword for an explanation of mysterious bleeping during normal operation, and also how to fit a metal guide rail included in the box. Entering the mower model number throws up the error message “Unfortunately we couldn’t find anything”. Online Help also offers a video on “Laying Boundary Cables”. But clicking the play The Parkside PAMR 500A1 on its charging dock. 4 link gave the message “This video is private – if the owner has granted you access, please sign in”. The same thing happened with a video on “First Mowing Pass”. I was then diverted to an opportunist advert for a “Secret New Invention” which is a “new antenna changing the way people watch TV and cable providers can’t figure out what to do” from getwavetune.com The instructions (https://parksidediy.com/de/garten/rasenmaehervertikutierer/parkside-maehroboterpmrda-20-li-b2-smart) refer to a phone App and Bluetooth control, but this applies to different mower models, which Lidl is not selling. The whole experience is like assembling flat-packed furniture, but also requiring computer skills, strength for physical digging, and cleverness at second-guessing what’s not clear or not visible. It is a real shame, because if and when the user gets the mower working, it works well and delivers a tidily cut lawn. What users need is a simple Getting Started guide with basic essentials clearly stated, before getting bogged down in a welter of detail about special features, such as programming the mower to start and stop at pre-set times and cut measured zones. So I have put together the kind of idiot’s guide that Lidl so signally fails to provide. If these devices end up near-new and cheap on eBay or in second-hand shops, because their owners have never got them working, these simple basics could save a lot of people a lot of grief and money. On first use, it’s obligatory to enter the date and time using the on-board buttons and LCD strip screen. This is fairly intuitive. Press the On/Off button for a few seconds, use the Up/Down arrow keys to set year, month, day and time of day. Press OK after each entry. It’s also necessary to set a PIN for ‘unlocking’ the mower every time is it is used. Press OK and use the numbers 1–4 shown on four of the buttons. Repeat the entry to confirm the new PIN and press OK. But beware; I realised only just in time that I was setting a Practical Electronics | July | 2025 The Fox Report Barry Fox’s technology column code without knowing what numbers the displayed asterisks denoted. This would lock the user out, with no obvious way to over-ride and reset. I didn’t dare experiment, so I just chose 1234 – which rather defeats the object of setting a PIN. It’s good practice to leave service loops, for later adjustment, when connecting the charger leads and boundary wires. But the loops must be tucked away behind the charger, out of mower pickup range. Be sure to obey the 30/35 cm boundary rule; leave at least 30cm, and ideally 35cm, from the lawn border. For who knows what design reason, the mower has to pass well over the wire before it can detect the guide signal and performs a multi-point turn. [It’s probably because the sensor has to be mounted centrally in the mower so that it doesn’t matter what angle it approaches the wire – Editor] Other than backing away from the boundary wire (which carries 21.5V DC, modulated at between 100kHz and 148.5kHz), and following the wire (negative to positive) when returning to the charger, the mower moves entirely at random. There are no straight mow lines. The cut grass is spread back on the lawn and mulches itself out of sight. This works surprisingly well. After a few days of random cutting, the lawn looks good. The device needs a 100% charge before it can be operated while still docked, but if pulled out of the dock, it obeys commands when only 30% charged. It beeps when it hits an immovable object, but also beeps every so often while happily mowing; that is probably to signal its battery status. The battery that comes with the mower is one of the 20V units that are used by some (but not all) of Lidl’s other Parkside tools. Its capacity is 2Ah, but I unscrewed the battery housing and did a plug-swap with a 4Ah battery. A rain sensor stops everything when the weather is wet. As long as the weather is dry, and the mower is charged, the basic essential commands are as follows: Press On/Off button to get a ‘Welcome’ message and PIN request. Enter Practical Electronics | July | 2025 The control panel and cutting height adjustment are under a waterproof lid. your pre-set PIN to get the message ‘Standby.’ From ‘Standby’, a short press of the On/Off button gives the message “Start Manual”. After that, press the OK button to get the message “Close Cover to Start”. Close the cover (which physically protects the buttons and LCD) to trigger multiple happy beeps before the mower starts mowing. To stop mowing, lift the cover or press the Big Red Emergency Stop button. The mower can then be re-started only by returning to the Welcome/ Standby procedure. In theory, the mower takes itself back to the charging station and docks itself when the battery gets hungry with 30% charge; in practice, this only works if the ground is even and the boundary wire is at just the right position in relation to the dock. Trial and error are needed. This is when service loops are needed. The mower can be manually sent back to self-dock by a modified Start procedure. From Standby, long press Home and close the cover to get happy bleeps and start. Note that when returning to the charging station, the mower stops mowing; its blade wheel does not turn. The operating time default is eight hours per day with Rain sensing On. This and other tweak functions, like setting distance (dst)% and ratio percent (pct)% spot areas, can be altered by starting the PIN Start procedure, then using the Up-arrow button to display Settings menus and sub-menus controlled by the arrows and back buttons. I suspect that most people, like me, will just be thrilled to have finally got some tangible reward for their £200 PE and quit while ahead! It was tempting... 5