The interwebs have been buzzing about a new bot on the block, and it may not be what you’re thinking. The EcoFlow Blade robotic mower is a lawn care solution that uses cutting-edge technology to mow your lawn autonomously, but this one seems to be blazing a new trail in the world of robotic mowers. Could it be a cut above the rest?
The following blog is a transcription of a recent youtube video we posted where Seth and Martin from Autmow give their honest review of the EcoFlow BLADE: how the first robotic mower with a sweeper attachment stands out among all the other mowers out there (video below). Our resident robotic mowing experts dish on design, the app interface, the drive and cutting systems, and some hiccups we experienced along the way. Let’s see if it lives up to the hype.
First Seth and Martin begin by discussing the unboxing experience and the overall features of the EcoFlow Blade. The Blade is equipped with a variety of sensors, including GPS, RTK, and LiDAR, that allow it to navigate your yard accurately and avoid obstacles. The Blade also has a variety of features that make it easy to use, such as a virtual boundary system, a rain sensor, and an app that allows you to control the mower from your smartphone.
Next, they discuss their personal experience with the EcoFlow Blade discuss some the pros and cons. It has a number of pros, including its ease of use, its long battery life, and its ability to mow even large lawns. However, the Blade also has a few cons, such as its high price tag and its occasional tendency to get stuck.
Finally, the boys give their overall verdict on the EcoFlow Blade. Overall, they conclude the Blade is a great robotic lawn mower. It’s packed with features that make it perfect for anyone who wants a beautiful lawn without the work. However, the Blade is also a bit expensive, so it may not be the best option for everyone. If you are interested in learning more, don’t hesitate to contact Autmow so we can help get you up and running!
Unboxing the ECOFLOW BLADE
Seth: Hi! We’re here to check out the new EcoFlow Blade. This mower’s untested. It’s brand new. We haven’t seen any real world applications of it yet, so we aren’t currently carrying this product, but we had to get our hands on it so we could let you know exactly what we think. And we’re thankful EcoFlow let us get a hold of a unit, because I definitely know that I’ve been seeing them all over Instagram, Facebook, everywhere. I mean, there’s no shortage of videos on this product right now, but there’s a shortage of Autmow videos on this product right now, so we’re going to fill that void, give the people what they want. Let’s get into it.
Martin: The EcoFlow design—the unboxing experience I think—is where we should start. In short, it was a phenomenal experience. We did a full video on it. If you want to check that out, pop on over. But then the actual mower itself too has a very unique, very futuristic design.
Martin: It’s like the first time we saw the Luba, it was different from anything else we’d seen and it wasn’t just different to be different. I liked the way that it looked. And same thing with this one. I really like the way that it looks aesthetically. It looks kind of like a mechanical grasshopper, but it’s just cool looking.
Seth: Yeah, it reminds me almost of an old tractor, kinda modernized a little bit.
Martin: It sort of just brought them both together perfectly.
Seth: Yes, exactly. Overall the build quality, it seems really robust. Everything’s sturdy.
Martin: The EcoFlow Blade comes in at like 35 pounds, which is heavier than your typical automower. But with that is some nice aluminum alloy framing and just really good solid build quality like you said. Now the next thing we did is we set it up, got it on the ground and started using the app. I personally really liked the app as well. You could tell EcoFlow has done stuff like this before with their preexisting ecosystem of products and they were able to marry this product into a really well-thought-out app that I didn’t really have any problems using.
Seth: I agree. And I mean, yeah, we ran into a few little minor issues here and there, but a lot of the issues are software. I think the hardware’s about there and I think the software can be fine-tuned from here to really round this out and make it more polished.
A new spin on drive systems
Robotic mower drive systems are the heart of all robotic mowers. They’re responsible for powering the mower’s wheels and allowing it to move around the yard. There are two main types of robotic mower drive systems: wheeled and tracked.
Wheeled drive systems are the most common type of robotic mower drive system. They’re typically powered by electric motors and use wheels to move around the yard. Tracked drive systems are less common, but they are becoming more popular. They’re powered by electric motors and use tracks to move around the yard. Tracked drive systems are better suited for mowing uneven terrain, such as hills or slopes.
