Roborock RockMow Z130 Robot Lawnmower

Three thousand square metres, done properly, while you are doing something else.

The Z130 is the machine for open ground. Where the Z120 feels its way around a tight garden with lasers, this one takes its position from satellites and holds a straight line across distance — which is what you need once a lawn gets big enough that wandering off course by half a metre starts leaving stripes and missed patches behind.

Three-quarters of an acre, near enough. Still no boundary wire.

What RTK actually does

Ordinary satellite positioning — the sort in your phone — is accurate to a few metres. That is fine for finding a road and useless for mowing. RTK adds a small fixed antenna at your house as a reference point, and by comparing what it receives against what the mower receives, the pair of them cancel out the error. The result is accuracy measured in centimetres rather than metres, right across the garden.

Where the trees close in and the satellites drop out, it switches to reading its cameras instead and carries on without a fuss. You will not notice the handover.

The antenna, and where it goes

This is the one genuine installation job, and it is worth understanding before you buy. The antenna needs a clear view of the sky — a gable end, a shed roof, a pole in an open spot. It comes with a pole as standard; there is a wall mount kit if you would rather get it up out of the way, and an extension cable if the best spot for signal is not the most convenient spot for a cable.

Send us a photo of the house and garden before you order and we will tell you where it should go. It takes two minutes and it saves people moving it twice.

What a big lawn looks like in practice

The 7.5 Ah battery gives about 140 minutes of mowing — well over two hours — and takes about 70 minutes to fill again. It works in shifts: out, mow, home, charge, back out, picking up where it left off. That is how a garden far larger than one charge gets covered without you doing anything. Set it going and it works away at it across the day.

You can carve the garden into 15 zones and treat them differently: the good lawn cut short and often, the paddock end less so, the bit by the pond left alone entirely.

Drumlins, ditches and wet ground

Four-wheel drive and an 80% climbing ability — about 39 degrees. Around here that matters more than the headline area figure, because very few Monaghan gardens are flat. On heavy or persistently wet ground the rough-terrain wheels are worth having; they dig in where the standard set would spin.

IPX6 rated with rain and frost sensors, so it takes itself home when the weather comes in and hoses clean afterwards.

Around people, pets and wildlife

Cameras front and back spot obstacles and route around them rather than bumping into them, and lift and tilt sensors stop the blades immediately if it is picked up. At 61 dB it is a shade quieter than the Z120, which is worth knowing if the lawn runs close to a bedroom window.

The numbers

• Covers up to 3,000 m² at 160 m² an hour
• Cuts 24 cm wide, 20–70 mm high, adjusted electrically
• 7.5 Ah battery — about 140 minutes mowing, about 70 minutes to recharge
• Full-band RTK with camera backup, up to 15 zones
• WiFi, Bluetooth and 4G with three years included
• Alarm, live GPS, PIN lock and AirTag compatible
• 61 dB · IPX6 · 21.3 kg

Z120, Z130 or Z150?

It is less about the size of the lawn than people expect. If the garden is enclosed, tree-heavy or awkwardly shaped, the Z120 and its lasers will be happier, even on a smaller plot. If it is open ground up to three-quarters of an acre, the Z130 is the sweet spot. Past that, or if you simply want it finished faster, the Z150 cuts half again as quickly.

Ring us with the size and a description of the layout and we will tell you which one, including when the answer is the cheaper one.