Segway Navimow i105N robot lawn mower review: smarter, simpler, superior?
Segway launched its new Navimow i Series robotic lawn mowers, including the hotly tipped Navimow i105N, just a few months back. I’ve reviewed a fair few robotic mowers in my time, and I had the feeling these new models could shake up TopTenReviews’ ranking of the best robot lawn mowers. So, I got straight in line to write a hands-on review.
One of the really interesting selling points of the i105N is that it works without a perimeter wire, relying instead upon a GPS antenna for navigation. That could mean a big improvement in setup time and flexibility—especially compared to alternative models where the perimeter wire has to be buried in a specially dug trench around the edge of the lawn. Clearly, ease of setup and accurate mowing were going to be key criteria in my review.
I was also interested to see that the Navimow app has an average rating of 4.8 stars on the Google Play Store—which is an incredible score, compared to other robotic lawn mower apps I’ve had the fortune (or misfortune) to use. So, I was keen to put the highly-rated app through its paces, too.
The i105N has a practically identical model in European territories, called the i105E. Both are designed to tend lawns with an area of up to ⅛ acre. For larger lawns (up to ¼ acre), there’s the heftier i110N.
This review might make you want to buy the i105N. If you do, just bear in mind this note on safety. Even though there are highly effective collision sensors on the mower, it's best to avoid using it while pets are roaming freely in the lawn area—and you certainly shouldn’t leave the robot running near a young child. So, either make the lawn area inaccessible to pets while the robot is operating, or use it at a time when you're able to supervise mowing.
Segway Navimow i105N: price & availability
This mower is not exactly cheap. If you're in the U.S., the i105N comes at an RRP of $999 via Segway, while British buyers can expect to pay £949 to a specialist retailer for the i105E. However, we think you get a very good product for the money you spend, with plenty of premium features at a relatively mid-market price.
Not many retailers currently stock the i105N, which leaves the Segway website as one of the best places to buy the mower. At this stage, deals on the recently launched i105N are hard to come by.
Score: 4.5 out of 5
Navimow i Series Robot Mower, 1/8 acre | $999 at Navimow
The i105N is the latest wireless robot lawn mower available from Navimow, which can be bought direct from the store. If you've got more ground to cover, the i110N can also be bought by following this link.View Deal
Segway Navimow i105N: setup
The i Series mower comes very efficiently packed, in quite a small box relative to its size. The package is light enough to be lifted by one confident person, or by two people using the cut-out handles at each end.
Helpfully, the packaging tells you which parts to unbox first. So, you lift out the piece of cardboard labeled A, before the ones labeled B and C. This prevents damage to the packaging, which can be kept for safe winter storage of the mower. We appreciate this long-termist, sustainable approach.
The mower comes with both a quick start guide and a safety information booklet. There’s a lot of info to take in, so pour yourself a cup of coffee and take an hour out to thoroughly absorb all of the information. While the info booklet runs to well over 300 pages, the English language section is just 16 pages long. Perhaps Segway could save some paper and ink by letting buyers request a shorter guide in their language.
My first task during setup was to download the Navimow app (which is available for both iOS and Android operating systems). Pairing the i Series mower with my Bluetooth and Wi-Fi proved wonderfully quick and easy, compared to my experiences with some of the other robotic lawn mowers I’ve reviewed over the years. This is despite the fact my household Wi-Fi is still as mediocre as ever!
Next, I set to work on siting the mower’s charging station and antenna. There are guidelines on where these items can be placed – for instance, the antenna needs to be over two meters away from the house and large obstacles such as trees, while the charging base must be placed on perfectly flat ground. (I found out, during my testing, that a flat surface is mandatory!)
The charging base can be firmly screwed into the ground using the fixings and hex key provided. You should secure any wires running from the charging station to your antenna and household electricity using the plastic stakes supplied, as this will minimize the risk of tripping.
While this mower comes with quite a lot of accessories, most of them are easy to install. For instance, the sections of the antenna pole just click together, leaving you the minorly fiddly task of securing the GPS device itself to the top of the pole using the short, black screw supplied (with your own cross-head screwdriver).
You’ll also need to bed the antenna into the ground, using a three-pronged stake. This task may teach you a thing or two about the depth of your topsoil. In my case, the ground gets hard at quite a shallow depth—so I had to whack the stake into the soil using a hammer.
