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by veidr
4309 days ago
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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'. |
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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.)