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Table of Contents:
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0:00 - Intro and Specs
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0:00
[music]
0:10
Well, it's that time of [music] year
0:12
again. Spring has finally come here,
0:14
even in Canada, and the [music] grass is
0:17
starting to grow. Though, as you can
0:18
see, it's still pretty patchy. But the
0:20
weed man was here today, and so we have
0:22
officially started into our spring 2026
0:27
lawn care cycle. So that means that
0:30
we're looking at the most recent product
0:32
from Mimotion. This will be the fourth
0:34
Robo mower that I have reviewed from
0:36
Motion, and I have been consistently
0:38
impressed with the quality of their
0:40
products. And so we're going to see if
0:42
this year's flagship, which is the Luba
0:45
3 all-wheel drive, um will be a serious
0:49
upgrade to the Luba 2 all-wheel drive
0:51
that I've been using for the last couple
0:53
of seasons. So, we're going to dive in
0:55
today. We'll do an unboxing setup and I
0:58
will start the process of reviewing
1:01
today and I'll come back to you in oh 3
1:04
weeks or so once the grass has come in
1:06
thick and I've let the mower go for a
1:08
while and I'll give you a report on how
1:10
well it's done up to that point. So,
1:12
let's dive in and let's unbox this bad
1:15
boy.
1:26
All right, setup all done. Took me a
1:28
little over 20 minutes to get everything
1:31
together. And uh basically, as far as
1:34
installation, you're installing the
1:36
front bumper onto it. A couple of side
1:38
guards. one little piece that just
1:40
clicks into place on the actual uh
1:43
docking or charging station. And then
1:45
it's just a matter of setting up the
1:46
charging station and the reference
1:48
station, which is the hub in which all
1:50
of the wireless communication will be
1:52
done to the unit. It gets that up a
1:54
little bit higher and so it can
1:55
communicate all across one's property.
1:57
In my case, I've got a piece of property
1:59
that's, you know, close right under an
2:00
acre and so it needs to communicate
2:02
around a lot of things. This unit does
2:05
have a few new things that I'll notice
2:07
and I'll do a head-to-head um with the
2:10
Luba 2 all-wheel drive just to compare
2:12
some of those changes along the way. But
2:14
setup was very straightforward. One
2:16
thing to just watch out for when you're
2:18
doing the installation is when you flip
2:19
the unit over to install these orange
2:21
guards there on the side, just make sure
2:23
as I did, I actually used one of the
2:25
foam inserts from inside here to make
2:27
sure that this top LAR module is not
2:29
negatively impacted from the unit being
2:31
upside down. and you'll want to watch
2:33
out for that in the future as well
2:34
because you certainly don't want to
2:36
damage that. As usual, Mamotion's
2:38
packaging is really good. Their um
2:41
instructions, you got this huge
2:42
instructions sheet that is nice and
2:45
straightforward. And I also noted
2:46
something new and that was when I was
2:48
actually connecting the reference
2:49
station and the unit to the Motion app,
2:53
it actually walked me through the
2:55
installation process again to make sure
2:56
that all those steps were covered.
2:58
That's a smart additional step there
2:59
because some people might just not look
3:01
at instructions. You just skip over
3:03
things. Just that extra layer of
3:04
protection there. And so now it is
3:07
starting to charge. I will do the
3:09
mapping out from my yard after a while
3:11
and then I'll report back to you as the
3:14
review progresses. So far so good.
3:16
>> Start charging.
3:19
>> Now, after you've done all the initial
3:20
setup, the next phase is the mapping of
3:23
the yard. Now, you have a couple of
3:24
options at this point. There is an
3:26
automated mapping and you can use that
3:28
if you have a pretty straightforward
3:30
lawn with clearly defined edges. Go
3:32
ahead and let it do that for you. In my
3:34
case, however, I've got a very complex
3:36
lawn shape. And what's more, I want more
3:39
finite control over creating different
3:41
areas and zones and so that I can assign
3:43
mowing according to my own personal
3:45
taste. And so I choose to do the manual
3:48
mapping which basically involves you
3:51
falling behind it you and kind of
3:53
controlling it almost like an RC car
3:55
where you're using your phone or tablet
3:57
as a means of letting it drive around
4:00
and map out the area. I've done this
4:03
process a lot of times over the past and
4:05
I definitely find that they are
4:07
continuing to refine that process. It's
4:10
more kind of intuition in the overall
4:12
mapping process that's there. I found
4:15
that like for example when I was
4:16
creating a different area where I needed
4:18
a pathway where I wasn't mowing but
4:20
going from one section of the lawn to
4:22
another whereas in the times past I had
4:24
to manually create that. This included
4:27
that as a part of the process. It
4:29
followed the path that I just took the
4:31
mower as I moved from one section of
4:33
lawn to another and so was able to
4:36
follow that. Now, you still have the
4:37
option to manually create other pathways
4:38
if you want in the future, but all the
4:40
ones I needed were manually created. And
4:42
that's actually something that I found a
4:43
little bit finicky in the past. And so,
4:45
I really loved it being able to do that.