With your antenna installed in the lawn, you can go ahead and attach it to the charging base. The process is easy, but make sure you're plugging the cable into the antenna input on the charging base, rather than the power input. The two look very similar. Four velcro ties are supplied, so you can secure the cable tightly up the length of the pole.
I was impressed to note that this robotic lawn mower comes with a really generous power cable, measuring 10 meters. For some households, this longer-than-usual connection will open up the possibility of running the wire safely, all the way to an indoor power socket (although this will, of course, involve running the cable into the building).
The robot acknowledges you with a little bleep when the power is connected – so you'll know when you've set it up correctly.
Score: 5 out of 5
Segway Navimow i105N: Design
Key to the i105E’s design is the interaction between the robotic mower and its antenna accessory, which enables the robot to mow precisely where you want, without the use of a perimeter wire. It’s a game-changing feature that saves effort during setup, and gives you fine control and flexibility in the long term. If you ever want to add a no-mow area or change the mowing boundary, you can do it anytime, in-app – so there’s no need to mess around with wires.
The robot itself is very stoutly built, with hard, chunky plastic used throughout. It's a classic, front-heavy, bug-like robotic mower design, which shares some design DNA with previous models from the likes of Flymo and Gardena.
A digital display on the top face of the robot gives you some essential status info, including the current charge state (0-100). There’s also a circular LED status indicator on the mower itself, which will give you a quick, colorful read on the robot’s performance status. And to keep you in the loop while the robot is powering up, the charging station also shows a status indicator light, which shines brightly even in sunny weather. You activate the mower via its ‘Okay’ button. Providing its on-board battery has enough charge, it’s ready to mow almost as soon as you turn it on – just wait for the bleep.
One of the great things about the i105N is that it’s very ‘plug-in-and-play’, relative to most models. You don’t need a diploma in robotics to work out how to use it. But for feature-focused users, there are plenty of advanced capabilities to tap into, including scheduled mowing, weather adaptivity and an anti-theft alarm.
The i105N is not the easiest robotic mower to pick up, with no handles or grips around the outside. Eventually, I discovered the carry handles on the underside of the robot, at the front end and using these made it easy to carry either one-handed or two-handed.
Please don’t reach right under the mower while trying to find the carry handles, as the mower’s trio of cutting razors are also located on the underside, towards the center. With this in mind, the location of the handles (and blades) could be signposted more clearly.
Studying the underside of the mower will give you an idea of how it moves and mows. There are three, razor-sharp cutting blades, which are spun to mow the grass, and allow the cuttings to fall back onto the lawn. Be careful not to touch these sharp blades. Also on the mower’s underside are its hefty drive wheels, which have a very deep tread to assist with traversal, and a pair of trailing caster wheels for stability. This two-wheel-drive design will suit most lawns, but may lead to difficulties with traversal in poor conditions.
Score: 4.5 out of 5
Segway Navimow i105N: key specs
Segway Navimow i105N: Performance
I was super-impressed with the i105N's mowing performance, throughout a testing period lasting several weeks. The robot mowed the grass very effectively, and navigated flawlessly using its wire-free, antenna-assisted navigation.
There was just one teething problem, during the first use. Soon after starting the robot up, I identified that I’d made a slight error during setup: the charging station wasn’t on a suitably flat surface, so the treads on the mower’s wheels were sliding off the grips on the charging station. It turns out that the i105E has very low tolerance for incline in this context – so I moved the base to a more suitable location.
The first time you use your i Series robotic lawn mower, it’ll get you to map out its ‘work area’, so that it will mow only where you want it to. This is done by using your smartphone to remote-control the mower around the lawn – which is great fun, once you’ve gotten the hang of it.
I steered the mower carefully around the perimeter of the lawn, avoiding obstacles such as plant pots and trees. It takes some practice to use the steering controls correctly, but ultimately, the app-based control works effectively. It’s a little bit like driving a remote control car.
For users with multiple areas of lawn, there’s an option to designate passages that the robot can use to traverse from one lawn to another. You can also mark off-limit islands on the lawn map, such as mid-lawn flower beds and ponds, and set vision fence-off zones, which prevents the robot’s collision avoidance camera from operating while the mower is facing a place you don’t want it to ‘see’.
