Let’s test the AI vision-powered 3D obstacle avoidance on a Mova LiDAX mower!

I’ve had my Mova LiDAX Pro 800 for about a month now and have found it to be a big time saver. Currently I run it manually rather than having it on a schedule, allowing me to clean up my yard first of toys and other obstacles. I’ve debated switching it to a schedule, but first wanted to really put the obstacle avoidance to the test, as there will definitely be times where things are left out in my yard.

The results were mixed…

- When it came to smaller balls, it tended to treat them as movable objects rather than avoiding them. The curved front design of the mower meant that the balls were pushed out of the way with ease rather than being run over and cut by the blades. I don’t know if this was by design or not, but it prevented uncut patches on my lawn in those areas.

- For larger soccer balls it did seem to avoid those for the most part but did brush them occasionally.

- The baseball bat and baseball stand were both pushed by the mower. The baseball bat was misidentified as a hose as well.

- The misting hose was run over multiple times by the mower. The mower was able to recognize it as a hose however.

- The large basketball net on its side remained untouched, but it did mistake it for being a human. No big deal.

- The LiDAX mower was able to avoid the shrubs with ease, however it recognizes the canopy as part of the obstacle and therefore doesn’t get as close as I would like.  This will not replace the need for a line trimmer, and similar to using a lawn mower, you will most likely still need to clean up the edges around trees, fences and other garden features. My understanding is other MOVA LiDAX mowers do have an edge cut feature (ultra trim 1.0 edge cutting) that is able to cut even closer but at a fixed cut length.

- The human avoidance seems to work well. I don’t recommend this, but I tried to jump in front of it, sit in front of it and a few other things to try and throw it off, but it seemed to be able to keep its distance.

- The benefit to the obstacle avoidance being AI trained is that in theory as more data points are added the more accurate the device should become.

For now I will continue manually starting the mower. I can rest easy knowing larger objects, balls and most importantly people won’t get damaged or injured by the device. Even with the mixed results I am hopeful the performance will get better over time!

I would love to know if anyone has any tips for settings I should update or areas I should look at testing next!

Happy Mowing! 🏡

great

Thank you very much for sharing your detailed usage experience. We will keep optimizing the recognition capability. For small balls, if visual recognition is not accurate enough, you may adjust the obstacle avoidance height to avoid small balls and other low-height obstacles.Please feel free to contact us if you encounter any issues later.