[melling]

So, the HN comments are pretty much negative. People seem to be overlooking the most important thing. A hugely successful product in this category will be the spark that launches the home robotics revolution. More players, more money invested, etc.

I'm really not sure why robots aren't already vacuuming our floors, raking the leaves and mowing our lawns by now.

[veidr]

Well, I think this already happened. About half the families I know have a Roomba robot vacuum or a knockoff.

But it's a big step from vacuuming floors to mowing lawns with sharp blades.

I don't personally have a leaf problem, but I would very much like to see a clever window-washing robot. Could be -- would preferably be! -- very slow and small. Something that runs constantly and could go home and charge/clean itself.

A sibling bot could clean bathtubs and sinks (and I would love to see toilets added to that list, but that may be a bridge too far).

I think robot vacuums are pretty established, but fall short of constituting a 'revolution'.

[arrrg]

Why don’t people know about mowing robots?

My parents had one for about a year now. They use it to mow their huge garden. It has worked extremely well throughout this summer.

It got stuck maybe three or four times at the start of summer, when they were playing around with the boundaries to make sure it gets to as many places as possible and doesn’t push itself outside the boundaries because of some tight spot. It seems those problems are solved now. Maintenance is checking the blades every couple of weeks (and exchanging broken or dull ones once or twice a year) and brushing it off a bit.

These mowing robots have been around for decades now. You basically lay a cable (on the surface or slightly underground) all around your garden and big, permanent obstacles and set up a charging station.

Depending on the size of your garden the mower drives around several hours a day, several days a week. During this it is practically completely quiet. Whatever it cuts off it just leaves on the grass. Since it is permanently cutting that’s not an issue at all and not even noticeable.

It basically drives around randomly, but maybe has features like focusing on a certain area when it encounters especially thick grass somewhere. (I think newer ones have GPS, too, but this hasn’t really been necessary at all in my parent’s case.)

The mower will automatically shut down when it bumps into something (and it will try to find another way around it) and it will also stop when lifted up.

My parent’s robot always found back to its charging station on its own this summer, except those couple times it got stuck when they were still experimenting with boundaries. And that’s despite my parents having a quite complicated and large garden.

The result is a lawn that looks better than ever before (basically always like it was just mowed) and extremely even. Also, my parents can now focus on the gardening they actually enjoy (and they aren’t the youngest anymore, which is not ideal if you have to mow a huge garden manually).

I don’t think I would want this robot driving around with a toddler on the lawn, but that’s about it.

This problem is solved and robots do an excellent job.

(Here is the brand of robot my parents use: http://www.husqvarna.com/us/products/robotic-mowers/husqvarn... There are many others.)

[gwern]

I didn't realize mowing robots had become so practical! Have you considered doing a writeup? Laying out a map of the garden, photos of how rough the terrain is, some video of the robot doing its work, maybe a full layout of all costs vs the time & cost of a regular lawnmower etc? I'd definitely upvote a submission of that.

[veidr]

Looks great. I don't know why I didn't know about these yet (well, most likely because I live in an apartment with no lawn), but thanks to you and patrickk in this thread I do. (His video link is very informative, btw).

A robo-mower would have indeed made a better housewarming gift for my sister than the cordless Dyson I bought her (same as mine)... although it would have set me back $2,300 instead of $300.

Still, very cool.

OK floors and lawns, ✓ DONE! Next somebody please point me to the already-existing window-washing robot.

[alexnking]

WINBOT http://www.amazon.com/WINBOT-W730-Cleaning-Frameless-Windows...

[JoeAltmaier]

That's it! That's the mower I've been waiting all my life for! How fast does it go? What's it powered by? I imagined when this got invented it'd go real slow, and be solar powered so it never had to stop. But this one is cool too.

[arrrg]

It mows for about two hours and charges its battery for about two hours. The charging station has to be connected to power. It drives slowly. Watch a YouTube video. They all go at a very sedate speed. If your garden is smaller than the recommended size for a robot then it should be no issue all.

Sure, it is slow, but eight or so hours of work time five days a week will get your lawn mowed. And, again, since it’s silent it’s not really an issue that it’s driving around. (But maybe don’t get one if you have pets or toddlers.)

Not all gardens are ideal. Many inclines lead to problems, as do thin connecting paths between different parts of the garden. But if your garden is quite straightforward (or even quite a bit more complicated then that) it’s not an issue.

