ECOVACS Goat A2500 RTK Robot Lawn Mower, Lidar-Enhanced RTK+Vision Navigation, Auto-Mapping, Dual Blades, Edge Precision Mowing, Perimeter Wire-Free, Suitable for 5/8 Acres Lawn, 50% Slope Capability

I love my new robomower! It took a couple of tries over a couple of days to get things just right-- finding a good home for the mower and base, moving the satellite receiver so I get excellent reception everywhere, outlining and re-outlining the areas I want mowed with every change, learning to control the mower manually, learning to use the app-- but it was worth it! Now I have it mow all three yards (front, back, side) every 2-3 days which allows me to use the time I used to spend mowing doing other yard work and outdoor projects that I've been neglecting because I was too worn out from mowing in this Texas heat and humidity to do them. My yard in just over 1600 SF all together and the mower can do all of it on one charge in about 1.5 to 2 hours. Sometimes when I ran the mower extra and the battery did run low, the mower returned to its base, charged itself, and then went back out and completed the job. I really like the map in the app which shows you where the mower is, what has been mowed (both in area and percentage), and how much battery is remaining. The mower will send a message if it gets stuck but it's pretty good at getting itself unstuck too if you just leave it be. For sticking issues, the mower can dig a bit of a hole in the grass but as I've used it over these couple of weeks, the problem areas it ran in to are either now "no go" zones that I've added to the map or else the problem resolved itself organically. For example, initially the mower got hung up on some (surprisingly strong) long tendrils of St Augustine grass I had grown in some problematic areas of the yard where a shade tree had been removed and new grass was beginning to grow in to some previous grass-free areas. But after having the area mowed a couple of times the grass tendrils are broken up and now are tamed enough that the mower no longer gets stuck there. Where there was a large tree root or a flower bed without a clear border that the mower could detect, I just "no go" zoned those spots. I bought a different pole to mount the satellite receiver so that it is 12 feet high instead of the 5-ish feet that comes with the mower. This was needed because of the size and placement of my grassy areas, the heavy tree cover, and the closeness of my neighbors houses did not always provide excellent communication between the receiver and the mower. There are lots of inexpensive ways to improve the reception of the receiver such as using a cement or water or sand filled umbrella holder for a base and mounting the receiver to a wooden closet rod, or buying a portable flag pole such as those used by RV travelers, or even strapping the receiver to the side of a chimney. The mower base likes to be out in the open for best reception. I suppose you could keep it in the garage but I think you probably would have to open the garage door and move the mower/base outside to put it on auto-pilot-- not 100% sure about that-- which sort of defeats the automatic and programming features available on the unit. The mower didn't like being parked under an eve of the house due to satellite reception (pre new pole. Maybe it would work now with the improved receiver location). I didn't want the mower and base on the grass itself since we have short but heavy rains here and I didn't want it to drown. Plus keeping it on the grass would kill the grass under the charging base which building a stepping stone pad to move it an inch or two higher would not prevent. So I build it a home on the deck and then built a small ramp for it to get up and down off the deck. It does not need or want a lot of ramp (I think my ramp is about 6-8 inches long) since it begins to turn shortly after leaving the base and it handles the incline just fine. I do worry a little about theft. Someone could certainly just pick it up and throw it in a truck if they saw it unwatched in the front yard but it would be useless to them. The mower won't work at all without the base and receiver but how would they know that? The mower does have a recorded message if picked up. It also requires a passcode needed to restart it once picked up but again, how would a thief know that? Once it was all set up and the various issues were resolved, I have no complaints at all about this mower! It is a smart machine that does a fine job of mowing. It can manage a few small sticks and leaves just fine. Of course, pick up any large sticks. I also want to build a "garage" or small cover over it jut it give it a little shade since it is sooo hot down here but I think I might just buy a small patio table instead so I can have a double duty item on the deck- a table and a garage for the mower. The upshot is I love this mower. It's made my life a lot easier. It's quiet, cuts well, has has a lot of nice features.