The EcoFlow Blade drive system is a unique hybrid design that combines the best of both wheeled and tracked drive systems. It uses two high-torque brushless motors to power the rear wheels, while the front wheels are directional rollers. This allows the Blade to move smoothly over uneven terrain, while still being easy to maneuver. The Blade’s drive system is also very efficient, which helps to extend the mower’s battery life. The Blade can mow up to 0.7 acres on a single charge, which is more than most other robotic mowers. Let’s see what Seth and Martin have to say about it:
Martin: The problems we did run into were solved by the old ‘shut up and reboot’ mantra, whether it was like a firmware update or turn it on, turn it off. And it seemed like it was more of us maybe doing things in the wrong sequence than it was. I don’t know. I don’t want to throw all the blame on the programmers.
Seth: No, I mean I can tell they’ve worked hard on it. It is new. It’s feedback like this and feedback from customers that’ll help polish it up and really make it a good long-term solution. So what’re your thoughts on the drive system?
The drive system itself was one of those that I had to see in person to really wrap my brain around how it was gonna work. The studded wheels in the back I thought were very aggressive and wanted to see how they grabbed onto shorter grass, longer grass, dirt, mud. But what obviously is going to catch everyone’s eyes is those omnidirectional wheels and the front, I mean they’re slanted in at about a 45 degree angle. They rotate inwards towards the chassis and then the bearings, if you will, are what gives it its directional movement. And it works. It works, it does its job. I’m curious to see maybe gunking up with mud, things like that, how that’ll affect it. But for all intents and purposes, it definitely got the job done.
Seth: Those studded tires, a little bit soft, a little bit hard, very toothy, had no issues in the grass. With the omnidirectional front wheels and no power on those and with it being wheel driven, maybe it’s gonna have a hard time holding onto the straighter lines. We saw a few times where it did kinda veer a little bit, but I think again, that’s gonna be fine-tuning the wheel motors to adjust quickly.
Martin: The other thing that I’ll point out, and this is gonna actually play into how the drive system works with the cut deck is when we saw it do its kinda zero point turns. The cut deck actually articulates and floats about 20, 30 degrees in either direction, which is a cool concept. It’ll handle the contours in your yard well, but we saw in this real thick grass that we’re in right now, the cut deck got caught and then it would actually slant up, get caught in the grass and there’s so much torque at those back wheels that it actually popped the mower up and then threw it into an error state.
Seth: It does expose the cut deck. It does resolve itself pretty quickly. And back to that error code, yes it throws the error code, but unlike some other products we’ve seen, when it does throw an error code, it tries to self resolve the problem. So say this happens and you’re not home, it’s not sitting and waiting.
I really appreciated that, it’s like, “Look, okay, I’m back to normal. Let me see if I can keep working.” And something we’d talked about resolving that is maybe not having the tighter turns on the pattern cut. Maybe do offset cutting, and I think that could help a lot because it doesn’t need to do that full 180 in one spot versus sweeping it out a little bit. Going back to the install, even mapping. I had an easier job of turning and getting the map set up when I was a bit more gradual with it and I didn’t just stop, turn and say, “Go left immediately.”
The ecoflow blade in action
In this next section, our experts discuss their personal experience using the EcoFlow Blade on their very own lawns. They cover everything from flawless 180 degree turns, to how the Blade performs on difficult lawns, to how it handles foreign objects such as twine and wiffle balls (oops!). Let’s see what they have to say:
Martin: I had the same experience over the weekend when I was installing the EcoFlow Blade in my yard. I’ve got a lot of real thin stem clover, wild grass, not fertilized, maintained necessarily the way that this one is. I didn’t see any of those issues over the weekend. It performed flawless 180 degree turns, it ran very quickly throughout all the grass and the cut quality was really fantastic. So it’s always gonna boil down to what we say all the time. Is this the right mower for this particular yard?
Seth: Yeah. I’m thinking about how this mower performs on shorter grass types. If it’s mowing Bermuda grass or something that’s intended to be cut short, I think the Blade wouldn’t have any of these problems. But when you get into the thicker grasses like Kentucky Bluegrass, where it dips and drops, those toothy wheels grab and torque the chassis. But, I liked that the blades were a bit longer than some of the other blades that we’ve seen.
Martin: My yard is an absolute hellscape for robotic mowers. That’s why we like to turn ’em loose out there to really see what it is they can and can’t do, how much we can push them. We have some photos where the blades actually are pretty chunked up and chipped where it obviously ran into some rocks.
Seth: To that point though, I think it really does underscore the importance of helping your mower. As it finds these things for you or you find these issues, you wanna correct those ’cause you wanna make your yard as robot friendly as possible. Because the more effort you put in there, the less effort you have to put in to keep these running. It’s gonna have fewer and fewer problems. It’s going to go out, do its job, be done. You’re not going to have to babysit as much as you might if you just like you said, set it loose in a rough yard.
