ECOVACS GOAT O600 RTK - This Is Exactly What Robots Should Do

I've reviewed my share of robot vacuums over the years and many times I've pointed out how complicated the job is, which is what makes it so impressive when the robot I'm reviewing does a good job of it.

But there's another task around the house that's potentially even more challenging - so it's no surprise one of the world's leading robot vacuum manufacturers has a robot to take care of my lawn as well.

When I took the ECOVACS GOAT O600 RTK out of its box, I was surprised. In fact, even before I opened the box, I was surprised. I was expecting something bigger, something heavier. In fact, I think I've reviewed ECOVACS vacuums that came in bigger boxes and weighed more.

This is partly because the GOAT O600 RTK's charging station is actually very minimalistic, essentially just a plastic pad with a pair of raised terminals for the GOAT to park between. In fact, the whole setup process was refreshingly straight-forward - in terms of physical installation, anyway.

There are just three elements to it; the mower, the charging station and the RTK transmitter, which is how this model of GOAT locates itself on your property. Real-Time Kinematic navigation uses satellite triangulation to position the mobile unit (in this case, the GOAT) to the nearest one or two centimetres, so its pretty damn accurate - which is probably what you want when you have a machine making its own way around your garden, spinning its blades up to 150% more powerfully than competing products.

Those blades have me completely mystified, by the way. Flip the GOAT O600 RTK over and you'll discover three tiny little swivel blades held onto a rotating disc by a single screw each. This is not your grandaddy's lawnmower, that's for sure. I can only assume this setup works due to the high speed the cutting disc rotates at. Although I don't know how it works, what I can tell you is, it does work. 

What's more, it's miraculously quiet. I'm used to having to schedule my lawn-mowing efforts around when other occupants of my house aren't home, because I don't want to subject them to the racket. With the Goat, that's no longer an issue. The cutting process itself is almost silent. It's only the rear drive wheels working that really makes any noise at all.

The three wee cutting blades are razor sharp and because they're double-sided, you can simply flip them over the other way once they start showing signs of wear-and-tear. (In theory, this will be after around 80 hours use) Then, once that second side goes blunt - another 80 hours later - you can just replace them from the spares included in the box; there are another three sets. 

Admittedly, after 1920 hours you will be forced to buy another set of twelve blades. This will set you back a whole thirty bucks. What I don't understand is why aren't conventional lawnmower blades like this? Talk about the way of the future.

Anyway, where were we? Oh, that's right - setting the thing up in the first place.

The RTK transmitter screws onto the top of a pole with a forked base that you can just plant in the ground if that's the best place for it. The idea is it needs to have an unobstructed view of the same satellites as the GOAT has, as goes about its business. Believe it or not, they can latch onto up to 45 satellites simultaneously for maximum speed and stability. 

Thanks to the lengthy cable that connects the RTK transmitter to the charging station, and the other very long cable that connects the charging station to the mains power supply, along with a set of plastic pegs and clips to hold both lines in place, you should have a reasonable amount of flexibility when it comes to where you set everything up. That's not to suggest there's an unlimited length of power lead - and obviously it wouldn't be ideal to lay any live lines directly across the very lawn your new robot is about to mow.

However, given the comprehensive startup guide warned against mounting the transmitter on boundary fences or the like, I attached it to the balustrade around my deck instead. The guide recommends as elevated a position as possible (even suggesting the roof of your house), so I lashed it on as high as I could, given the restriction of still having to connect its cable back to the charging station.

I wasn't expecting this to work for my front lawn, over the other side of my two storey house, but I felt confident I'd have decent coverage for my large and sloping back lawn.

What was worrying me was that I don't really have any "flat" bits of lawn to position the charging base on, as instructed. This is because the GOAT has to find its way home quite precisely, by lining up with the three white reflectors at the back of the base. Turns out, my concern was unfounded; fairly flat was flat enough.

The slope was always going to be the GOAT O600 RTK's biggest challenge. The ECOVACS website claims it can mow angles up to 24° but as you'll see from the video below, there's one length of my lawn that probably exceeds that by quite a margin, so it was fingers crossed as I set about mapping my yard - or at least, letting the GOAT do it automatically, using its TrueMapping 2.0 Multi-fusion RTK Navigation system.

Whether its mapping or mowing, the GOAT's AI camera can recognise over 200 types of obstacle that might turn up on your lawn - everything from pets to gnomes. I found it definitely erred on the side of caution and I had to go back and add a few hard-to-get-to nooks and corners manually, for the most accurate map possible.

This is easy enough, using the ECOVACS app on your phone. You simply connect to the GOAT via bluetooth and steer it where it needs to go via the on-screen remote control. Once you've added the new area, if it overlaps with what's already been mapped, it'll be merged automatically.

Then I literally sat back and watched the GOAT O600 RTK do one of my most hated chores for me. Because the cutting disc spins so fast, the grass is chopped into very small pieces which simply settle back into your lawn, self-fertilising it. In fact, even in the odd patch where the grass had grown very long, there was no real evidence of clippings left behind - unlike when I have a go at that sort of area with my non-robot mower.

This is important, because the last thing I want is my faithful doggo traipsing discarded clumps of cut grass inside the house. That has not happened. In fact, the GOAT even has a rain sensor and if things get too wet, it'll return to base and won't start mowing again until three hours after the rain stops.

As I expected, the strip where my lawn slopes almost directly down into the garden edging around my deck proved a little too challenging - you'll see this in the video too. This area is really more of a ditch than a slope and even I have slipped over trying to mow this on several occasions. Not ideal. No worries though; I simply marked this a no-go area on the map in the app and the GOAT carried on its merry way.

A few hours later, my back lawn looked perfect. Because the GOAT is smarter than me and remembers exactly where it's mowed and where it hasn't, you end up with these precisely parallel mowing patterns that are very pleasing to the eye - something I'd never be able to achieve myself.

What's more, the ability to schedule the GOAT to mow automatically every few days means the lawn always looks pristine - always the same length and far less likely to be overrun by weeds or moss.

Then I decided to see what would happen if I carried the GOAT O600 RTK down the steps, along the path and through the gate to my front lawn, at the diagonally opposite side of my property to where I've set up the RTK transmitter.

I'd assumed I wouldn't be able to map here and therefore the robot wouldn't work. I've never been so happy to be so completely wrong. The GOAT connected to 43 of the 44 satellites the transmitter was talking to, mapped the four separate sections of lawn I'm responsible for out front and then proceeded to mow them with no hesitation whatsoever.

The app did ask me to create a path between the back and the front, but given there are steps and gates involved, that wasn't an option. The GOAT didn't really seem to care and finished the job anyway. Glorious.

Because it's mostly plastic, as I mentioned at the top, the robot is extremely light and easy to move around. It also couldn't be more simple clean; both the GOAT and its charging station are IPX6 rated against water, so you can just rinse them off with a high-pressure hose.

ECOVACS has made one of life's most challenging household tasks so simple here - this is the gadget I've been waiting for. I don't think I'm ever going get tired of watching it mow my lawns for me. It's exactly the kind of thing people thought would be happening when they predicted the future fifty years ago. I wonder if ECOVACS makes a flying car?

Click here for more information on the ECOVACS GOAT O600 RTK.