Summary
Every October, the outdoor power industry packs into Louisville, Kentucky, for Equip Expo. This year’s show ran October 20 to 23, drew close to 30,000 registrants, and spread across more than a million square feet indoors plus a 30-acre demo yard where mowers run on real grass instead of trade-show carpet.
The show is built for landscapers and dealers. We walked the floor anyway, because the homeowner gear turned out to be the most interesting part. Robot mowers picked up all-wheel drive and camera arrays, STIHL finally put a battery in the snow, and nearly every brand had a one-battery-for-the-whole-yard pitch ready. Here’s what stood out.
STIHL SFA 120 snow thrower
STIHL’s first battery snow thrower is rated to run at -4°F
STIHL used its 100th anniversary to announce more than 90 products, and the one that drew the biggest crowd was a snow thrower. The SFA 120 is the company’s first battery-powered model, a 22-inch single-stage unit that runs on the new AP 300.0 P pack. That battery carries an IPX5 rating and is rated to work at -4°F, which is the spec that matters on a January morning. STIHL claims a throw distance past 30 feet, well beyond what most residential single-stage machines manage, and a maximum clearing depth of 13 inches.
The auger is a steel frame with rubber paddles, so it scrapes to the pavement without chewing it up. A handlebar control swings the chute through 180 degrees without stopping, LED lights handle early-morning driveways, and the skid shoes and scraper bar are replaceable.
STIHL rates runtime in driveways cleared rather than minutes, and its seven-to-ten-car figure assumes two packs. The kit with battery and charger lists at 699.99.
STIHL SFA 120 Snow Thrower
- Color
- Orange/White
- Tool Type
- Snow Blower
STIHL AK homeowner line and combo kit
One 36V battery runs the trimmer, blower, hedge trimmer, saw, and mower
STIHL splits its battery tools into a pro AP system and a homeowner AK system, and the AK side got a refresh in Louisville. The updated AK 10, AK 20, and AK 30 packs share a new face design, and the top AK 30 S gains a 35% bump in peak power over the outgoing pack. All of them run the same 36V lineup: string trimmer, handheld blower, hedge trimmer, a compact chainsaw, and the RMA push mowers.
The combo kit pitch is the same one EGO, Ryobi, and Greenworks make, and the trade-off is the same too. One charger on the garage wall and one pile of batteries is convenient right up until you want a tool STIHL doesn’t make, at which point you’re buying into a battery family rather than a tool. STIHL’s counter is dealer support and build quality that holds up for a decade. The FSA 57 trimmer set with an AK 10 and charger is the cheapest way in.
Sunseeker Elite X8 Plus robot mower
Three navigation systems and a promised zero-inch edge gap
Sunseeker brought its whole X lineup to Booth 1190, but the X8 Plus was the preview everyone wanted to see. It stacks three sensing systems: network RTK positioning for centimeter-level accuracy in the open, solid-state LiDAR for obstacles, and stereo cameras for everything the other two miss. Sunseeker calls the combination AONavi 3.0, and it’s exclusive to this model for now.
The feature that could actually change a Saturday is EdgeZero 2.0. Most robot mowers leave a strip of uncut grass along driveways and beds that you still have to trim by hand. Sunseeker claims the X8 Plus closes that gap to zero. MUO will believe it once we’ve watched it work on a real border, but the demo-yard runs on slopes looked convincing. All-wheel drive carries it up 80% grades, and it’s rated for lawns up to two acres. The X8 Plus is a preview, so pricing and a ship date are still to come.