Martin: Yeah. The other thing that I did notice with the cut system, and I feel like we gotta call this out, I had apparently a piece of random twine that was left in my yard that got wrapped around up underneath the cut disc at the actual blade motor shaft itself. The mower didn’t go into an error state. It just kept operating as if it thought the blade motor was turning but it was not. It was in effect seized up due to that twine being wrapped around it. And that kinda worries me that if I would’ve let it continue, what kind of damage would’ve been done?
The other one was my kid and my brother-in-law were playing wiffle ball and a ball just happened to run right in front of the mower and it got pretty chewed up. Now don’t get me wrong, toys in the yard aren’t necessarily going to get sensed by lidar. I mean it was a ball that was this big around.
Seth: And it’s not going get ejected out the side if you were, say—using a manual push mower.
Martin: It basically just ran the ball over, chewed it up and just kept going, which I’m fine with. I mean, it was a wiffle ball, it shouldn’t’ve been in the yard in the first place. On the flip side of that, we had my kid who’s four, my niece there who was two out playing in the yard while the mower was operating and the object avoidance was phenomenal. The lidar system on this is fantastic. It stopped a solid two, three feet in front of a kid or any type of object in front of it. Went around it and kept doing its thing. I never once was scared to have my family in the yard playing around it.
Seth: While we’re on that subject, real quick, mapping the EcoFlow Blade is a little bit different than some of the others I’ve seen in that you can’t set two points for a straight line. It really maps continuously. So just be wary of how you’re driving. You kinda can’t get lackadaisical. I had a couple errors where I didn’t hold a good straight line, but if you’re doing your property line or anything that’s a longer straight run, just go slow. Take your time. Maybe set up a few things ahead of time that you can kinda use.
Martin: It essentially just drove over the ball, chewed it up and continued on its course, which I’m fine with. After all, the wiffle ball shouldn’t have been in the yard in the first place. On the other hand, we had my four-year-old kid and my two-year-old niece playing in the yard while the mower was running, and the object avoidance was remarkable. The Lidar system on this is exceptional. It stopped a good two, three feet in front of a child or any object in its path, maneuvered around it, and continued its job. Not once was I afraid to let my family play in the yard with it running.
Seth: Yes. Obviously, it’s one of the major selling points of the EcoFlow Blade, and the system itself is well-constructed. It assembles quite easily. It seems sturdy. The design appears good. Referring back to the type of grass, we’re mowing something really thick and encountered some problems.
Martin: It filled up almost instantly. To be fair, this grass was just cut before we arrived, and there are clippings everywhere. So it was expected it filled up really fast, which also tells me it does its job really well. It effectively collects the clippings and stores them in the bag. So I think that’s somewhat of a no harm, no foul situation in my opinion. It is heavier and a bit louder than I anticipated.
Seth: I suppose if you’re attempting to take a nap beside it, you might struggle. But again, if you’re setting it up and you’re doing something else, you’re performing some other lawn care task. This is essentially an assistant.
You’re working on job B while it’s handling job A. It’ll notify you, “Hey boss, I need some assistance here.”
Martin: Yeah, “Come empty me.”
Seth: And you go, dump it and you can get back to your job. So you’re not dedicating all your time to it. It’s really taking in a mindset of how and when to use this. So back to that point of how much is it sweeping? So if you’re doing leaves or clippings, if there’s a lot of it, it’s going to need to empty frequently, but if you’re doing leaves relatively on a frequent basis, when leaves are starting to fall, it’s going to pick those up and you’re going to have to empty them. You’re going to get more leaves before you need to empty it. So if you wait a couple weeks and they all accumulate, that’s what it’s going to do. It’s going to pick them all up and it’s going to say, “I’m full.”
a note on user experience
One very important aspect many buyers overlook is what using the mower is actually like. Sometimes features can be really dazzling on the showroom floor, but it’s hard to tell how practical some may be until you’ve already made the purchase. But don’t worry—once again, our experts have done the work for you. Here’s their take on the user experience of the EcoFlow Blade:
Martin: Regarding the noise factor, it is significantly quieter than conventional lawn mowing systems, sweeping systems, and the like. It’s just a comparison with other robotic mowers.
Seth: Similar to Automower, the Luba, some of the Roomba mowers. The EcoFlow Blade is about the same, maybe a little louder.
Martin: Another thing that I didn’t realize until we started using it is that it cannot mow and sweep simultaneously.
