The Husqvarna automower 315 mark II will handle your lawn like a pro

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The arrival of warmer weather means many of us are able to use our gardens properly for the first time this year. But, unfortunately, it also brings with it a dreaded task: mowing the lawn.

It’s tough enough when you have a well-defined patch of grass, but when you factor in funky shapes and decorative items (read: obstacles), bumps and dips in the ground, and cleaning up afterwards, it becomes quite the chore – not to mention the effect on hayfever sufferers – when all you really want to do is sit outside and enjoy the sun.

The solution? Well, if your budget allows it, an automower. Like the robot vacuum cleaners that have become so familiar, robot lawn mowers should keep your grass well-manicured with minimum effort.

One of the latest models to hit the market is the Husqvarna automower 315 Mark II, a lightweight and compact machine capable of trimming lawns of up to 1,500sqm. As well as setting up a mowing schedule so it can get to work while you’re at the office, it can work in the rain, tackle inclines of up to 40 per cent and automatically adjust mowing time to suit the growing season.

But at close to £2,000, can it really be worth the money? We tested one to find out.

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We’ve had the Husqvarna automower 315 Mark II for a couple of months now, during which time we looked at the way the machine navigated our garden and of course the results compared to our usual lawnmower. We tested it several times to give it plenty of chances to show off its features. We also evaluated how easy it was to set up, operate and maintain. Here’s how it fared.

An earlier version of the Husqvarna automower was dubbed the “Lamborghini of the lawn mowing world” and, looking at the 315 Mark II, it’s not hard to see why. It has a signature hexagonal shape that’s similar to the supercar brand, all packaged into a sleek, grey plastic body. But that’s just the colour on our tester – you can opt for brighter shades like orange and white (lime green hasn’t made the cut yet).

There are four wheels. The two at the back are bigger and are exposed, while the two smaller ones at the front are tucked under the machine on either side of the three, razor-sharp carbon steel blades. The result is a machine that just slopes up slightly at the back while clinging close to the ground.

The front edge of the device is protected by bumpers with an enclosed sensor and charging point just above it. Over the roof is a large stop button that raises the hatch door to the control panel. This is a safety feature and when you’ve disconnected the device at any point, you’ll need to use this control panel to restart the machine manually. To the rear, you have a little ledge that you can use to easily lift the device or to hang it up.

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The 315 Mark II comes with a docking station that you can fix to the ground. This has a plastic “carpeted” area where the machine will rest while it’s charging, with the charging port located at the rear of the dock. This is also where you plug in the boundary and guide wires and the power.

The 315 Mark II is designed to be in continuous use during the summer season, rain or shine. Although of course in extreme weather, you’ll want to bring it in. Similarly, the charging station can be left outdoors, although it does need to be protected from the sun, while the power outlet (plug) needs to be protected from the sun and the rain.

Most of the features are found on the brand’s dedicated app. This is what you use to set the mowing schedule, adjust how the 315 Mark II navigates your garden, and toggle on additional functions.

There’s an eco mode, for example, which switches off power to the boundary and guide wires when the mower is charging. You can also turn on the weather timer, which alters the mowing time according to how quickly your grass grows. And of course, frost guard, which delays mowing until temperatures warm up to protect your lawn.

There’s no mapping function on this device – unlike the more premium 400 series models from the brand – although you can set up two different profiles on the device to do your front and back garden, or even that of a neighbour. It’s also capable of navigating fairly narrow passages and mowing on the spot in areas with high grass density.

The initial setup took several hours – this, we blame on the operator’s manual. The instructions were unclear and often interrupted by box outs for warnings, cautions and notes, which made deciphering it incredibly hard. It’s not helped by the fact that the manual included instructions for both the 300 series and 400 series automowers.

To make the whole thing even more confusing, the 315 Mark II came with a guidewire as standard. However, to mark out the lawn, you actually need the boundary wire, which is in the installation kit that you normally have to buy separately – something that the manual doesn’t make clear. We only figured out we were missing vital equipment after watching several YouTube videos for clarity.

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Unlike robot vacuum cleaners that you can simply let loose in your home, setting up the boundary wire was pretty time consuming. The wire needed to form a single loop from the charging station, all the way around the edge of the garden and back again.

If you have any obstacles in the middle of your garden, such as a bush, you’ll need to trace the wires around it in an U-shape from the boundary. You also need to be precise about where to position the wire so it’ll maximise the mowing coverage in your garden without the machine bumping into any fences or taking out beloved flowerbeds.

On top of that, the boundary wire needed to be pinned down so it’s flush against the ground, which meant a lot of hammering. We learned the hard way that if you don’t do this for even the slightest dip in the ground, the automower will slice right through the wire and you’ll have to start all over again.

Needless to say, we were very frustrated by the time we finally got the mower going, especially when we realised the device would move around the garden randomly instead of in a systematic pattern. For the first mow of the season, that meant some pretty untidy results.

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After a few weeks of settling in – and after we fine-tuned the boundary wires a couple of times – the 315 Mark II finally came into its own. It’ll mow for up to 70 minutes on each 60-minute charge, automatically returning to the charging station every time the charge level drops to about 50 per cent. During that time, it’ll take care of a pretty decent amount of the lawn. However, because of the random way it navigates the garden, you may find that it takes a couple of cycles before everything is even, which is not very time or energy efficient.

We liked that the whisper-quiet machine was able to rotate on the spot and reverse, which meant it could easily navigate tight spots, and focus on areas with high growth. After use, it’s superbly easy to clean – simply lift it up and hose down the underside. The lightweight frame made moving it around the garden really easy, too. In fact, had the setup been as straightforward as the usage, we would have been completely thrilled with it.

We were not happy with how complicated the initial installation was and were at one point ready to give up altogether. Considering that it’s meant to make life easier, the 315 Mark II was surprisingly labour-intensive, and for the price we would have liked to have seen something smarter and easier to install.

That said, we can’t fault the results. After the initial teething problems, it handled the lawn like a pro and needed little further input from us. And yes, the results were a marked improvement from our usual lawnmower – all without the deafening noise usually associated with mowing the lawn. Do bear in mind that because the automower connects to the app via Bluetooth, you’ll need to be in the vicinity to operate it.

Because of how lightweight and easy it is to use, we would recommend the 315 Mark II to those who maybe have mobility issues and can afford the hefty price tag – but we would definitely suggest looking into getting a pro to install it for you.