Sunseeker Elite X8 Plus - Color
- Gray
- Tool Type
- Robot Lawn Mower TerraMow X AWD robot mower It reverses at the end of every row instead of turning around Every other robot mower on the floor pivots at the end of a pass. The TerraMow X AWD shifts sideways and drives the next strip backward. TerraMow calls it Shuttle Drive, and the point is turf: those repeated end-of-row pivots are where heavy mowers scuff the grass and compact the soil. Mowing in both directions removes the turn entirely. The rest of the spec sheet is built for lawns that strand lesser robots. A 42V all-wheel-drive chassis with dual suspension and dynamic torque distribution handles 42-degree slopes, roots, and ruts. Six cameras front and rear feed the TerraVision 2.0 system, with nRTK backing it up in open ground, and a 900W cutting system spins three discs under a 20-inch deck. The caveat is the sales channel. The X AWD launched on Kickstarter in June at 3,599 retail price, and crowdfunded mowers have a mixed record on delivery. The hardware we saw was finished, which is more than some campaigns can say. DEWALT 2X20V MAX XR 21-inch RWD mower kit Two drill batteries, 90 minutes, and a striper kit in the box DEWALT’s Equip Expo booth leaned heavily on 60V commercial handhelds, but the residential preview was this rear-wheel-drive mower, due in November. It runs on two 20V MAX packs, the same batteries that power DEWALT’s drills and impact drivers, and DEWALT rates the pair for up to 90 minutes. That’s the whole appeal of a 2X20V tool: if you already own the batteries, the mower is a bare-tool purchase in everything but name, and the same logic that splits an 18V and 40V garage applies here. AutoSense mode reads grass conditions in real time and adjusts blade speed, so the motor doesn’t run flat out over a thin patch. The striper kit installs without tools and lays down the ballpark-stripe pattern that usually requires a separate roller. Automatic headlights and a handle that folds for vertical storage round it out. Pricing wasn’t announced at the show. Toro HAVEN AM75 autonomous mower LiDAR mapping and no perimeter wire, sized for a normal yard Toro is a lawn tractor company first, which makes the HAVEN AM75 the surprise of its booth. It navigates by LiDAR, builds its map from boundaries you draw in the app, and skips the buried perimeter wire that older robot mowers still require. Toro rates it for lawns up to 0.75 acres, which covers the typical suburban lot with room to spare. That rating matters because most of the wire-free robots MUO saw in Louisville chase two-acre properties and price accordingly. The AM75 is aimed at the homeowner who wants a known brand, a dealer down the road, and a mower that handles the front and back without a weekend of setup. Toro’s Equip Expo lineup also included a redesigned 50-inch TimeCutter zero-turn and a 24-inch Power Max HD snow blower, so the AM75 sits inside a full residential catalog rather than standing alone. EGO 2027 lineup preview A 3,200W charging hub and nicer materials across the board EGO used the show to preview where its 56V platform goes next year. The headline is a 3,200W charging hub designed to keep a whole garage of packs topped off, which addresses the real bottleneck for anyone who has moved a full yard onto battery: the chargers, not the tools, decide how much work you get done in a day. The tools themselves get a materials upgrade. The 2027 mower moves to a composite deck, the string trimmer picks up a carbon fiber shaft, and the blower gets more output. None of it is on sale yet, so there’s no price to weigh, but EGO owners have a reason to hold off on upgrades until spring. STIHL MSA 260 CO chainsaw Gas-saw power with an 80% charge in 10 minutes The last STIHL entry is for anyone who still keeps a gas saw around because the battery versions couldn’t keep up. STIHL pitches the MSA 260 CO as a match for its gas models, and the more interesting number belongs to the charger that ships with it. The AL 1602 MO is rated to put 80% back into a pack in 10 minutes. For a tool that burns through a battery in a few cuts of hardwood, that turns a two-pack rotation into continuous work. It’s a pro-leaning tool, but it’s the clearest sign we saw that fast charging is coming to the homeowner side next. What Louisville says about next spring Three patterns ran through every hall. Robot mowers are converging on all-wheel drive, multiple camera arrays, and wire-free setup, and the question is shifting from whether they work to how they handle the edges. Snow is finally going battery at the premium end. And every brand MUO talked to, from STIHL to DEWALT to EGO, is selling a battery system first and the tools second. Before buying into any of it, check what your current packs will run, and look at how you charge and store them, because the batteries will outlast half the tools in this article.