4:48
What's more, as you begin to set things
4:50
up and you begin to program it for your
4:53
future options, I found that the process
4:55
is just getting more and more intuitive.
4:57
there's still a great depth of options,
4:59
cutting height, your, you know, angle,
5:01
your pathway that you want to use, um
5:03
the, you know, kind of the method you
5:05
want to use, what you want it to
5:06
prioritize doing first, the time of day
5:08
you schedule it, whether or not you want
5:10
a rain sensor on, all of those things.
5:12
There's lots of depth to it. But I also
5:14
found that it's it's kind of preset
5:16
positions or standard positions were
5:18
just a little bit better and more
5:20
intuitive than what they have been in
5:21
the past. My only complaint in the
5:23
overall mapping process is that when I
5:26
wanted to create a new lawn section and
5:28
I began to drive the mower manually over
5:31
to where the area where I was going to
5:32
stop, there's a little icon at the top
5:34
of the box where you click when you're
5:35
ready to start mapping out a new area.
5:37
Sometimes that disappeared on me and so
5:39
I had to go out and back in in the app
5:42
itself back to that point and then start
5:44
to create that new area. It was a minal
5:46
minor annoyance, but it's just one more
5:48
area that they could clean up a little
5:49
bit more for the future. In general,
5:52
however, this is a really
5:53
straightforward process. There are no
5:55
wires, there's nothing to bury, and even
5:57
in a large complex lawn setup like mine
6:00
where I was defining about four
6:02
different areas, because I am familiar
6:04
with the process, I was probably able to
6:06
do the whole thing in no more than about
6:08
20 to 30 minutes tops. And so, it's a
6:11
it's a pretty easy process. And, uh, if
6:14
you don't know how to do it, there are
6:16
some good tutorial videos that just show
6:17
you how. And definitely within the app
6:19
itself, it shows you very clearly now
6:22
how to do what you need to do. And so
6:24
that makes it very very easy in the
6:26
process.
6:29
I've probably run the mapping setup for
6:32
myself or for others probably at least a
6:34
dozen times at this point. And one of
6:36
the areas where I've noticed an
6:37
improvement is in the overall process of
6:40
setting up what you will call like a
6:42
no-go zone. In this case, there's no
6:44
reason for the mower to have to try to
6:46
figure out avoiding this area every time
6:49
that it mows. And so, I can just set up
6:51
in the app, create a no-go zone around
6:54
this area. And so that every time that
6:56
it mows, it knows it's not going into
6:58
this zone. And thus, it's going to saves
7:01
a little bit of time and make sure that
7:03
I'm not testing the obstacle avoidance
7:05
of it as we go through the mowing
7:07
process. Once I've gone around that
7:09
area, I can save it into the app and
7:11
thus in the future it's going to be a
7:13
little bit more efficient. The big thing
7:15
that I've noticed is that previously I
7:16
had to do all of that editing just
7:18
within the area that I was designating.
7:20
And so it just meant that the mapping
7:22
time for each area took more time. Now
7:24
they've expedited to where I could go
7:26
around after I had finished mapping out
7:28
the zones and just go to the various
7:30
areas, trees, things like that that I
7:31
wanted to avoid permanently and just
7:34
quickly add those into the map. It's
7:35
just making the whole process a little
7:37
bit more intuitive and a little bit
7:39
faster. So, let's take a visual
7:41
comparison of the Luba 2 all-wheel drive
7:44
that I have had now for 3 years and then
7:46
the new Luba 3 all-wheel drive that's
7:48
just releasing here in 2026. Now, one
7:50
thing you may notice as they're sitting
7:52
by side by side is that I actually
7:54
switched to the high model for the Luba
7:57
3. I was using the standard height model
8:00
for the Luba 2 that goes as low as 1 in
8:02
and as high as 2.7 in in terms of its
8:05
cutting height. Whereas the high version
8:07
goes anywhere between 2.2 and 4 in. And
8:11
I did that largely because when I
8:13
started bringing in the weed man to help
8:15
with to try to improve my lawn, I've got
8:18
really rough soil. I had a lot of
8:19
different weeds I was fighting with. And
8:21
so as I started to try to get help to
8:22
improve my lawn, you know, since I'm
8:24
doing these type of reviews, it kind of
8:26
would be nice if my lawn looked good.
