Measure Your Lawn
How to work out your garden in m² before you choose a robotic mower.
Every robotic mower is rated for a maximum lawn size, so the first job is knowing how much grass you've actually got. You don't need surveying kit — a laptop or a walk round the garden will do it. Here are the two ways we'd go about it.
Head to earth.google.com on a desktop or laptop. The browser version is free and there's nothing to install.
Search your postcode, switch to satellite view and zoom right in until you can clearly see the edges of your grass.
Open the measure tool in the left-hand toolbar, then choose the area option so you're measuring a shape rather than a straight line.
Click a point at each corner of your grass, following the edge all the way round. Join the last point back to the first to close the shape.
Google Earth gives you the area straight away. Got grass in more than one spot? Measure each patch separately and add them together.
Count your panels. A standard UK fence panel is about 1.83m wide, which makes your boundary a ready-made ruler.
Multiply up. Panels across the width × 1.83m gives you the width in metres. Do the same along the length.
Width × length. Five panels by eight is 9.15m × 14.64m — call it 134 m².
Stride it out. One long, deliberate stride is roughly a metre for most adults.
Pace both ways. Walk the width, then the length, keeping your stride even and counting as you go.
Width × length. 10 paces by 15 is about 10m × 15m — near enough 150 m².
Work It Out
Pop in your panels or your paces and we'll do the sums, plus tell you roughly what size machine to be looking at.
Counting panels at 1.83m each.
Plenty of headroom for a lawn this size, even with a few tight corners.
Counting one long stride as 1m.
Plenty of headroom for a lawn this size, even with a few tight corners.
Measuring in two halves? Work out each part on its own and add the totals together — that's your figure.
Choosing A Mower Size
Always round up. A machine rated comfortably above your measured lawn finishes the job in fewer hours, takes it easier on the battery and leaves you a healthier lawn. A 400 m² garden is happiest on a 600 m² machine.
Roughly two tennis courts. Suits most townhouse and semi gardens, front and back together.
Shop up to 500 m²About four tennis courts. The sweet spot for a decent family garden with a few borders in it.
Shop up to 1000 m²Paddocks, big plots and grounds. Worth a chat before you buy so the setup is right first time.
Shop over 1000 m²