Dreame A1 review: the robot lawn mower without a perimeter wire

I don’t have my own garden, but that doesn’t matter. After sharing my news about getting the Dreame robot lawnmower A1, I was offered over 20 lawns that I could test the device on. From the Community as well as friends or even work colleagues – everyone was interested.

The manufacturer promises an easy, simple lawnmower that you can set up like a robot vacuum cleaner. Thanks to the Lidar scanner I don’t need to put a perimeter wire down and I don’t need to set up GPS antennae.

Installation gives me hope

I meet up with my college mate Jean-Claude Frick (page in German), who is always testing gadgets for the comparison service Comparis and on his podcast «Apfelfunk». Until now he’s been manually cutting his 300-square-metre lawn. So this is the perfect place for Dreame A1 to prove its abilities in the coming weeks and months.

First, the robot has to be installed. There’s not much in the package, just the robot, charging station (two parts), a power cable, instructions and a few plastic screws. Plastic screws are used to fix the charging station to the lawn. Ideally, you choose a spot on the edge of the garden where you have Wi-Fi signal.

The actual installation only takes a few minutes and is very similar to the set-up of a robot vacuum cleaner. Yes, Jean Claude doesn’t even need a new app, he can use the same one he has for the Dreame L10s Pro Ultra Heat. The robot connects to the app then to the Wi-Fi – then of course you have to install an update.

I have to help the robot when drawing the map

Ten minutes later, the first step is complete. We have a coffee break while the robot charges up. After that, we have to draw the map of the garden. This is the first main difference to the robot vacuum cleaner. The Dreame A1 can’t do this on its own, it needs my help. That’s because the garden doesn’t have walls and has fewer borders. Where does the vegetable patch start, where does the grass stop? Even with the Lidar scanner, the robot doesn’t know exactly where it can mow. I have to show it.

And this is how it works: I have to manually drive it along the edges of the area that I want to mow. By turning my smartphone to landscape form, it serves as a remote control with a virtual joystick. I can drive the robot along the edge of the lawn just like a remote controlled car.

Well, it’s not that simple. It’s worthtrying it out on a small patch first and then concentrating, slowly driving it along the edges. For the first test, we limited it to the big grass area at the front. This is around 120 square metres and takes us around 15 minutes until the map is done.

Compared to classic robot lawnmowers, it doesn’t require much effort. With those you’d have to lay a perimeter wire, i.e. pull a cable along the edge and secure it with a peg every 80 centimetres. These instructions show you just how tiring and difficult that can be.

The first attempt at obstacles

Without including charging time, we’re ready for our first mow around 30 minutes later. Important tip for newbies: robots can’t tackle grass that’s 15 cm high like a lawnmower can. Instead, they’re used multiple times a week to cut the grass and permanently keep a desired length. That means your grass should have already had a trim before the first mow. The cut grass tips aren’t collected up either, they trickle onto the lawn and serve as mulch.

We set the cutting height to 50 millimetres, 30 to 70 millimetres are the options – a good choice in my opinion. Just like that, it’s ready to go! First, the Dreame A1 cuts regular tracks through the grass. For test purposes, we placed small and large obstacles around the lawn – a box, a flower pot and a garden chair.

The robot dodges them, but at quite a distance. The lasers make sure the lawnmower doesn’t go into the objects and it recognises all objects that are at least ten centimetres high. The experiment function allows you to set the minimum height to five centimetres. With this, the lawnmower can probably recognise hedgehogs and drive round them.

If there’s no obstacle in the way, the Dreame travels along the lawn in regular tracks. The edge is cut at the end – plus some areas the robot left out beforehand, like the area behind the obstacles. We drink another coffee and follow the robot’s work on the app. You can see on there which areas the lawnmower still needs to mow.

A big problem with a simple solution

Jean-Claude Frick’s garden doesn’t have Wi-Fi in all areas. But that doesn’t bother the Dreame. It continues its job without any problems. You just won’t see any updates in the app. If the lawnmower is outside of the router range, you can still control it with your smartphone. You just have to go close to the lawn mower so you can connect via Bluetooth.

Suddenly we notice something’s wrong with Dreame. It keeps going round, trying to get somewhere. The biggest obstacle in the garden, the converted construction trailer, is giving it a hard time. The 3D map helps us to recognise what’s causing the robot problems. Here you can see what the Lidar scanner sees, which is pretty amazing.

The outlines of the house and the trees are just as recognisable as the construction trailer. We can see what the Lidar sees – under the trailer, even. But the other side still isn’t accessible. There’s high grass and a few stones.

Turns out, the solution is simple. You can create an exclusion zone. This is also really easy. Jean-Claude drives the robot along the trailer and draws an internal boundary, so to speak. The next time it tries to mow, the robot doesn’t have any problems and cuts perfectly around the trailer.

So for large areas of the garden that are never cut, I definitely recommend defining them as exclusion zones.

Update reduces lawn edge problem

There was one thing we noticed in the first tests – the Dreame leaves too much of a gap around edges and obstacles. Around 15 centimetres of grass in fact. In mid June there was a big update for the robot.

According to Jean-Claude-Frick, the lawnmower mowed much closer to the edges and more precisely. Instead of 15 centimetres, it’s just 5 centimetres of grass remaining. The obstacles on the lawn don’t deter it anymore either – the distance between them is shorter. If you want, you can also switch off the obstacle detection for the edge. The Dreame will consistently drive along the edge then, even if branches protrude over the grass. Only when it comes up against an obstacle does it swerve out of the way.

Jean-Claude also has a second lawn, which is separate from the first one, saved on his Dreame map. You can save up to five «zones». The robot travels along the path that connects the two gardens but doesn’t mow.

My co-tester is fascinated with how the A1 drives smoothly over the slightly overgrown path, which is only 80 centimetres wide, and navigates easily between the two lawns. In total, it’s around 340 square metres and the battery has to be recharged once. It’s intelligent too – it mows the larger zone of 200 square metres, then it charges for 60 minutes before doing the second zone of 140 square metres. It takes it around two and a half hours to complete.

I also like the order the lawnmower operates in. First, the largest area’s mown, then the edges. Then, it mows areas which were left out, like ones behind obstacles. This Dreame runs twice a week – that way the lawn is kept at a nice length.

The lawnmower is waterproof and can withstand rain. You can also clean and wash it off with the garden hose. Jean-Claude still got himself the mower garage so the A1 doesn’t have to be exposed to the constant rain or hail we’re having at the moment. Plus it’s also protected from the sun.

Garden machine accessories

Dreame Robot mower garage A1

Mowing robot, Robot mower garage

Garden machine accessories

Dreame Robot mower garage A1

Mowing robot, Robot mower garage