8:28
And so they recommended that I never cut
8:30
any less than 2 and 1/2 in in height to
8:32
help to shade out weeds. And so that's
8:35
something that I've striven to do here.
8:36
And you do have the ability to really,
8:38
you know, obviously flex as far as the
8:41
height and you can set that as a part in
8:42
the setting. Some of the other things
8:44
that are different here is that we have
8:47
on each cutting disc, we have two extra
8:50
blades as you can see here. And so six
8:53
rather than four blades on each one of
8:55
those discs and so that means that we
8:56
actually have 50% more uh cutting blades
8:59
on there. We also have improved cutting
9:02
motors here. The motors themselves are
9:04
two at 165 watt mowers. And so these are
9:09
automatic. There is AI built into it
9:11
now. And so it's automatically adjusting
9:13
speed and power according to the grass
9:15
density that it's encountering. And so
9:17
that means that rather than just going
9:18
full out all the time, it's going to
9:20
regulate according to what it actually
9:22
needs, which could allow it to cut a
9:24
bigger space, cut for longer if it's not
9:26
cutting through really dense grass. One
9:28
of the biggest physical changes is here
9:30
on top, and that's the addition of the
9:31
360 degree triusion positioning lidar
9:35
here. And so that adds the 360 degree
9:38
LAR to net R RTK and dual AI vision
9:42
which we have got here at the front
9:43
which is the camera system. And so it is
9:45
using three different systems
9:47
essentially to help with obstacle
9:49
avoidance and then also cutting and
9:52
things like that making sure that you're
9:53
getting those perfectly straight lines
9:55
and also not running over your pets or
9:57
objects that are in your lawn. Also
9:59
improved is the overall battery life. it
10:02
can now get up to 215 minutes per charge
10:04
versus 180 minutes per charge. And so
10:07
it's up to a 15 amp hour battery here. I
10:11
will note that whereas the biggest
10:13
section in my lawn with the Luba 2, it
10:15
would get to about 92% or so and then it
10:18
would have to recharge. It couldn't
10:19
finish it on one charge. Whereas the
10:22
Luba 3 is able to complete all of that
10:24
easily on one charge. And the other
10:25
thing I noticed is maybe because it has
10:27
a larger battery capacity, it's willing
10:29
to push a little bit deeper into battery
10:31
life, even if I'm running multiple
10:33
tasks. Whereas this would always return
10:35
to the dock to charge at about 15%. The
10:38
Luba 3 will go all the way to 8% before
10:40
it returns, knowing that it's going to
10:42
have plenty of power to get back to the
10:44
docking station and initiate the
10:45
charging process. As I mentioned, there
10:48
is an AI processor here. And Mimotion
10:50
claims that it is able to do up to 10
10:52
trillion operations per second. And so,
10:56
obviously, there is a lot of processing
10:57
power under the hood. And so, that makes
10:59
a significant difference. It also has
11:02
more smart um battery management
11:04
software involved. Now, some of the
11:05
things that I I think were really really
11:07
interesting about that is you now have
11:08
the ability to set it up to uh charge
11:11
off peak. And so if you have a big
11:13
variation in your electricity rates, you
11:15
can set it to charge at a specific time
11:17
of day. And so that will save you some
11:19
money on that front. You also have the
11:20
ability if you want you're looking at
11:22
the long haul, you want to extend the
11:24
battery life, you have the ability to
11:25
set a pro a charging limit. So rather
11:27
than charging 100% of the battery, it'll
11:30
charge to 80% or 90%, something like
11:32
that. Much like you have the option in
11:34
an iPhone or, you know, your phone to
11:36
help to manage the long-term battery
11:38
health of the batteries inside it. Also
11:41
note in terms of physical differences.
11:43
There are a few extra um shields and
11:46
hoods on this year's model. There's
11:48
obviously a difference in the the bar
11:50
down here, but that's partly to do with
11:52
being the high version. And so less to
11:55
do with just a a radical change overall.
