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Husqvarna puts a number on mapping: same mower, 44 percent more lawn

Husqvarna has put a number on what map-based navigation is worth in a robotic lawn mower, and it did so in its own specification table rather than in a press release. The Automower 435 iQ AWD, on sale since spring 2025, is mechanically the same machine as the wired Automower 435X AWD of 2019: the same articulated two-body chassis, the same all-wheel drive, the same 70 percent gradient rating, the same 22 cm cutting disc with three pivoting blades, the same 8 Ah battery giving 145 minutes of mowing and 45 minutes of charging. What differs is that the newer model knows where it is. Husqvarna EPOS combines satellite RTK positioning with radar odometry, and the boundary is drawn in an app rather than buried in the lawn. The specification table for the iQ model lists two separate area ratings. Mowing in the traditional random pattern, it is rated for 0.9 acre. Mowing systematically in lines, stripes or checkerboards, it is rated for 1.3 acre. That is 44 percent more lawn from route planning alone, with no change to battery, motor or blade. It also explains a limitation the catalogue has recorded for years without a figure attached. A wire-guided mower drives at random because it has no map, so it must cover the same ground repeatedly to be sure it has cut all of it. The random rating of the new machine, 0.9 acre, is exactly the rating of the old one. The price of removing the wire is USD 2,000. The wired 435X AWD lists at USD 2,999.99 and the wire-free 435 iQ AWD at USD 4,999.99, and Husqvarna sells both at the same time rather than replacing one with the other. For comparison, the Ecovacs GOAT A3000 LiDAR profiled in this catalogue navigates without a wire and without a satellite mast, using two lidars and an AI camera, and lists at around USD 3,000 for a garden of similar size. The gap is not in what the machines do but in how the positioning is solved: satellite correction with a reference station and a cellular subscription on one side, onboard optical mapping on the other. Two caveats. Both area figures are the manufacturer own, with a stated tolerance of plus or minus 20 percent, and neither has been verified independently. And the systematic rating assumes reception good enough for centimetre-level RTK; under dense tree cover, where lidar keeps working, satellite positioning is where the mower loses its map.