While mapping your lawn area, do bear in mind that the mower needs some clearance to turn its back end, which protrudes a little. You can't mow right up to the edge of obstacles.
Robotic lawn mowers often work slowly, requiring several passes to cut the grass effectively. Meanwhile, in my testing, the i105N mowed more like one of the best lawn mowers of any type, producing an impressively clean cut at the first attempt. It even proved capable of cutting weeds such as dandelions, as well as the grass itself.
Of course, as there is no grass collector, the cut grass just falls back onto the lawn – which is fine if you’re happy for grass cuttings to act as a mulch, but not ideal for users who prefer a super-smart lawn.
The mower operates really quietly, at about 60 decibels according to my sound meter. That’s about as loud as a subdued conversation. You can tweak the cutting height by very fine increments, using a manual selector dial on the top of the machine which runs from 2 - 3.6". This gives you the option to either keep your lawn more natural, or have it really clean cut. During my testing, changing the cutting height created a pleasingly noticeable difference at the various height settings I tried out.
In terms of collision avoidance, the i105N performed excellently during our testing. I tried standing in its way during mowing, and the robot simply stopped, then steered away. It makes a fairly loud beeping noise when it’s about to start, which should help you to avoid any surprise collisions during start-up.
As with any robotic lawnmower, you can't use the i105N right up to the very edge of your lawn. So, you might choose to leave the lawn borders longer as a ‘rewilded’ area, or you could use a string trimmer to cut those more unruly areas.
On the lawn, the robot seemed to have no problems with traversal over bumpy patches or gentle slopes. It stuck to the boundaries I’d created in-app tremendously well.
The i105N's battery life seemed more than adequate, throughout testing. Each time it fully mowed my relatively small lawn, it used up about a quarter of its charge in the process.
Score: 5 out of 5
Segway Navimow i105N: Cleaning and maintenance
Any devoted lawn mower owner knows it's a good idea to clean the underside of these machines from time to time – and this applies to robotic mowers as well as manual ones.
Every now and then, upend the i105N and brush away dry grass cuttings, while keeping clear of the sharp blades at the centre. You also have the options to rinse the mower with water, thanks to its IP66-rated weather resistance.
The blades should be replaced from time to time, to ensure optimal mowing performance. It's a simple job, but you will require a crosshead screwdriver to install or uninstall the components.
Segway Navimow i105N: User reviews
User ratings of the Navimow i105N are consistently excellent, which tallies with my experience during testing.
Amazon customers in the U.S. have awarded the mower an average rating of 4.4 stars, with many reviewers remarking upon the product's high build quality and ease-of-use.
Encouragingly, users also rated the i105N highly for value-for-money, which is impressive given the mower's $999 price tag.
Should you buy the Segway Navimow i105N
Buy it if...
Don't buy it if...
How does the Segway Navimow i105N compare?
The Segway Navimow i105N (or the i105E in the UK) instantly ranks as one of TopTenReviews' most highly recommended robotic lawn mowers.
With that said, this is not the only robotic mower that's worth your consideration. Another wire-free option is the Luba AWD 5000, which offers superior traversal capabilities, but which lacks the i105N's precise navigation.
Meanwhile, if you love the sound of the i105N but your lawn is closer to 1/4 acre in size, you should pick the Segway Navimow i110N instead.
If you're struggling to pick the model for you, take a look at our guide on how to choose a robotic lawn mower.
How I tested the Segway Navimow i105N
Used rigorously for several springtime mows
Challenged with mowing around an irregular boundary, avoiding obstacles such as trees and plant pots
I tested the Segway Navimow i105N by setting the robot and its accessories up on my lawn, and using it for several mows during spring 2024. The model is nearly identical to the i105E, which is sold in the UK.
Because a key selling point of the i105N is its wire free, boundaried mowing, I looked closely at its navigational capabilities and ease of setup. Read more about how we test.
Navimow i Series Robot Mower, 1/8 acre | $999 at Navimow
The i105N is the latest wireless robot lawn mower available from Navimow, which can be bought direct from the store. If you've got more ground to cover, the i110N can also be bought by following this link.View Deal