11:57
Same kind of of wheels here and uh that
12:00
are on the previous unit. And overall,
12:02
the physical design is about the same,
12:04
just a little bit larger this year
12:07
around with the fact that with the Luba
12:09
2 all-wheel drive, I had gotten the the
12:12
3000 unit. So that's 3,000 square
12:14
meters. And so that allows you to cut up
12:16
to basically 75 of an acre. And in this
12:20
case, I got the 5,000 unit. And so
12:23
again, that's 5,000 square meters or
12:25
about 1 and a/4 acres. And so a little
12:27
bit bigger capacity to help to
12:28
accommodate with my larger lawn. So,
12:31
we're about two two and a half weeks
12:33
into things running with the Mimosion
12:36
Luba 3 all-wheel drive. As far as just
12:39
cutting my lawn, it is amazing at doing
12:41
that. I already knew that. However, it's
12:43
basically been true of all of the
12:45
previous four Motion models that I have
12:47
tested. One of the big upgrades in the
12:50
Luba 3, however, is to its obstacle
12:52
avoidance with its 3D LAR that it's
12:54
running at this point. So, to that end,
12:57
we're going to mow here in a few
12:59
minutes, but I'm going to distribute
13:00
various things across this section of
13:02
lawn. Then, we'll set up a time lapse
13:04
and so you and I can both see just how
13:07
well it does is avoiding the obstacles
13:09
that are out there. Now, typically, I'm
13:11
pretty good at making sure that my lawn
13:12
stays clear before it goes out. But,
13:14
maybe you've got young children or other
13:17
maybe you're just forgetting things
13:19
outside sometimes. We're going to see
13:20
how well it does at actually avoiding
13:22
the obstacles that get left on the lawn.
13:24
So, I've got a variety of things,
13:26
including some less obvious things like
13:28
a sprinkler that definitely could get
13:30
left out. I've got a few logs that are
13:32
upright. I'm going to set that up and so
13:34
you can easily see them. And then also
13:36
this bucket, which is got is full of
13:38
pine cones. If it knocks that over,
13:40
that's going to cause me some problems.
13:42
A few objects that are going to be a
13:43
little bit more obvious to show up on
13:45
camera. And I'll distribute them at
13:46
different spots. Then we'll watch
13:47
through the time lapse and see how well
13:49
it does.
14:06
Okay. And our postmortem here, we can
14:08
see that with all of these various
14:10
objects that it did a good job of
14:13
avoiding them. Nothing got knocked over
14:16
and it did quite a good job of getting
14:18
in fairly tight to them and cleaning up
14:20
around them to where it cut most of the
14:24
area. I would still obviously if this
14:25
was actually something on the edge, I'd
14:27
have to come through with a trimmer and
14:28
clean up around it, but did a pretty
14:30
good job of getting in there tight and
14:32
not allowing the obstacles to prevent it
14:34
from actually mowing the lawn. Perhaps
14:37
my biggest critique is the fact that
14:39
having more obstacles on your lawn means
14:42
that you're going to end up with more of
14:44
this. If there's any kind of place where
14:45
there's not a solid uh basis of grass
14:48
and it has bare ground to dig into, it
14:50
has to do more of those tight, you know,
14:52
three-point turns that end up causing
14:55
more damage to your actual lawn.
14:58
So, what's my conclusion about the Luba
15:00
3 all-wheel drive after going for about
15:04
three and a half weeks at this point?
15:06
Now, I got to have a little bit more
15:08
lawn than what we started and still have
15:10
some room for improvement. But I would
15:12
say that my conclusion is is that there
15:14
are three downsides that I would kind of
15:17
draw your attention to and then talk
15:18
about a few upsides. The same grip that
15:21
allows this to climb an 80% slope, which
15:24
is amazing. The all-wheel drive is is
15:26
fantastic. However, it is really going
15:28
to chew up places where there is bare
15:31
earth and it's basically going to
15:33
prevent those areas from ever growing if
15:35
it happens to be at the end of a row
15:37
where it makes its its turn because it
15:39
these knobbyby wheels really do dig into
15:41
the soil. It's fine if you already have
15:43
grass there, but just be aware of that.
15:45
One thing that I hoped would happen that
15:47
hasn't happened is that the battery is
15:50
still not easily usable user
15:52
replaceable. the uh Yuka model from
15:55
Motion, you could take out the battery,
15:57
you could swap that out. And so I was
15:58
hoping that they would adopt that here.
16:00
It hasn't happened. And the biggest
16:02
downside for me personally is that I
16:05
want to bring this unit in out of the
16:07
winter in the winter and so that the
16:09
batter is not being exposed to the harsh
16:11
Canadian cold. Well, because of the the
16:14
battery not being removable, I'm having
16:16
to bring the whole unit inside, which,
16:18
you know, is kind of messy and takes up
16:20
more space. instead of being able to
16:22
just pop out those batteries and leave
16:23
this in a shed. So, I wish that they
16:25
would have done that. And of course,
16:27
with all of these things, your upfront
16:28
investment is expensive. For the least
16:32
expensive model, which is the all-wheel
16:34
drive, 1500, which will cut up to right
16:37
over a third of an acre, 0.37 acres,
16:40
that's going to set you back about two
16:42
$2,400.
