What this app does

LuLuMate runs on a small computer (a Raspberry Pi) that sits on or near your Mammotion Luba mower. It gives you a web app — on your phone, tablet or computer — to:

• Control the mower: start, pause, resume, dock, undock and stop; drive it by hand with a joystick.
• Mow your lawn areas with the same options as the Mammotion app, or spot mow any shape you draw, a strip along a line, or a whole area.
• See the mower on a map in real time, its route, what's been mowed, its live camera, and its status.
• Recover from trouble with Ai Recover: when the mower is stuck or can't dock, the app uses your training, the camera and the map to get it going again.
• Get alerts on your phone, follow the weather, track health and maintenance, keep backups and connect Siri or Home Assistant.

It talks to the mower over Bluetooth (for driving and fast updates) and through Mammotion's cloud (for everything else). It does not replace the Mammotion app: you still map your lawn areas and do firmware updates there.

Getting started

What you need

• A Mammotion Luba mower that is already set up in the Mammotion app, with its lawn areas mapped and an RTK base station.
• A Raspberry Pi 4 (or newer) with LuLuMate installed, powered and within Bluetooth range of the mower (mounting it on the mower works best).
• A second Mammotion account (see below) with the mower shared to it.
• Your home Wi-Fi.

Why a second Mammotion account?

The app signs in to Mammotion's cloud like the Mammotion app does. Signing in with your main account can sign your phone out. So create a second account (with an email and password — "Sign in with Apple" accounts don't work), then in the Mammotion app open your mower → Share and add the new account.

First run, step by step

1. Connect the Pi to your Wi-Fi. On first start — and whenever it has had no Wi-Fi for 5 minutes — the Pi opens its own Wi-Fi hotspot, LuLuMate-Setup. Join it from your phone — its password is the setup code on the unit's label (or, once a mower is set up, the mower's serial number); a setup page opens — sign in with the same code. Pick your home network, enter its password and press Connect.
2. Open the app in a browser on the same Wi-Fi at https://<the Pi's address>. Your browser may warn about the certificate the first time: the sign-in page has a link to install the app's certificate so the warning goes away (and so phone alerts work).
3. Create the admin account. The very first visit asks you to create one (username and a password of 8+ characters). This account manages users and settings.
4. Follow the setup guide. Once you've signed in, the app opens a short guide by itself:
   • Mammotion account: the second account's email and password, then Find My Mowers and tap your mower in the list.
   • Connecting: wait for it to connect — usually under a minute. If it doesn't, check the mower is on and shared to that account.
   • Time zone & Wi-Fi country: for schedules and history, and which Wi-Fi channels are allowed.
   • Your lawn map: checks your lawn areas have arrived. If the map background is in the wrong place, see Lining up the map.
   • Theft protection & phone alerts: choose when the alarm is armed, and turn on alerts on this phone.
   Run it again any time from Settings → About & Help → Run Setup Again (to change the account or mower, for example). You can still change them by hand in Settings → Mower.
5. Optional: set up the camera Ai, phone alerts, weather and more users.

The main screen

The header

The bottom buttons

The buttons down the side of the map

A button that is switched on is filled with your style's colour (the headlamp is yellow). Windows (camera, Ai Training, Spot Mow) can be dragged by their title bar; double-tap the title to maximise (camera, Ai Training) or put back (Spot Mow). They remember where you left them.

Mowing lawn areas

1. Tap one or more lawn areas on the map to select them.
2. Press Start. The options window opens, filled in from each area's saved settings in the Mammotion app: cutting height, speed, path spacing, path angle, path mode (zig-zag, checkerboard, adaptive, perimeter only), perimeter laps, obstacle detection, no-go zone laps, path order and start progress.
3. Change anything you like and press Start Mowing. The app saves these settings to the area's task and runs it the way the Mammotion app does, so the mower plans and follows its own route (blue lines on the map). Mowed stripes appear as it goes.

If the mower can't start (for example no RTK fix, low battery, or it's docked and charging), the Log says why. The lines on the map clear when a job is cancelled or finished.

Schedules

The calendar button in the header lists the mower's own schedules (the same ones as the Mammotion app). You can:

• Turn a schedule on or off, run it now, edit or delete it.
• Add a new schedule: name, repeat (every N days or on chosen weekdays), start date and time, which areas, and the mowing options.

Schedules live on the mower, so they run even when the Pi is off. Spot mow schedules are separate — see Saved spots, queue and schedules.

Spot mowing

Spot mowing mows any area you choose, outside the Mammotion app's own jobs. The Pi steers the mower directly, so it needs a full RTK fix and the Bluetooth link, and the mower must be off the dock and ready.

