Bosch Robotic Lawnmower Indego S+ 500 (with 18V battery and App Function, docking station included, cutting width 19 cm, for lawns of up to 500 m², in carton packaging)

Having seen some of the reviews here, I felt that it was only fair to counter the critical reviews of this excellent product.Contrary to other comments, it was straightforward to set up, yes the boundary wire takes some time to lay out, but that is the same for any robotic mower and not such a big job on a sunny day. The docking station of course needs a power supply and to face in a certain direction but again, not a problem.The quality of the cut is excellent, it cuts in straight lines every time and cuts from a different direction each time to give a healthy great looking lawn, with thick, healthy green grassIt does exactly what I bought it for and it is probably one of the best products that I have bought, the lawn always looks spot on. If I had any criticism it would be that it would be nice to have more adjustment in the blade height, but this is only minor and me trying to have a perfect lawn.

After three years ownership I think a review is due. I hope our experience helps you decide which robot mower to try.Update 05/06 Just had a most unpleasant conversation with a customer services agent at Bosch. Their systems seems totally out of control. My Indego has been sent to them three times and we have not had use of it for 6 weeks or more. They keep sending it back not working. I have stopped buying any of their products now as they seem to be unable to provide a reliable product and worse their customer service and repair centre seem unable to cope.My lesson is that these robots need a lot of maintenance and the customers service and repair systems just don’t seem to be capable of managing the situation. I want to buy another brand but when I check by simply calling the alternative suppliers customer service I am not convinced that they are set up to deal with the problems they will encounter.I am going back to my Honda petrol mowers until I find the robots are sufficiently supported.These are my opinions based about the Bosch Indego M+ 700 and its service set up based on my experience of owning one for very nearly 3 years. Obviously our garden and situation may not be typical or representative of other owners views. Please check out their reviews before making a decision on your robot mower.When it works it saves me a lot of time.When the Indego is playing up its quicker to use the sit on.If you have a smaller garden and the grass is flat with no slopes this review may not be directly relevant to you.Our garden is mage up of two areas, one is 235 square meters and the other is 340 square meters. It is mostly level but uneven.1st off the Indego M+ 700 very very unreliable.In the first year it went back for repair three or four times. That takes a lot of our time as the repair centre insist you communicate by email. So each repair takes about three weeks.9-12 weeks lost out of a short cutting season.In the 2nd year it went back twice I think then they sent me a new unit, this also needed to be returned for repair in that cutting season.Last year the replacement unit only went back once or twice. Later in the year it developed an internal error “1156 unrecognised battery” they sent me a new battery. Unfortunately this did not solve the problem but at least I had the machine where I could use it.This year is the end of our 3 year guarantee ends 22 May. After 22 May it’ll be all my responsibility. However, its already gone wrong and been returned. It was stopping with the unrecognised battery error again. This seems easy just reset and set it off again. But when it stops for this error it forgets how much it has cut and starts again. As I said our garden is 500 + square metres. It takes several hour for indego to cut this size of garden. It then has to repeat what ever its already done.The repair centre returned it not able to diagnose a problem.It of course went wrong the first time we tried to use it after its two week holiday at the repair centre.2nd Quality of cutWhen it works the bits it cut can look good. However, it usually misses large areas of the garden so to get a good cut you need to cut the garden usually three times.The replacement machine came with different wheels. These new wheels grip the ground more but they over rotate the unit so it cannot make parallel passes which it is meant to do in its program. Quite often it cuts triangles and not parallel sections. This of course leads to missed areas that it thinks it has cut. This leads to having to cut many times to get one cut.Its difficult to show the cut path error but the image below shows many different cut paths from one cut. In 1 cut they should all be parallel. Its also possible to see the uncut area between the right and left sloping areas.3 Software cutting logicThere is something wrong in the software strategy. It stops cutting an area of the lawn its working on and just goes somewhere else to cut there instead even though it had plenty of more to cut where it was. Later it trys to return to the various abandoned areas but of course it cannot locate them so it ends up cutting the area next to the area that it should be cutting that it has already cut. Hence another reason why you need to cut multiple times to get the lawn cut once.4 guide wireIndego needs a wire guide to operate. This was difficult to lay in our garden as it large and uneven. We discovered this year that the guide circuit had corroded and needed us to find 7 breaks in the wire all due to corrosion.5 Customer serviceThere is none as far as we know, you are directed to the service centre and only via email. I am sure the staff are wonderful but the blunt and unsympathetic emails sent to us make us feel they don’t cate less about the customer.I have a huge range of bosch tools but each time I replace a unit now I look for alternative suppliers.

I had such high hopes for something from Bosch....Laying the boundary wire is a bit tedious, but the same for all robot mowers, so not unique to this one.Where proverbial wheels come off is in the actual operation. Bosch claim it will cut in lines in some sort of controlled fashion. However.... Like 90% of robot mowers they are effectively dumb and don't have any navigation type sensors (unlike a robot vacuum) mowers pretty much bounce off the boundary wire in random directions until the lawn is cut. Bosch have tried to take this a step further by saying it will mow in straight lines based on the boundary wire, but the mower has no way to know it's going straight (it just assumes it is), so when a wet leaf or snails slime trail knocks it off course it has no idea, so just keeps cutting the same grass. Whilst the intention is sound it's massively problematic in real life. Damp grass for example gets stuck in the front wheels, pulling it off course, so then it's not cut where it thought it had, says lawn finished with chunks left untouched.Mine kept simply missing a patch in the middle of the lawn, it would only run for about 20mins before needing a charge, randomly fails to enter the dock, then drives round the garden till the battery goes flat ! Pretty useless for the price.I was hoping for something above the normal boundary wire bouncing tech, but this is actually worse. Stick to what works and save money

This has made a huge difference to us. Previously we didn’t have time to cut the lawn regularly, meaning it was too long to enjoy and not good for the lawn health. This lawnmower has been great, it’s set on a timer and cuts the lawn every other day even doing so whilst we were on holiday. It leaves stripes and cuts the grass systematically.