Seth: That’s an important mention because I certainly presumed that it could.
Martin: So did I.
Seth: However, it does make sense. If you’re trying to mow and it’s bagging this, and you just want to mow, you’ve essentially committed yourself to come out and empty the sweeper or the bag. So I understand why it’s like, “You should concentrate on mowing first, then I’ll pick it up. That way, you can finish mowing, cut it down, then go pick it up.” Also, considering that it operates on a battery, managing the battery with both motors running simultaneously? This thing would probably only last about 20 minutes before needing a recharge.
The verdict
Well it’s been fun, but we suppose it’s time to bring this experiment to a close. After much consideration and use, our experts share their take on the EcoFlow Blade. In their exploration, they looked at the design, the app interface, the drive and cutting systems, and some hiccups they experienced along the way.
Here are their final thoughts:
Seth: Yes, I must admit, I’m impressed with the tactfulness of the EcoFlow Blade arms and their speedy rotation, as well as their remarkable pickup capacity. Considering this, it must be a massive drain on the battery. During setup, we encountered a few issues which I believe can be traced back to the density of your grass. There were some odd areas we set up where it struggled, possibly due to the RTK, some inherent rules it has, or just the added drag from the bagger.
Martin: Implementing a wider turn, or maybe alternating your lines of operation, like a combine or a Zamboni on an ice rink, would likely improve its functionality. What are your overall impressions?
Seth: One significant feature is that it’s wireless. We didn’t encounter many problems in terms of signal strength.
Martin: At both my house and this one, it connected to a signal instantly. I didn’t observe any signal degradation.
Seth: Considering the price point, it performs quite well. That is another crucial factor. It’s capable of cutting patterns in a quarter-acre, wirelessly.
Martin: It’s actually a three-quarter acre.
Seth: My apologies, you’re correct. It’s three-quarters of an acre. Thank you.
Martin: Let’s talk about the cutting system on the EcoFlow Blade – its cutting height ranges from 1.6 to 3.1 inches. I’d also like to highlight that the caged wraparound design of the cut deck, presumably for safety, has its downsides.
Seth: Indeed, there are drawbacks. It did a commendable job of trapping and holding grass. So if you’re cutting a long length of grass or mowing in damp conditions, you might encounter more issues than if you were to mow when it’s dry, cutting only a small amount as recommended.
Martin: Also, you’ll want to be careful about pine cones; they tend to get stuck in there.
Seth: Still, it offers many features and solid build quality, which makes its price more reasonable compared to other models I’ve seen.
Martin: And on that note, the lawn sweeper kit is an additional $700 on top of the base price of the mower. It’s not part of the package.
Seth: Right, you could initially buy just the mower, and then decide later to add the bagging option; that would be a separate purchase.
Martin: Exactly. We found that it operates well in a place like my house, which has thin-stemmed clover and wild grass. I was excited to test it on this particular lawn, but the results were a bit disappointing. That said, we conduct these tests to figure out where it performs best and what to watch out for. In this case, we’re dealing with thick, well-maintained, fertilized Ohio mixed grass, which caused some issues. The cutting deck would get caught up on the grass, and the lawn sweeper might add some drag due to the height and thickness of the grass.
Seth: Yes, if we’re talking about St. Augustine or Bermuda grass, it’s likely to perform better on Bermuda and probably struggle with St. Augustine. Many mowers do, as it’s a tough type of grass for robotic mowers. All-wheel drive could solve many of these problems. We’ve tried it once and we’ll continue testing. Perhaps once we’ve trimmed the grass to a height where it doesn’t struggle as much, some of these issues might disappear. This is, after all, a first impressions video. I’d like to revisit this once we’ve really tested it in various situations and perhaps compare it to other mowers. If anyone has suggestions for mowers to compare it with, or features we haven’t discussed, or test case scenarios, please let us know.
In Conclusion
That about wraps up our review of the EcoFlow Blade. Seth and Martin found the Blade has a number of pros such as ease of use, its ability to mow large lawns, and a surprisingly long battery life. However, the high price tag and its occasional tendency to get stuck are some cons of the EcoFlow Blade—buy hey, there had to be something, right?
Overall, our experts feel the Blade is a great robotic lawn mower that won’t disappoint. It’s packed with a ton of features that make it perfect for anyone who wants a well-trimmed sea of green without the hassle. However we must mention it again that the Blade is also a bit expensive, so there may be better options out there if you’re searching for something at a lower price point.
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