Three ways to choose what to mow

Patterns and options

The blue lines preview the route, with the area, the number of stripes and an estimated time. Press Start Spot Mow: it drives to the start with the blades off, warns with a tone, starts the blades and mows.

While it mows

• The camera opens as soon as you press Start or Continue — before any checks — and when a spot mow starts from a queue or schedule, so you can watch it (close it if you don't need it — it won't reopen until the next spot mow).
• The panel rolls up to the stats (stripe, %, area, height, speed, time, ETA) and Stop. Tap Show settings to see the rest.
• It stops at once on the bumper, lift, tilt or any fault, if the RTK fix is lost for too long, or if Bluetooth drops. A plain bump makes it back off, turn away and carry on — and remember the spot as an obstacle pin so later stripes stop short of it.
• The panel has one main button: Start, Stop while it mows, then Continue after a stop — it carries on from the first stripe it hadn't cut (driving back with the blades off first), even after the Pi restarts. Cancel stops it and forgets the mow; drawing a new shape starts a new one.
• If it can't start or continue (no RTK fix, on the dock, no Bluetooth…) you get an alert in the app and on your phone saying why.
• By default it only mows while this app is open somewhere (so someone is watching). To allow unattended spot mows (needed for spot schedules), switch that on in Settings → Autonomy.

Saved spots, queue and schedules

• Save keeps the current shape and settings under a name. Saved spots can be loaded, added to a queue (mowed one after another) or deleted.
• Spot schedules (under Saved spots → New): choose spots, weekdays, a start time and whether to dock after. They need unattended spot mows allowed. They're skipped (and you're told) if the battery is low, it's raining with rain delay on, or the mower is busy.

Lawn edges

Outline laps (the perimeter) run slower than the stripes — 60% of the spot mow speed by default (Settings → Autonomy → Outline lap speed) — for a neater edge. If the RTK fix drops mid-mow, the mower stops and lifts the blades, then carries on cutting when the fix returns. Continue after a stop starts from the first stripe that wasn't cut, even after the Pi restarts.

The lawn lines from the Mammotion app usually sit a little outside the real edges. The map shows them exactly as the Mammotion app does, but spot mows keep inside them by the amount in Settings → Autonomy → Shrink the lawn areas (40 cm by default): a whole area is mowed that much smaller, and a spot drawn up to an edge stops that far short of the line, so it doesn't run into walls and fences. The map still shows the route going right up to the lawn line, and the mowed swath grows along it as the mower goes — the 40 cm is kept out of sight. (The camera view shows where it really drives.) Where a stripe or line runs straight at an edge, the front of the mower sticks out ahead of its middle, so those ends stop further in by Extra room at stripe ends (20 cm by default — 60 cm in total). If the nose still touches at stripe ends, increase the extra room; if it touches along the sides, increase the shrink; if it leaves too much, decrease them.

Driving by hand

• Use the joystick (bottom left): push to drive and turn; let go to stop. It needs the Bluetooth link and a position, and the mower off the dock (press Undock first).
• Height & Speed sets the joystick's top speed (0.2–1.2 m/s).
• Manual mowing: in Height & Speed press Start Blades — a warning tone sounds, then the blades start. A Stop Blades button appears over the joystick. The blades stop if you stop driving for a while, or on any safety signal.

Camera

• Open it from the bottom bar or the side of the map. The window can be moved, resized from its corners, and maximised with a double-tap on its title.
• Turn a phone sideways for full screen.
• Buttons: dock boxes (the trained dock detector drawn on the picture), a mini map, the headlamp (yellow when on), and reconnect.
• The camera opens by itself in every open app when something goes wrong (a bump, getting stuck, being lifted, a fault, or Ai Recover starting). Close it and it won't reopen for two minutes.
• The headlamp switches itself off about a minute after nothing is using the camera.

The map

Backgrounds

• Street map — a sharp vector map (stays crisp however far you zoom), light or dark to match the app. Turn Sharp vector map off in Settings → Account → Map for the older picture map.
• Street detail: your own streets at full detail (exact building shapes, fences, paths and house numbers) downloaded once from OpenStreetMap. Refresh street detail in Settings → Account → Map downloads the area around where the map is looking.
• Aerial — photos from above. In New Zealand you can use LINZ's 7.5 cm aerial photos: create a free key at basemaps.linz.govt.nz and paste it into Settings → Account → Map.
• Lawn only — just your lawn areas.

The map remembers your zoom and position. The mower is drawn to scale (its wheels turn as it moves), with its dock and RTK base.

Map layers

The layers button opens Show on the map: Last cut colours the lawn by how long ago each part was mowed (7–60 days), and Obstacle pins shows where the mower bumped into things. Drop a pin lets you mark an obstacle yourself (spot mows keep clear of pins). Tap a pin to remove it.

