After repairing the boundary wire for my Husqvarna Automower for the fifth time this season (not an exaggeration), only to be severed a sixth time two days later, I had reached my limit. So after only four short years, Shaun is no more, and I have moved on to the next generation of mower technology. One that does not require boundary wires at all, and I strongly recommend that everyone else do the same.
I ordered an Ecovacs GOAT A2000 from their website, and Millie arrived one week later. The installation process was dead simple, although I will say that the app is a bit counter-intuitive in places, so you might benefit from watching a couple of videos on the process before the mower arrives. Within an hour, I had the charging station assembled and placed in my yard. Less than an hour later, I had the mower connected to my wifi network and configured to run. This was already an improvement over the Husqvarna installation which took two full days.
I have a large backyard (almost 12,000 square feet) so it took a full day to complete. But that is quite a lot better than our previous mower which would take 1-2 weeks to have it completely mowed.
I also defined the areas for my front yard (something Shaun could not do because of the fence separating the two yards), on both sides of the driveway (about 2400 square feet), with paths in between. It took about two hours to mow these, and that's with one charging session in the middle, so just over an hour of actual mowing time.
There are a couple of unexpected features that I really like. Through the app it is possible to watch the livestream from the camera on the front of the mower, which is kind of fun, although it does drain the mower's battery noticeably faster when the camera is streaming. Also, the app allows you to view the point cloud of your yard that the dual LiDAR sensors generate, which serves no practical purpose, but I like that they included it.
What I've learned so far is to not rush the process of defining the boundaries - the more precise you are drawing these lines, the less time you'll have to spend with the edge trimmer each time you mow. I will update this post as I learn more.