16:44
And then if you go all the way up to
16:46
this 5,000 unit here, which is going to
16:49
give you cut a quarter and or one and a
16:51
quarter acres, it's going to cost all
16:53
the way up to 3,300 US. And so that
16:57
range here in Canada is from 3,000 up to
16:59
4,300 Canadian. So it's a big chunk of
17:02
money all at once. I will note that
17:03
there is also a 10,000 unit available
17:07
that will do a full 2 1/2 acres. It
17:10
seems like it's only available in the US
17:11
and not here in Canada. And obviously
17:13
that's going to be even more expensive.
17:16
So price is big. Outside of that,
17:19
however, I love these things. It is. I
17:21
would say to me I you know obviously my
17:24
primary thing is photography but outside
17:26
of photography I think that these are
17:27
really one of the coolest things that I
17:30
test and Motion is so good at just
17:32
continuing to update them constantly
17:34
through firmware making them better
17:36
making it more logical to use making it
17:39
it's simpler to program giving you
17:41
deeper kind of functionality unlocking
17:43
out of the unit. So they continue to
17:45
support these units year after year
17:47
which I appreciate. I also think that it
17:50
just does an amazing job. Once you
17:51
figure out how to use these, you
17:53
literally can set it up to do pretty
17:55
much anything you want. If you want to
17:56
mow at night, this thing is so quiet
17:58
that your neighbors would never even
18:00
notice. And the overall maintenance for
18:03
them is minimal. The Luba 2 all-wheel
18:06
drive that I've had now for three years,
18:07
it's still going strong. Zero problems
18:09
with it. Really, the only thing you need
18:11
to do is to swap out those uh those
18:13
little cutting blades at the bottom. And
18:15
because they're fairly simple, they're
18:17
really not particularly expensive to
18:19
replace. And the cool thing is is that
18:21
uh you can actually swap them. Just
18:23
unscrew them and swap the direction on
18:25
them. And so they'll cut on the other
18:27
direction. And so you can basically
18:28
double the life there. I would say maybe
18:30
once per year if you want to replace all
18:32
of them or if you notice for some reason
18:34
that you're not getting as smooth a cut
18:36
as what you would like. But you can get
18:38
multiple sets for replacing every single
18:40
one of them for about uh here in Canada
18:43
it's about $75. So figure around $50. So
18:47
$25 a set, you know, not a huge
18:49
investment there. And they always come
18:51
with fresh screws and so you don't have
18:53
to worry about stripping the screws over
18:55
the long haul. So all of that is is
18:57
really, really amazing. I can say just
19:00
from using it and people seeing what a
19:02
fantastic a job it does with my lawn, I
19:05
know of at least half a dozen people,
19:06
neighbors, my neighbor right next to me
19:09
and uh and others around here that have
19:11
ended up buying these units because
19:12
they're just so impressed with what they
19:14
do. In fact, I read that golf courses in
19:16
Europe are starting to use some of these
19:18
models for some of their groundskeeping,
19:20
which to me makes a lot of sense. You
19:22
know, they they go hard and they are
19:25
extremely capable. These things are
19:27
tough, they hold up well. I really don't
19:29
have a whole lot of bad to say about
19:31
them other than the few minor issues
19:33
that I've pointed to here. This unit
19:36
comes with a three-year warranty. And
19:37
so, if you're concerned about that, you
19:39
do get a little bit of peace of mind
19:40
there. If you're worried about theft
19:42
protection, they've got all kinds of
19:43
protocols built into this. It's not
19:45
going to work off your property. Someone
19:47
can't just walk away with it. You will
19:48
get notifications and alarms. And what's
19:50
more, at any point, you can actually
19:52
just see through its camera and see what
19:55
it sees. And so there's a lot of
19:57
safeguards that are built in there. It's
19:58
a solid investment. I've never had any
20:01
actual issue with any of these Mimosia
20:03
models and so they come highly
20:05
recommended from me. You want more
20:06
information, check out the description
20:08
down below and I'll throw some linkage
20:09
there where you can either check them
20:11
out or purchase one for yourself. As
20:13
always, thanks for watching. Have a
20:14
great day and let the light in.
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