RTK signal colours the lawn in 50 cm squares by how good the position fix was there, recorded whenever the mower is off the dock: green a solid RTK fix, yellow it drops now and then, orange mostly float, red GPS only. Hover or tap a square for the details (fix %, satellites, readings). Spot mows need a solid fix, so red and orange patches show where to move the base station or clear the sky view. Clear starts the map again (e.g. after moving the base station).

Missed patches shows what the last mow didn't cut: the mower's track widened to the blades' cut, compared with the areas (or spot) it was meant to mow. Slivers from position wobble are ignored and nearby gaps merged. Mow Them mows every patch one after another as spot mows, then docks. After a mow that leaves more than a square metre you also get an alert.

Lining up the map

If your lawn areas don't sit on the right place on the background: press the lock button (it lights up), drag the map until the lawn lines up with the background, and press the lock again to save. This only moves the drawing, not where the mower goes.

Ai Recover and Ai Training

Setting up the camera Ai

Ai Recover and Ai Training use a camera Ai: any service that speaks the OpenAI-style chat API and can read images. In Settings → Autonomy → Camera Ai, enter its address, API key and model, choose how hard it thinks, and press Test Ai. The key is stored on the Pi only and is never included in backups.

Ai Recover

Settings → Autonomy → Ai Recover → Mode:

• Off — never runs by itself (you can still press the lifebuoy).
• Ask Me First — shows you the camera picture and what it wants to do; nothing moves until you approve.
• Automatic — goes ahead by itself.

It runs when the mower stops with a positioning problem, a bumper hit, gets stuck, or can't dock. In order, it: switches the headlamp on; presses Resume if the job is only paused; follows a recorded drive or your notes if this spot matches one; otherwise looks with the camera and the trained detectors and moves in small, checked steps. To dock, it finds the dock, lines up in front of it, turns so its back faces the dock and presses the mower's own Dock (the mower docks by reversing onto it).

Every move is checked first: a fresh picture before moving, nothing you marked Avoid ahead, no person or animal, room to move — and it never turns on the spot into something you marked Avoid. If it's pinned it tries each way out once, then stops and asks for a hand.

Ai Training

Open it with the graduation-cap button. Four tabs:

Writing what to do from a view

Each picture has a box for what to do from this view. When the mower is somewhere that looks like that picture, Ai Recover does it first. Only these phrases make it move — anything else is just a description for the Ai:

Example: Turn left 80, drive forward 1m, then turn left 90 and dock. Steps run in the order written, each one checked first. If a step runs into something, that note isn't used again for the rest of the run.

Teach by driving

1. Ai Training → Drive → Start Recording.
2. Drive the mower with the joystick to where it should dock, the way you'd want it to go.
3. Press Dock. The mower's own docking isn't recorded; once it's charging the drive is saved as Ends on the dock.

When Ai Recover is trying to get back to the dock and recognises a spot on one of your drives, it asks once, then repeats what you did from there, leg by leg, checking every move and re-checking where it is after each leg. Record a few, from the places it tends to get stuck.

Describing your garden

In Ai Training, Where is the dock? and Garden layout for the Ai tell the Ai about your garden in your own words (landmarks, where the dock is, what to avoid). An Overview Photo taken from above helps too. The more specific, the better.

Dock options (Settings → Autonomy)

• Dock tag: if you print the dock tag and stick it on the dock, Ai Recover lines up this far in front of it, turns round and presses Dock.
• The dock sits under something low: for a dock under a deck, shed or low roof — it never drives forward into it, only reverses onto the dock, keeping at least the set distance.
• Go round the dock on its: either side, left or right.

Phone alerts

1. On a phone, add the app to the home screen first (iPhone: iOS 16.4 or newer) and open it from there.
2. Settings → Alerts → Turn On Alerts and allow notifications.
3. Choose what to be told about: a job finished or stopped; stuck, faults or Ai Recover needing you; back on the dock; battery low; mower offline; theft (lifted, left the dock or the lawn unexpectedly); maintenance due; rain delay.

Each phone or computer chooses its own alerts. Send a Test checks they arrive. Keep watching the mower when nobody has the app open lets the Pi keep checking for alerts all the time (it uses a little more power). While the app is open, alerts show as cards instead of phone banners.

Theft protection

Settings → Alerts → Theft protection: On the dock (the default) watches while the mower sits on its dock with nothing scheduled to move it; Always also watches out on the lawn whenever nobody is driving it; Off just sends a simple alert.

If, while armed, the mower is lifted, moves off its dock or leaves the lawn with nobody driving it, the alarm goes off:

• a phone alert straight away and every minute after, with where it was last seen;
• the headlamp flashes while the Pi can still reach the mower;
• a photo from the mower's camera;
• its trail is drawn in red on the map;
• the controls lock — nothing can drive it, start a job or spin the blades from the app (Stop, Pause and Dock still work).

