SILENO Minimo 5400 sq ft

The Great: We’ve had this mower for two years and it’s held up well. Our lawn is small, but it has mowed quietly enough at midnight not to disturb us or our (fussy) neighbors. I don’t think they even know we have it. It does well in rain, too. Setup wasn’t so bad, except wiring the yard. If you follow videos posted by the company on YouTube (I think from Australia or the UK), it’s pretty easy. Cleaning really has been as easy as hosing it down or even just brushing off accumulated grass clippings with your hand. It’s pretty safe, too. The blades are small and many inches inset from the edges of the machine. It would be difficult for it to accidentally injure our dog or a small animal unless they actively flipped it over and chewed on the tiny blades (our dog has no interest in it). I doubt it would even run her over; it bumps into things softly, like a robot vacuum does (though I don’t think she’d just lie around and let it go over her leg or tail in the first place). The Meh: The app could be better. Occasionally, we’ll find that the device stopped running - for no apparent reason - and we have to hard reboot it and delete and reset our schedule in the app all over again to get it running. The app has also never kept track of previous mows (even though it’s supposed to). Lastly, sometimes the charging indicator is waaay off. It’ll go from 100% to 0% to 5% to 20% in seconds. But it has worked and mowed on schedule most of the time. And, because the blades are inset from the edges of the device (they’re in the middle of the bottom), it doesn’t always get the edges of the lawn done when there’s a flower bed stopping the mower from overshooting the perimeter of the lawn itself. That’s fine. I do the edges it can’t get once a week. I don’t need to do the edges that are adjacent to the sidewalk, since it can overshoot and cut those. The Bad: There is NO customer support in the US. I reached the (I believe it was) Australian customer service, who sent me to the Canadian (“North American,” but really just Canadian) customer service, who sent me to the “US” customer service, but the US team never answered calls or returned emails. The Canadian team couldn’t do US support at the time. If you’re in the US, you won’t get support. (At least, as of late ‘22/early ‘23.) But we eventually got to the bottom of the issue ourselves. Why 5 stars? Despite the flaws, it has been a generally reliable product for about 2 years, and it was a budget option compared to the competition. I’m not sure that paying more for another brand would yield any better results. Value to dollar is great, as who’s gonna get someone to mow their lawn 2-3x/week for 2+ years for under $600 (and not have to worry about locking up dogs/granting yard access)? Who wants to do it themselves on their days off?

I like the design of the mower but it requires lots of manual intervention and check up. The gardena mower only connects to the phone via bluetooth but you will have to always open the app or check on the mower to know what is going on with the mower. Sometimes, the mower has stopped working for hours before I could realize that it needs manual help and sometimes the mower can't find it's way to the charger and the battery ran out so it is stuck somewhere in the lawn (Not sure if there is way to add more guide wires - still looking through the manual for that). The pros of the mower is that is looks prettier than the other mowers in the market and it is very quiet. However, the fact that there is no app notification, and no Wi-Fi connectivity tarnished the experience for me. I would recommend anyone wanting to buy this mower to consider the Worx Landroid which has these additional features for similar price. I could have returned my mower but unfortunately, the return window closed on me before I could make up my mind. To gardena, if the mower supports software update, the mower should be updated to communicate it's operating states to the owner via phone notifications since the mower has a controller app. Also, the mower cuts too low for my lawn which is basically killing my lawn by how low it cuts. The mower's maximum cut height is 2 inches. If your lawn is very thick, your lawn may fair well, but my lawn is not very thick, and the 2 inches max cut height exposes the lawn soil to the scorch of the sun thereby drying it out and in turn causing the lawn to suffer. I am considering going back to my traditional mower to allow my lawn to recover to its somewhat healthy state it was before I started using this mower. Overall, I am not happy with this mover at all, and would appreciate it if I can get my $1000+ back.