November 2025 update: After communicating with customer support back and forth for weeks, I'm pretty sure the root cause is due to the RTK receiver not getting stable and solid signals. With 2-year product warranty, they shipped a brand-new replacement to me very quickly. They went above and beyond. I received a latest version of the mower. The new one is a game changer. With the dual lidar system, the mower is working great so far. But the drawback is that I can no longer see the satellite signal strength from the app, which I do not think is a good idea. Anyway, I'm impressed with their customer service, and I think the latest model is great if you have lots of trees around your lawn. ---------------------------- This robot mower stopped functioning correctly after just two months. The main issues are critical system failures that persist despite repeated attempts to fix them (I remapped the yard more than twice): • Navigation Failure: It constantly goes off the map and struggles to "scroll out" of the edge boundaries, often freezing mid-mow. • Connectivity: The unit consistently reports a poor signal from the receiver, which seems to cause the mapping errors. • Customer Support: Trying to resolve these issues was difficult due to slow customer service. Responses took at least one day per inquiry, making troubleshooting a painful process. Overall, this has been an extremely bad experience with a costly product.

Everyday I'm getting older. And all the fun has gone out of mowing the lawn. To me it was a "chore" which I had to force myself to do every 1-2 weeks. So I decided to remve that pain from my life and turn it back into FUN. I went high-tech: I never thought I’d own a robot mower, but this little thing is now part of the fun of my lawn and landscaping life. I set this guy on a schedule and he (we named him Moe) rolls out on his own in the evening hours to take care of business. It keeps my lawn looking like I actually care. I love it so much. And the neighbors do too. SETUP: Fortunately, I didn’t need to be a tech guy to figure it out. It was easy to connect it to my wifi and walk through the QuickStart guide. I had to experiment a wee bit to find the right location for the base station and RTK antenna. My advice on this is to just trust the directions when they say to keep them away from the house, wall, and fences. The tech support I presume is in England and they were very helpful and easy to get in touch with. Mapping the lawn I did a little at a time over a week. You just walk behind it and steer it around the permeter of the area you want. I made six areas. USE: The first time I watched it go, I laughed. It moves slow and looks like a toy, but it cuts clean. I’ve got a little under 1/2 an acre, with uneven terrain, trees, bushes, and a hill. It handles all of it. The yard stays short and even because it runs so often (I'm doing 1x a week per area). And...AWESOME: I don’t bag clippings anymore. They mulch right into the grass. It’s quiet enough I can run it in the evening without bothering neighbors. The battery lasts long enough to cover about half of one of the areas, then charges itself and returns to finish. Takes about 1.5 hours per section. I don’t touch it. Rain sensor works, too. It stops and parks itself under the moisture is gone I can check on it from my phone.Actually, I kind of am fascinated by it and check in on it just to feel a sense of accomplishment. The app interface shows where it’s been and lets me start or stop it. I just glance out the window, watch the mower do its thing, and don’t get hot and sweaty over my yard anymore.

Really wanted this to workout for me but ran into so many issues and it ultimately ended up breaking before I could even get it to fully cut my yard. The pros: Easy simple setup, the app is easy to use and the instruction manual was easy to follow. The cons: After setup I attempted to map my backyard and the auto map just didn’t want to work, the robot would begin to follow the fence line then go full speed in a completely opposite direction and I kept having to stop it and track back to have it follow the fence line. Ended up having to manually drive it around my yard which would end in the mapping failing saying it lost connection. I confirmed the RTK and base placement which was not under anything and more than 6ft away from anything. Hours later and after maybe 6-8 failed mappings I finally got it to complete a map of my backyard. Adjuster all the settings in the app and sent it on its way to cut my yard. About a hour later I come out to it just driving around in random paths skipping patches missing weeds etc. I sent it back to it’s dock and tried multiple settings and it still kept missing spots and would sometimes just stop moving completely and say it lost connection even though it was feet away from the RTK and dock. Next day I came out to mess with it once more before calling it quits and the dock light is blinking and the robot is dead. Tried powering it on and it kept saying must charge robot to continue operation. After messing with the dock and robot some conforming clean charging connections, solid wire connections I’ve given up and cannot get it to work again. Not sure what happened but for $2000 I shouldn’t have this many issues. Returned it and will be looking into other robot mowers.

