Is it worth it?
If your weekends are disappearing under the whirr of a conventional mower, the WORX Landroid S WR184E promises to hand them back. Built for lawns no bigger than a tennis court and a half (400 m²), it trims automatically, dodges tight passages and even obeys a curfew so the evening hedgehog patrol isn’t disturbed. In short, it targets time-pressed homeowners with compact gardens who crave a consistently neat finish without lugging a petrol mower round every few days.
After a fortnight of testing, I’m convinced the WR184E is brilliant once it’s running—but getting to that point demands patience and a bit of DIY-spirit. If you relish tinkering with apps, cables and firmware, you’ll love the freedom it buys you; if you’re after true plug-and-play convenience, you might find yourself longing for a trusty hover mower instead.
Specifications
| Brand | WORX |
| Model | Landroid S WR184E |
| Cutting area | 400 m² |
| Cutting height | 20–50 mm |
| Cutting width | 180 mm |
| Battery | 20 V 2.0 Ah Li-ion |
| Navigation | AIA intelligent |
| Connectivity | Wi-Fi app control |
| User Score | 3.6 ⭐ (13 reviews) |
| Price | approx. 350£ Check 🛒 |
Key Features
AIA Intelligent Navigation
Rather than wandering randomly, Landroid maps its route with Worx’s patented AIA logic, steering through 60 cm gaps that stop rival bots dead. This shaves roughly a third off the overall mowing time, meaning fewer charge cycles and less wear. In practice my 150 m² patch dropped from a 3-hour chore with a budget robot to 1 hour 45 minutes with the WR184E.
Auto-Schedule with Weather Sense
Embedded algorithms pull live temperature and rainfall data from the cloud, then calculate how vigorously your grass is likely to grow. The mower automatically lengthens sessions after a warm shower and shortens them during dry spells, so you’re not wasting battery or scalping thirsty turf. It’s been eerily accurate—after a wet June week it increased frequency to daily passes without any manual tweak.
Edge Cut & Self-Levelling Deck
The cutting disc sits offset to the chassis, reaching within a couple of centimetres of walls and sleepers. Meanwhile, a pivoting deck floats over bumps so blades don’t scalp raised roots. Combined, I spend less than two minutes tidying borders with shears—down from fifteen with my previous bot.
PowerShare Battery Ecosystem
The included 20 V cell slots straight into any WORX drill, hedge-trimmer or jet washer, saving you from a drawer full of incompatible packs. On mowing duties it delivers nearly an hour per charge; popping in my spare drill battery let the robot finish during a single morning.
App & OTA Updates
Firmware drops over Wi-Fi the same way your smartphone gets new features, adding tweaks like improved path-finding without touching a screwdriver. The latest patch reduced docking collisions noticeably on my unit.
Hedgehog Safe Mode
Activate the dusk-till-dawn curfew and the mower stays parked, leaving nocturnal wildlife to roam. It’s a small toggle in the app, but it solved the ethical dilemma that made me uneasy about round-the-clock robots.
Firsthand Experience
Unboxing felt more like opening a new gadget than a garden tool—there’s a sturdy charging dock, a tidy coil of perimeter wire and the same 20 V PowerShare battery I use in my WORX drill. The mower itself is surprisingly light at 8 kg, meaning I could carry it one-handed across the patio without scuffing anything.
Setup, however, swallowed an entire Saturday morning. Pegging 130 m of boundary wire around flowerbeds demanded kneepads and a fair bit of trial-and-error; the first placement left a strip of uncut grass near the fence until I nudged the wire in by 5 cm. The companion app initially refused to pair over 5 GHz Wi-Fi—switching the router to 2.4 GHz solved it, but the booklet never mentions that.
Once the firmware updated, the WR184E set off in an unmistakably methodical zig-zag. On my 8 ° slope it never slipped, thanks to deep-tread rear wheels. A full battery returned 55 minutes of mowing before the bot tootled back to base, sipped power for 70 minutes and headed out again. Over two charge cycles it covered the plot fully, leaving blades of grass an even 30 mm tall.
Rain halted play. The deck’s sensor sent it home within seconds of drizzle—a relief, given Li-ion cells hate water—yet it resumed at the exact waypoint once the clouds cleared, so no patchy lawn. Noise averaged 63 dB at one metre, about as intrusive as polite conversation; my next-door neighbour’s naps went undisturbed.
Maintenance has amounted to brushing clippings from the chassis and flipping the three razor blades every fortnight. After 20 runs they’re still sharp, helped by the auto-levelling deck that skims above stray twigs instead of striking them.
The novelty hasn’t worn off: watching the WR184E glide under deckchairs while I enjoy a cuppa feels positively futuristic. Still, a backup push-mower is handy for the first spring cut when grass is ankle-high—the robot prefers turf under 70 mm.
Pros and Cons
Customer Reviews
Early adopters love the pristine finish and modest price, yet many grumble that installation and Wi-Fi pairing feel more like an IT project than garden maintenance. Reliability once configured scores high; onboarding experience drags the average down.
Firmware update sorted the app and it’s now mowing twice a week without fuss
Spent more time rescuing it from broken boundary wire than it ever spent cutting
Followed a YouTube tutorial and had it running in 40 minutes—absolute bargain
Gave up after hours trying to link Wi-Fi, returned for refund
Brilliant cut quality but battery only lasted an hour and setup was fiddly.
Comparison
Against the similarly priced Gardena Sileno City 250, the WORX offers a wider 180 mm deck and faster AIA navigation, finishing an average urban plot roughly 25 minutes sooner. Gardena fights back with a simpler Bluetooth setup and a slightly quieter 60 dB operation—worth considering if tech headaches are your kryptonite.
Step up £150 and the Bosch Indego S+ 350 brings built-in GPS mapping, ditching boundary wire in some gardens. It stripes neatly in overlapping rectangles and handles 35 % slopes versus Worx’s advertised 20 %. Yet it needs proprietary batteries and replacement blades cost nearly double, so running costs creep up.
If you want the very cheapest route into robot mowing, the generic Chinese “MowRo” units come in at under £300. They share the same 20–50 mm height range but rely on random bump-and-turn logic that can take three sessions to match the WR184E’s single pass. Component quality also feels flimsier—plastic axles instead of Worx’s metal hubs. In essence, the Landroid sits in a sweet spot: smarter than entry-level bots without the four-figure price tag of premium GPS units.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Does it cope with wet grass?
- Light drizzle is fine but heavy rain sends it home
- Can I run it without the app?
- Yes, basic start/stop and height settings are on the built-in LCD, though you’ll lose OTA updates and smart scheduling.
- How often do the blades need replacing?
- Worx recommends every 3 months for a 400 m² lawn
- Will it tackle fallen leaves?
- It can drive over the odd leaf, but a thick autumn carpet will stall the wheels—quick raking first keeps things moving.
Conclusion
The WORX Landroid S WR184E nails the fundamentals: it cuts evenly, navigates awkward passages and keeps noise low enough for Sunday lie-ins. Once the boundary wire is bedded in, maintenance is practically hands-off, and the shared battery ecosystem sweetens the deal if you already own WORX tools.
Yet its achilles heel is onboarding. If wrestling with firmware, 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi and hundreds of pegs sounds like a nightmare, you’ll either need a friendly tech-savvy neighbour or you should pay more for a wire-free rival. At its typical mid-£300 price bracket, though, few competitors marry speed, edge performance and wildlife-friendly scheduling this well. If your lawn fits the 400 m² envelope and you’re willing to invest a Saturday in setup, the WR184E could be the best gardener you never hired.