This is an extremely convenient little device, if like me you absolutely hate mowing, don’t mind a little setup and prep, and don’t care about a “perfect” lawn. So let me preface this full review with: I absolutely loathe mowing. I tend to avoid it as much as possible and as such my yard frequently gets out of control very quickly in the Florida rain. That being said, this little guy is exactly what someone like me needs, something to make my yard look presentable without all the hours of manual work. And it’s probably the coolest thing I now own. Prep and Setup I definitely suggest watching the YouTube videos from the manufacturer on how to unbox and setup the mower, the included guide was quite lengthy and a little hard to follow but after watching the videos, setup was a breeze. Unboxing everything was also easy, everything was packed and labeled nicely, and I was actually surprised with how compact the mower was. You absolutely need to clear out your yard of any large branches or obstacles that the mower might catch on. I did see it get stuck on some branches that I missed cleaning up. The hardest and lengthiest part of setup is definitely setting up the boundary/guide wire. This process involves outlining your yard with the included wire. These wires connect back to the base station where I’m assuming it then gets power to tell the mower where the boundary limits are. There’s also a guide wire that runs from the base station to the boundary wire where they’re spliced together with an included coupler. If you’re not familiar with cutting and joining wires this might seem a little daunting but honestly after watching the videos it was very straightforward. The biggest thing is to absolutely make sure the wire is firmly in the ground. The instructions give 2 options: One using stakes and the other to bury the wire. I opted to use the stakes, but I made the initial mistake of not using more of them closer together and the mower got tangled in the wire, this was an easy fix by making sure about every 2 feet of wire a stake was put down to hold it down (they included a lot of stakes). Running the mower As soon as you power on the mower you go through a simple install wizard to set your preferences and schedule. You also can override the schedule to test it out and let it run. You should definitely watch it the first time to make sure it runs smoothly but after that it’s basically set it and forget it. I don’t know if it could handle large brush, but I had mowed my lawn a few weeks prior, so it didn’t have to work very hard. I watched it go for about 30 minutes before I went back inside where I continually checked on it, it didn't get stuck and after a couple hours made it's way back to the base station to charge up for the day. Setting up the App There's another review on here that mentioned not having the Bluetooth model and not being able to use the app, which got me thinking the one I had also didn't have Bluetooth. Turns out all their models have Bluetooth, you just need to have the app open and turn off the mower while it's in the station and turn it back on. It was listed as P0.2 on my phone, I renamed him to 'Fenton'. My Android phone picked it up almost immediately and I was pretty happy with the options, which allows you to better select your schedule or spot mow a specific area where you place it and of course manually start it for a set period. Charging Station Cover The weather is quite sporadic here in Florida, getting the charging station cover or "Garage" is a nice addition to not have to worry about it. It provides a nice little cover from the extreme heat and the Florida downpours. While the guide says the mower is built for all types of weather, I do recommend getting the cover if you'd like a little more peace of mind. Install takes all of 5 minutes and looks like it's built to last. Final thoughts The mower is insanely quiet, I only ever heard the blade when it hit a taller piece of grass. I was also very surprised with how maneuverable it is. I have very soft, leaf ridden soil and so my push mower constantly digs into the always wet soil, and it makes it pretty difficult sometimes to mow. This little guy I guess is light enough that it hasn’t gotten stuck. All that being said, this mower is not a “do it all” type of device, at least not for my yard. I set my boundaries to basically a large open area, I’ll have to touch up the areas where I thought it wouldn’t work very well because of large brush or just obstacles that would get in the way. I would highly recommend this mower to people with very “simple” yard layouts and those who hate mowing. For me it’s extremely convenient having a freshly kept yard without doing any of the work.

When it's finally working it seems to do what it's supposed to do. Setup was mostly ok. Laying wire into the ground etc. wasn't too difficult. However, I had a tremendous amount of problems with getting the app to work. Eventually I figured out the iOS app has issues. I manually updated the mower (by downloading the update on a computer and downloading update to mower through a USB cable). But iOS app still didn't work. I eventually managed to get things working using the android app through my kid's chromebook. Now it seems to be cutting my lawn ok, but it was frustrating getting it to work. The actual device is fine, but I just don't think Europeans are good at programming and user interfaces for electronic gadgets.

Update 5-1-2023: Second year of ownership. I kept it in the garage over the winter so that it wouldn't have any issues with the snow. Tried taking it out and setting it back up. No longer functional. So I paid $1,000 for about $150 worth of work during a single barely functional season. This thing is absolute garbage and should be purchased by no one. It was so terrible that even if they offered to replace it via warranty, I would still feel ripped off. The only way I would be satisfied is with a full refund. Original Review: A drunk toddler with a pocket knife could do a better job of mowing than this thing does. I do not have a terribly large lawn; it typically takes about an hour and a half to mow the front and back, and I purchased this only to deal with my fenced in back yard (approximately half of the work). It's not clear to me why I need to lay a wire in my fully fenced in back yard (my roomba doesn't need a wire to operate in my enclosed house), but it will not start without the wire; which is somewhat frustrating given that in the week and a half since I installed it, it has cut it's own wire 3 times. It took exactly 1 hour and 15 minutes to install. And I had to wait a week after buying it to complete the installation because I ran out of stakes and had to order more (they send you about 2/3 what is actually necessary to have a hope to keep the wire down, and clearly more is better). I would absolutely recommend that you bury the wire if you want it to work, which would add a significant amount of work and time to the install. And every night I have to go out, find the tiny stick it got caught on, and return it to it's charging dock. I'm nearing 3 hours of work in the past week on this thing; I could have mowed the yard 4x in that amount of time. As for "intelligence", the Roomba I bought 2 years ago is way smarter; this thing is about as smart as the original Roomba release in 2002, except this thing was released 20 years later. It needs way better software (if this thing stops, you have to fix it manually with the buttons on the machine; there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to what buttons you push and the PIN is irrelevant), to swap out the bluetooth for wifi (the app is a joke and can't connect unless you're less than 15 feet away, and barely works anyway), to get real sensors instead of dealing with a wire, and add on size and bulk so it's not stopped by a toothpick. If you have children, neighbors, pets, or trees I would not recommend this mower; it will cost you more time and effort than you would already have spent mowing, and nearly $1k besides.