The robot lawn mower has been a great edition for my backyard. After years of paying a lawn service and dealing with inconsistent schedules, I decided to try this autonomous mower and I’m glad I did. The first thing I noticed was how well it maps the yard. It uses a combination of lidar, RTK, and vision navigation to create an accurate layout, avoiding obstacles like trees, my grill, and outdoor furniture without any issues. The precision is impressive, especially around edges where most robot mowers struggle (according to my research on other lawn mowers). I’ve barely needed to use a trimmer since it handles borders so well. That said, it’s not perfect. The biggest drawback is the battery life. My lawn is around 1 acre, and the mower can’t finish everything in one charge. It has to go back to the station, recharge, and then resume which adds time. A larger battery or faster charging would make a big difference. The mower itself is also quite heavy, but that might be why it handles slopes so well. It claims to manage up to a 50% grade, and so far, it hasn’t struggled on the inclines in my yard. Overall, I’m really happy with it. I purchased it on prime dat so got a great deal. The convenience of having a perfectly trimmed lawn without lifting a finger outweighs the battery issue. Plus, considering how much I’ve spent on lawn care in the past, this thing will pay for itself in a couple of years. If ECOVACS can improve the runtime in future models, it’d be nearly flawless. For now, though, it’s the best solution I’ve found for keeping my yard looking sharp with minimal effort.

The first unit arrived with a defective docking station - blue light wouldn't power on. Amazon kindly sent me a replacement in 2 days. The second unit arrived and all connected perfectly with 20+ satellites. Phew! However.... does anyone else reading this, experience random strips of grass uncut? I changed sensitivity settings, speed and mowing direction and STILL get mohawk hairdos in my backyard. Does the Bot have to learn the yard and cut it a dozen times before it finally figures out how to cut paralell rows without missing any grass? My yard is a fenced rectangle and the screen shots show two diferent cutting directions in Auto mode. I even remapped the yard 2x as part of my trouble shooting. The 844 line wasn't able to help either. I really wanna keep this as the cut sections look terrific and the software is very user-friendly. Plus I nabbed this on sale for only $1,299 recently. What to do?? 8/15/25 UPDATE: I added two map areas for the front yard, and both smaller sections had NO mohawk lines. I was thrilled. So, perhaps large mapped areas with tree obtsacles confuse the algorithm? So, I then divided my .44 acre backyard into 2 sections. I mowed the rear section only and I didn't notice any uncut stripes. WOW! I'll wait until the front backyard section grass grows a little and test to see if LARGE SIZE AREAS = the problem at hand. The cut grass looks great! 9/15/25 UPDATE: Working SUPER WELL now. The more time it mowes the map zone areas, the less it misses. For street curb lawn sections, you cannot use that cross-boundary edge setting, it must stay in the (top) edge mowing mode or else the front wheels will fall off the curb onto the street. I change directions after each mow job is complete. My fron and backyards looks terrific and it's such a thrill to only have to use a string trimmer (Ryobi) for edging, and along the street curbs. That's it. You can see the mulch if you cut every 5 days or so.

