Automower EPOS stops on 'satellite search'

For what the EPOS manual says satellite search means, see the fault and error message reference.

What the reports have in common

Twelve owners describe a mower of their own stopping on satellite search: one in a thread about a strip between buildings¹, seven in the thread about stops on a scheduled start², one in the thread about where to mount the station³, two in a thread about a 305E⁴ and one under oak trees⁵. Models named are the 305, 405XE, 410XE and 450X; several owners do not give one.

• It happens at particular places. Corners, the ground under a large tree, an 80 cm (2½ ft) strip between buildings, the back of a garden, the area where a car trailer overhangs the lawn¹²⁴⁵.
• It can happen with everything else looking right. One 305E owner had Wi-Fi and a green EPOS tick everywhere and still had the mower stand for hours⁴.
• A stopped mower mostly stays stopped. One owner says that when the signal goes the mower stands, and that he has to move it by hand; another had understood it drives a little further first. App Drive reaches it only within Bluetooth range, according to the first². One poster relays that Husqvarna declines remote driving for liability reasons; that is second-hand².

What owners found, by number of owners

The mower and the station need to see the same satellites: seven posters in three threads. The rule is stated flatly: "they need a view of the same satellites in each case"³. It is the reason a station on a roof does not help a mower in a shadow it cannot share. In the strip-between-buildings thread, a poster looking at the owner's aerial photo concluded that the house hid satellites from the station that the mower could see, and the owner confirmed the station was not at the highest point; the thread ends there with no reported result¹. In another thread a poster says the station and mower do not need a line of sight to each other and that his own garden, with the whole house between them, mows fine³.

Trees: two owners stuck, one fine. A 450X stopped under oaks although the station was in view; posters say it cannot work under trees and suggest cable support there⁵. A 405XE owner's station sits so that the mower first drives under a large tree, and it sometimes finds a satellite and sometimes not². Against that, one owner with a plane tree whose crown is over 6 m (20 ft) wide says the mower mowed satellite-only all summer without stopping; he measured four or more satellites under it with a phone app³. So the tree alone does not decide it.

Stops on a scheduled start: one owner, with a pattern others share in part. A 410XE owner's mower left the station on schedule and sat on satellite search for about 30 minutes before faulting; opening App Drive after two or three minutes made EPOS go green and the mower mow. A manual start and a start with the schedule off both worked². One poster guesses the scheduled start needs data from the cloud that a manual start does not; that is a guess, not a finding². A 405XE owner who sees the same stop only just after leaving the station has the station set so that the mower drives under a large tree first, which is the tree finding above².

A restart: one cured, one not. One owner had exactly the same behaviour and a power cycle ended it; the 410XE owner had already tried that without effect².

Cable support in the problem area: three owners tried it, none reports a fix.

• The strip-between-buildings owner laid a boundary cable and a guide cable in the 80 cm (2½ ft) strip, entered it in the settings, and the mower still stopped on satellite search and was found well outside the area¹.
• An owner with two mowers laid cable at one site and chose cable support in the app; it still did not work².
• A 405XE owner connected old cable to the new station and the app showed 100% signal quality on it, but the mower did not follow the cable when it found no satellite at the start. Once it had set off by satellite it did follow the cable after a loss².

In the first thread a poster adds that the guide cable must be at least 30 cm (11¾ in) from the boundary cable¹, and says that with a boundary cable 5 cm (2 in) from the edge and no satellite position the mower runs 20 to 35 cm (7¾ to 13¾ in) over the edge¹. That is one owner's statement of the behaviour, not Husqvarna's.

A reference station is not a cure: one owner. A 305 NERA owner with a reference station has the mower stand directly under it and search until the battery is empty⁴. Owners are split on cloud against station. One relays that several owners on cloud reference data see "satellite search" when the real problem is missing reference data or Wi-Fi, and that stations run more reliably; the source for that is another thread, so it is second-hand³.

When none of that was it

• Unresolved. The 305E opener's thread ends with the owner not reporting a result, and the owner who followed up with a station and the same stop got no answer⁴.
• A different fault. A reference station whose signal reads 1% in the app is a separate problem and is not covered here⁵.
• No dealer. The strip owner bought online with no dealer nearby and says Husqvarna would not help directly; one poster's advice was to talk to the dealer¹.

What's unknown

• A single cause. Tree cover, a shadow that the station does not share, cloud data and a scheduled start all appear, and no thread settles which one it was for the owner who posted.
• Firmware. One 305E owner found older versions on the mower and station and could not get a firmware update offered; the thread does not say whether updating would have helped⁴.
• The same-satellites rule from Husqvarna. Owners state it. Husqvarna's article lists the sky view of both the mower and the reference station but does not state it in those words.
• How common it is. These are the owners who posted, not a count of mowers affected.