I have about a 1000 sq ft side yard I decided I would try this out on. It is a pretty much a rectangle with a fence on two sides, a retaining wall and paved off area for the other two. Totally didn't need this but it was one sale and I wanted to try it out. First thoughts: When I opened the box and looked at this thing with its tiny razor blade like blades, I thought there was no way this thing was going to work. It also looked pretty straight forward to set up but the directions are not nearly as clear as they should be. This is made by Husqvarna and like directions are on the same level as bad as some things from IKEA. You could condense the instructions down to a few clear steps and make it super easy but no. First run: Honestly, after the first five minutes of letting it run, I thought there was no way I was keeping this thing. My yard was wet and tall. I followed the directions leaving 14 inches between the fence and barrier wire (WHICH IS A MISTAKE). Ran the guide wire. For my sized yard, it came with plenty of wire and stakes. I let it charge and then tried to figure out the not very intuitive app. Got it to run even though it wasn't clear if it would. A combination of tall grass (which it did actually cut pretty well) and a rough yard kept causing the mower to think it was running into things. So it would go a few feet, stop and turn, and repeat. Then it came time to return to the dock. It failed. Turns out it failed for a few reasons. 1. There was a slight slope to the charging base. It did not like that. 2. Barrier wires were ran to close to the sides of the base and would throw off its alignment. 3. The guide wire was leading the mower to go off center of the base. So the tall grass was clearly my fault and I gave it a cut with my push mower. After sometime of tinkering with it, it now can reliably return and dock on the charger. Eventually I had several days of running without too many issues. The shorter grass stopped the issue of only going a few feet before thinking it ran into something. The yard was really looking surprisingly good. Didn't take too long to see the mower will only cut a few inches past the wire. There is a setting in the app to tell it go past the wire but setting it to the max did nothing to help. No choice but to rerun the wire. Pro tip: leave some slack in places in case you want to go back and adjust the wire. 2ish week later: Now that the guidewires are more or less in the proper place and the mower can work without faulting, it is doing a surprisingly good job of keeping my yard mowed. I would actually give it 5 stars despite my issues except for one sort of big issue to me, the mowing height. Its highest setting is not very high. In the summer here in SE Michigan, it will get very dry and if the grass is this short, it will brown in many places. So I give it 4 stars. I would actually order another one for my front yard if it didn't mow the grass so short.

In conclusion, After three solid weeks of trying to get this thing to operate, my inability to program the mower to cut the lawn on a schedule has required me to return. I Set up the boundary and guide wire. It took me a solid day. 2150 ft.² only one issue with the wire not connecting, and it was due to where the boundary and guide wire connect with the special connector. I needed to press down on it harder, but then no problem the wires were set. And the light at the home base was green. The machine seems to be cutting well. If the software and app were better, these mowers would be selling without any problem. This is my problem. For weeks I have tried to connect my Apple XR phone using the app to the mower. The app will not let me save a schedule time. While I can connect, I can’t program it at all. So in order to mow the lawn, it needs to be manual attention all times. I have to press the button on the mower. I tried a couple of more Apple devices, to see if they will work. But I was not able to connect these with the Bluetooth. I know some people had no problem. It’s all very frustrating. I don’t know what this company was thinking launching such a bad app. People that reviewed this mower for Husqvarna (aka influencers), did a terrible job. There are so many glitches with this mower that should have been Addressed either before the launch or at least during the videos. You would think this would be a great product for the elderly, but not so. The software is a disaster. Middle-age people don’t have the time to figure out all of these glitches. Until these automowers come out with a GPS mower, with no guide and boundary wires, we are going to be push mowing.

This little mower has worked nearly flawlessly for 2 seasons now mowing my 0.25 acre back yard. I only run it up to 3 days a week during the daytime in peak grass growing months. That's all it takes to keep my lawn mowed. A couple of times the mower has gotten itself stuck, but very few times. Most were due to the wheel getting stuck in a deep chipmunk hole opening and one time I found it stuck at an angle where it had started to climb a tree trunk. There were also a few times where the wire connections on the back of the charger got a little too loose and that broke the perimeter current stopping the mower until I re-tightened. The biggest problem I had was that the mower did not get to one area of the lawn often enough due to the fairly complex shape of my back yard. I needed to set it for circular cut mode a few times or just do that small section with a push mower. The mower app worked well too with my iPhone. The mower battery does not seem to be wearing out much yet. Maybe can get another season or two before it needs replacing.