LUBA 3 and LUBA 2: the mower steers around leaves and low plants it could mow over

What owners report

• A LUBA 3 in the northeast of the US was moving round a few fallen leaves "like they have the plague" while most of the leaves were still on the trees. Its owner asked whether leaf detection needs more training and wanted a tip other than switching obstacle detection off¹.
• Owners with the same model disagree. One has the LUBA 3 on standard avoidance, with about the same amount of leaves on the yard, and says it has no trouble mowing over them². Another says theirs sometimes disappears into fallen maple leaves with a crunching sound, with the avoidance setting on the default¹.
• Large leaves. One owner noticed theirs avoiding large maple leaves, lowered obstacle detection to basic and says it then got over its fear, but it also went over and chewed up some edging³.
• A LUBA 2 3000H on 1.30.31.19, whose owner had turned obstacle detection off for the task, kept raising a "Robot trapped" error and made many tank turns round a no-go zone ringed with hanging saw-palmetto leaves. The leaves hung to about six inches from the ground and blocked its vision for a moment, and the turns tore up the turf⁵. Another owner in the thread says the vision reacts like this regardless of the setting, and has always done so⁶.
• Not every owner has it. A long-time LUBA 1 owner, in a thread about another brand's mower, says theirs does nothing with leaves, and that it still needs the leaves raked, blown or bagged because it has no suction⁸.

If you want it to cut the leaves it does drive over

The same fall thread, started by an owner who wished for mulching blades, shows owners split. One says the mower goes through leaves without trouble if the cutting height is raised and the leaves are one dry layer thick⁹. A LUBA 2 owner says it chops dry leaves up pretty well, enough for the wind to blow them away, and that slowing the mower down helps¹⁰. Another raised the height, ran the blades and the speed at maximum with the lowest overlap, and waited for the leaves to dry¹¹. Others say the blades are too small and the mower has no suction, so it will not mulch¹², and a LUBA 1 owner says it still needs raking⁸. None of these is Mammotion's advice, and wet leaves are not covered.

What Mammotion says

• Heavy leaf cover. In its fall-care post, Mammotion says the YUKA and YUKA Plus with the Sweeper Kit can collect fallen leaves. For other models it says light leaf coverage may be manageable, but heavy buildup can interfere with mowing and obstacle detection, and that excessive leaves, larger branches and other debris should be cleared before mowing⁷.
• Logs and details. A Mammotion staff account asked the owner with the leaf-averse LUBA 3 to upload the logs after a run, with the device number and roughly when it happened, so that the team can see what triggered the avoidance and whether the robot is too sensitive to small amounts of leaves⁴. It also asked the owner to try turning the AI-assisted obstacle avoidance off for that area⁴.

What owners changed

• Lowering the level. One owner lowered obstacle detection to basic and says the mower then drove over the leaves, but also over some edging³. Another owner, whose detection was already off, still saw the turns⁵.
• Mowing at night. One owner says that for no vision intervention at all, they mow at night with the lights off, on a steep hill where a sudden hesitation can make the mower spin out⁶.

What is not known

No source here says the vision software changed to cause this, and no firmware is named as the start. The owner with the palmetto leaves believes the behaviour began around the same time as the Swedish toddler incident, and a reply in that thread says it has always done it. Whether the obstacle level or the setting "off" really changes the camera's reaction to leaves is not settled: one owner's switch to Basic helped, while another saw the turns with detection already off.

The mower stopping at night because it reads its camera as dirty is a different report, on its own page. A LUBA 2 AWD X that drives into a no-go zone and sticks against a tree is on another.