Digging in the boundary cable is quite a bit of work (as you can imagine) and fiddling with it to make it all work perfectly, too, but I think my parents still spent less time taking care of the lawn last summer when they set it up than when they still had to mow. (Also, only the places where my parents were overly ambitious and wanted it to do things not recommended in the manual were there actual issues.)

If you have lawn going right up to some sort of wall or fence you will be left with a thin stripe of unmowed grass. My parents just quickly mow that every couple weeks, it’s not a big deal.

This tech has been around for decades, so it’s pretty proven. Besides my parents I know a couple other people who use it.

[mapt]

Do you think you can punch up a full review? Photos / diagrams / measurements would be nice.

[melling]

You are giving anecdotal information, which is quite misleading. 10 million Roomba's have been sold worldwide, for example.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roomba

Here's a list of the number of households to illustrate the the market is still young.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_o...

[prawn]

I've always imagined that a window washing robot would have a motorised internal component and a magnetically connected external piece. You'd put it on a window and let it go. If you walked past and noticed it not moving but still charged, you'd swap it to another window.

Obvious flaws (need two people to set it up - one inside and one out) but might work.

How else could you do it? Couldn't trust suction caps on a dirty surface.

[veidr]

Yup, I've always imagined two magnetic components, too. Two magnetic robotic butterflies doing a beautiful dance of cleansing.

[patrickk]

Lawn mowing robots have been around for a while already: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2_AIWFO77s

[JoeAltmaier]

I'd like a low-speed dog-and-kid-friendly mowing bot. A sort of solar-powered turtle that just chews the grass down, wandering around all its life inside an electric fence.

[melling]

Yes, I know. Don't know anyone who has one. You've completely missed the point

[wcchandler]

> I'm really not sure why robots aren't already vacuuming our floors, raking the leaves and mowing our lawns by now

I think about this every time I mow my lawn. I had this crazy vision:

Take a flatbed trailer and hook up "charging pods".

Invest in some robot lawn mowers. This would be fun as they'll probably need to be built yourself. They could have a deck size of whatever (12" ?) with big batteries, solar collectors (maybe), wireless communications, some kind of camera or a way to "see" obstacles.

Deploy multiple ones at a single site... maybe 4 on a .25 acre lot?

Have them all communicate with relative proficiency in determining who should mow where and what and for how long.

Once they are all done, they go back to the trailer and into their pod where they will charge until the next site.

Then go from site to site like any other lawn care specialist.

On each location you would have a couple human operators (who will also be driving the trailers). These people will operate the more delicate things like trimming. They will also provide a human element for analyzing the environment. Is there a dog outside? Maybe the operator has a smart phone and "tags" that object which gets transferred to the mowers and they know to avoid it.

If you could get the price down far enough it might be able to compete in a number of markets.

[DanBC]

> If you could get the price down far enough it might be able to compete in a number of markets.

It's going to have be really cheap to compete with minimum wage labour. Especially since minimum wage labour is discarded when it goes wrong whereas your expensive robots will need expensive servicing.

[sjs382]

Robot lawnmowers already exist. They aren't cheap, though if you have a significant sized lawn and consider your hourly rate.... Hrmmm...

Personally, I don't mind mowing the lawn. Yard work is my "me time" to tune out the world and relieve some stress.

[melling]

Yes, and computers existed before the Apple II.

No one cares that you enjoying mowing your lawn. It's irrelevant to the conversation.

[dragonwriter]

> I'm really not sure why robots aren't already vacuuming our floors, raking the leaves and mowing our lawns by now.

Robot floor cleaners have existed for some time and are probably one of the more common and visible consumer applications of robotics, the latter two are more complex because the outdoors environment is less predictable.

[m_eiman]

I'm really not sure why robots aren't already vacuuming our floors, raking the leaves and mowing our lawns by now.

Eh, they are? It's not like this is the first of its kind. As far as I can see its claim to fame is a more powerful suction device, the other features already exist in other products.

[melling]

No, they're not. Smartphones existed before the iPhone. And cars existed before Henry Ford too. There's the first to market companies then there's the company that creates the product that pushes it into the mainstream.

[m_eiman]

At least in Sweden, robot vacuum cleaners and lawn mowers have been mainstream tech for years. It's not just some enthusiast thing, a large portion of house owners have these things.