A red alarm card appears at the top; tap it for the details, Open in Maps, Show on the Map and the photo, then Turn Off the Alarm once the mower is safe. The Pi rides on the mower, so once it's carried out of Wi-Fi range it can't send more — the Mammotion app's own tracking follows it from there.

Health

Settings → Health: blade hours (press Blades Changed after fitting new blades; set how often to be reminded), totals (hours, distance, jobs), the battery over the last 14 days, and recent faults with their meaning.

Weather and rain delay

Settings → Weather shows the forecast at your lawn (no account needed). Switch on the rain delay to pause the mower's schedules (and skip spot schedules) while the grass is wet: set how much rain counts as wet, how long to wait after it stops, and how far ahead to look. Optionally send the mower home if it's mowing when rain starts. Your schedules are switched back on automatically afterwards.

Settings

Account and appearance

• Appearance: Auto (light while the sun is up at your lawn, dark after dusk), Light, Dark, or Phone (follow the phone's setting). Choose a dark style and a light style.
• Map: sharp vector map, street detail, LINZ aerial key.
• Change password.

Users

Admins can add people (username, password, role). Admins can change settings, users and the system; standard users can use and drive the mower.

Mower

• Mower network: the mower's own Wi-Fi and 4G status, read over Bluetooth, with a plain-language summary.
• Mammotion account: email, password and device name (see First run).
• Advanced: joystick timing and how often the status updates.
• Raspberry Pi: Wi-Fi Setup (join a different network) and Restart Pi if the camera, Bluetooth or the app gets stuck. The Pi also restarts itself if it freezes.

Autonomy

Camera Ai, Ai Recover mode, dock options, and spot mowing (unattended spot mows, outline lap speed, lawn shrink, extra room at stripe ends). Stripe spacing is set in the Spot Mow panel each time.

System (admins)

• Time Zone & Wi-Fi Country: schedules, history and logs use the Pi's time zone (set from your device when the first admin account is made; Use This Device's Time Zone fixes it after a move). The Wi-Fi country sets which channels and power the Pi may use — set it to where the mower is.
• Backups: Back Up Now saves the app, your Ai Training pictures, saved spots, history and settings layout to the Pi's SD card; download one to keep it somewhere else too. Backups never contain passwords or keys.
• Download Last 24 h Log: the app's log, to send for support.
• Siri, Home Assistant & other apps: create API tokens — see below.

Software updates (admins)

Settings → About & Help → Updates. The unit checks for a new version once a day; when there is one you get a notification, and the card shows what's new in it.

• Install downloads the update, checks it really comes from the maker (it's signed, and must match its checksum — anything else is refused) and installs it. The app restarts; after 2–5 minutes the page reloads on the new version. Your settings, maps, Ai Training, saved spots and history are kept.
• It won't install while the mower is mowing, spot mowing, recovering or has its blades on — try again when it's idle.
• If the new version doesn't start, the old one is put back by itself and the card says so.
• Install updates by itself at night: installs a new version between 2 and 5 am while the mower is on its dock doing nothing.

Siri, Home Assistant and other apps

Create a token in Settings → System, then call the app with the header Authorization: Bearer <token>:

Settings → System shows a ready-made Home Assistant example. Tokens can be revoked at any time.

Home Assistant (automatic)

Settings → System → Home Assistant: switch on Connect to Home Assistant and enter the MQTT broker Home Assistant uses (usually its Mosquitto add-on: the Home Assistant address, port 1883, and a Home Assistant user's name and password). The mower then appears by itself under Settings → Devices in Home Assistant, with:

• a lawn mower you can start, pause and dock (it shows mowing, docked, returning, paused or error);
• battery, status, RTK fix, satellites, spot mow progress, Pi temperature;
• charging, blades, theft alarm and rain delay on/off;
• its position on Home Assistant's map;
• buttons to Undock, Stop and Mow missed patches, and the theft protection setting.

It shows as unavailable in Home Assistant whenever the Pi is off. The broker password is kept on the Pi only — never in backups.

Safety

• Everything the app does stops immediately on the mower's bumper, lift, tilt, slip or stuck signals and on the emergency stop.
• The blades only run in a spot mow or manual mowing, with a warning tone first, and stop on any of the above.
• Spot mowing needs a full RTK fix, the Bluetooth link, and (unless you allow unattended) the app open somewhere.
• Ai Recover never moves without a fresh look, and in "Ask Me First" mode never without your OK.
• Theft alerts tell you if the mower is lifted or leaves the dock or the lawn unexpectedly.

Troubleshooting

Versions

This is version …. What's new in each version: