I haven't mowed my garden for over a month, but it's as neat as a golf course. The reason for this is my transition from a push lawn mower to a robotic lawn mower that I control from my iPhone. This is the Anthbot M9, and it's my favorite new piece of technology that I've tried this year.

The Anthbot M9 robotic lawn mower is easy to set up and use

When the Anthbot M9 robotic lawn mower arrived for testing, I thought I would need to spend a few free hours setting it up.

In reality, I needed less than 30 minutes to unpack everything, set up the hardware, and install the app. From the moment the Anthbot M9 robotic lawn mower arrived, this device surprised and impressed me.

The Anthbot M9 consists of three parts: the robotic lawn mower, the charging station, and a sensor called the RTK reference station.

More primitive robotic lawn mower systems rely on burying a perimeter wire. That's not the case here.

I chose a spot in my backyard where I could clearly see the sky for the RTK reference station. It attaches to a pole with a forked end to insert into the ground. No digging is required.

Next, I placed the charging station at the edge of my back porch area, which the Anthbot M9 can call home.

There is a cable connection between the RTK sensor station and the charging station, and a power cable runs from the charging station to the nearest outlet.

I made both cables invisible by running them along the side of the porch concrete. There are a few plastic nails in the box that hold these cables in place. After more than a month of rain and robotic mowing, they are still invisible and require no maintenance.

The app allows you to manage the experience from your iPhone

Once the hardware is in place, everything else happens through the Anthbot iPhone app.

I completed the setup process by manually controlling the Anthbot M9 robotic lawn mower from the virtual controls on my iPhone to create a digital map of my backyard.

There are a few areas to avoid, like loose soil around the holes where the robotic lawn mower can fit. The app allows you to mark these spots as areas to avoid on the map.

After that, the Anthbot M9 got to work. The robotic lawn mower is incredibly quiet. If you don't see the mowing progress, you might wonder if it's working.

The app has changed several times since I started testing the Anthbot M9.

It allows you to adjust the mowing direction with many customizations. The current version includes the ability to mow in a cross pattern by mowing twice in every job to be fully comprehensive.

It's so quiet and thorough that watching it work is extremely satisfying.

The Anthbot M9 is weather-ready, rain or shine

Since I'm new to the world of robotic lawn mowers, I still had some questions after my first mowing job was completed.

For example, what should I do with the robot when it rains? Anthbot sells a "garage" accessory that sits on top of the charging station, but I learned that this is completely optional.

The Anthbot M9 system is designed to exist without issues in the rain, and several days of rainfall successfully tested that claim.

The robot has a sensor that detects water and stops mowing during rain. When no rain is detected, it can automatically restart the job after a set period. This works quite well.

So weather is not a problem. Great.

A single RTK reference station supports both front and back yards

The second pleasant surprise came when I realized how capable the Anthbot M9 is as a robotic lawn mowing system.

I thought I would need a second RTK reference station to manage the front and side yards on the other side of the fence. That was a funny assumption for me. Of course, the Anthbot M9 robotic lawn mower can manage my entire garden without needing additional equipment. That's the purpose of the product.

After I mowed the front and side grass myself, I got smart and tried adding the rest of my garden to the app's map.

Introducing the robot lawn mower to the rest of my garden presented some new challenges.

For example, there are mulched areas around a tree, as well as sidewalks and driveways that need to be avoided.

To avoid the tree in the middle of the garden, the app allows you to manually control the robot once around the perimeter to map out the areas to be avoided. It works great. For the driveway, the app lets you designate a path between mowing areas.

Other details and information

You can manually control the robot lawn mower from the iPhone app to cut wherever you want. This can be useful for any grass patches that might be missed from time to time. Assigning each task to run twice per session will also take care of those.

The robot has adjustable height to determine how short or tall your grass will grow. So far, I've preferred a height of 30mm, but I could continue with a height of 50mm for thicker grass.

A theft prevention feature makes the robot sound an alarm if someone removes it from the designated mowing area. I haven't needed this, but it's nice to know it's an option.

The Anthbot M9 supports connectivity via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. Optional 4G cellular service is also supported.

During testing, I experienced a weekend connectivity issue that I thought was related to cellular network coverage, but it resolved itself automatically. I was relieved because the M9 robot lawn mower was really that reliable and useful, both before and after the connectivity issue.

The Anthbot app allows you to create zones to have full control over mowing preferences such as direction, scheduling, and more. This is useful because I need to open a gate for it to exit the backyard. I can easily tell it to just mow the backyard and not do a full job. You can also assign specific areas for specific days.

My dog is completely unaffected by the robot lawn mower. The M9 operates much quieter than a robot vacuum.

One-time purchase, no ongoing costs

It's very valuable to me that it's a one-time purchase that doesn't require an active subscription. In terms of maintenance, Anthbot recommends flipping the five blades every three to six months and replacing the blades every six to twelve months. The company sells a pack of 15 for $19.

Overall, I am still amazed and pleased with how well the Anthbot M9 has performed as my lawn care solution over the past few weeks.

The Anthbot M9 is extremely durable. When it gets stuck and the app alerts you, you just pick it up and press a few buttons, and it continues from where it left off. Once it starts a job, it will automatically return to the charging station and continue until the job is complete.

The latest surprise for me was when I received a notification on my phone that a job had restarted after sunset. It used its built-in headlights to mow in the dark. I opened the app and told the robot to return to the charging station for the night, but it was so quiet that I didn't even hear it start.

9to5Mac's Opinion

The most important point for me is that it has completely eliminated my need to mow the grass myself. I really enjoyed spending time in the garden with my dog or doing other gardening tasks while the Anthbot M9 mowed the grass.

Nova is pleased with the quiet robot that keeps the garden easily walkable.

The Anthbot M9 maintains a routine that doesn't change depending on when I'm free. Plus, I don't have to deal with getting gas for my push mower or slow-charging batteries.

The price of the Anthbot M9 is $899, and Amazon is currently selling the robot lawn mower for $819 with an $80 discount. If a robot lawn mower fits your budget and seems like an interesting solution for a summer task, I highly recommend considering the Anthbot M9.

For a limited time, the Anthbot M9 is being sold for $769 directly from websites, and 9to5Mac readers can save an additional $50 with our special link.