So far so good. But ONE BIG issue is that the setup is QUITE a bit unintuitive, and HAVING to use the phone app to set mowing boundaries requires a process of trying to use one digit of your hand to do something that only would work well if you had a joy stick. It's IMPOSSIBLE to guide the mower in a straight line due to this. But, for me, even though it means more trimming with my Weed Wacker for now (because it can't keep a straight line based on the process to attempt to get it to not being thought out well), the mower itself does do well cutting the areas you are able to define for it to do. And it normally works without glitches, even it it requires being recharged a couple of times and returning to base, before the areas are completed. BUT I've still not once had the mower end up not missing a spot or two (and with no less than a minimum of four or five feet uncut, here and there where it just failed to mow), before informing me it had successfully cut the ENTIRE selected area (which I'd have thought should INCLUDE not missing patches of grass up to five feet long, and thinking it had cut them, too). Once in a while I'll have to re establish my Bluetooth connection for no reason. I can live with that. And sometimes, the mower won't continue it's task (will get locked up after running into a problem) without needing to restart the mower. And the problem is that makes it forget (evidently deletes from it's memory) the progress it had already made mowing the area, so that I'll need to tell it to start over to mow the ENTIRE area it may have already been close to finished mowing. So, it needs work to be an effortless GPS robotic mower. It'll get stuck sometimes (but far less than the boundary wire Husqvarna Automower it replaced) so that I'll have to go out and move it away from the place it stopped mowing). And I can live with that, too. The reason I'm giving it four stars instead of the THREE it deserves max (if we're basing them on value for it's NORMAL PRICE) is that I paid only $1200 for it to cut my half acre yard and am now free of neighbors cutting through my Husqvarna's boundary wires when they're edging their sidewalk. And the GPS has NOT ever caused glitches. That was my biggest concern, honestly with a lot of trees in my yard. But I have it mounted on my roof (where a direct tv satellite mount is which no longer has a satellite dish in it, that came with my home, and made a convenient holder after using a U-bolt to mount it to it). Even at 40% less than the normal price, my MAIN concern (the risk I was most worried about) was if it would glitch out because of not being able to locate a GPS satellite because of a lot of trees and ALSO just because some brands of mowers evidently just don't do that well. And maybe some of these ECOVACS Goat A2500s have glitches with that for some who (if so) didn't luck out like I seem to have based on this NOT being one of the issues I've ever had. Instead, the glitches I'm having are (hopefully) something future app updates might allow to be less glitchy. And if you're reading this, ECOVACS, PLEASE develop a setup boundary setup area process that doesn't require trying to guide the mower using one finger moving it in a very tiny circle on your phone screen. At least make it like Mammotion's (I know because my son bought one) that lets you guide the boundary setups using two thumbs letting the process possible to help you keep moving the mower in a straight line. It's impossible with the current app and process you have designed for this. PLEASE fix it. I'll try later to see if I can re-set the boundaries by putting the mower in a pull (Gorilla) cart and pulling it around my yard where I want the boundaries to be. Maybe that'll be an optional alternative to the currently poorly designed phone app's only way to let you do this. Evidently some manufacturer's of robotic mowers will work to establish the boundaries by doing this. I have yet to determine if it will work for my GOAT. Bottom line. The app needs work. My GOAT (can't tell you if you'll have the same experience if you get one) has no problems connecting with GPS. But don't expect a perfected wire free robotic mowing experience with this mower. It won't give you that. It needs work/better programming to give you that. But if you can buy it new for $1200, and it works as well as mine (which is TOLERABLY well, which I'll define as definitely not glitch free now and then), then you'll have something that works well enough most of the time, that you'll probably find it a less stressful experience than any wire-based mower. And my Husqvarna, although more sturdy and of better quality Auto Mower's app is much better and local support easier to find (vs. probably having to ship this off someplace if something ever happens in the warranty period requiring something if/when this fails -- which hasn't yet happened after about six months use), I DO prefer this mower because of the hassle of the boundary wires.

The mower was doing a nice job. Did get stuck often, even with no go areas set up. Had to map yard multiple times. App kept combing areas that had a fence between them and wouldn’t let me separate them. Bluetooth between the mower and mower often would disconnect and sometimes it would even have to be turned off to get it to reconnect. This was annoying. It seemed to work better with my work phone that is android. Lastly my mower was taken from my yard when it got stuck running a scheduled mow and battery was died. No way to track it at this point from the app. Customer service didn’t seem to understand or able to help find it. Only had unit for about a week and spent 1800 on it, now it’s gone. If I buy another one I’m going to figure out a way to mount an AirTag on it.