I liked Dreame’s A3 AWD Pro robot mower when I reviewed it last month, and now, during IFA 2026, the company has announced a follow-up called the A4 AWD Pro that brings with it several key improvements. Among them is a robotic arm that the company says (based on its own lab testing, of course) can achieve “0 cm edge cutting.”
The A4 AWD Pro is guided by LiDAR, like its predecessor, but also uses satellite navigation for “centimeter-level positioning.” It can also “see” obstacles defined by trained AI algorithms, and avoid them, and also features side-oriented time-of-flight sensors for keeping it from rolling over drop-offs, and infrared sensors to identify people and animals at boundary edges. These edge sensors also guide that robotic trimming arm, according to the company’s press materials.
Dreame isn’t alone in its, uh, dream of a robotic side arm for trimming. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear other automowers that have little mechanical arms, the same way you see extending side brushes on so many robot vacuums. At the moment, the best that other robot mowers have been able to do is slide their mowing decks sideways to get closer to the side of your house or edge of a sidewalk. But it’s never close enough that you don’t have to go back and clean up afterwards with an old-timey handheld weed whacker.
That robotic arm and new sensors and navigation aren’t all that’s new with the A4. In fact, Dreame seems to have rethought its approach entirely. The robot no longer has omnidirectional wheels in front, but instead uses swiveling, servo-driven caster wheels. The company says that it gives the robot “tight turns, smoother cornering, and flexible obstacle navigation from multiple angles with minimal turf wear.” That last bit is notable, since the A3 AWD Pro had a bad habit of tearing up bits of my lawn, leaving bald patches in the grass behind.
The A4 AWD Pro has no official release date for the U.S. The culprit, of course, is the foreign robotics ban that requires manufacturers to prove that at least 65% of the parts making up their robot vacuums are made in the U.S.
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