Slashdot Mirror
iRobot Unveils Terra, a Roomba Lawn Mower (venturebeat.com)
Krystalo writes: iRobot is best known for making vacuum cleaner robots: the infamous Roomba lineup. But the company also makes mopping robots (Braava lineup), pool cleaning robots (Mirra lineup), a bot to help clean gutters, and even programmable robots (Create lineup). So, what's next for your home? A lawn mower robot. Queue the "get off my lawn" jokes.
Is this new, I mean, it might be new for iRobot, but haven't lawn mower robots been a thing for a while now? iRobot entering the market place might be a big player coming, probably one that can be marketed towards "common man", but I swear we've had companies with robot lawnmowers for a decade or more now.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Would love one but alas - three dogs. Which means manually cleaning up the lawn on a regular basis, for obvious reasons. What I would pay for a robot that would handle that clean up for me...
That's what I'm waiting for. Here I am, after having a huge shit, having to wipe my OWN ass like a chump.
What could possibly go wrong?
Have to wonder how long until we start hearing the horror stories of the neighborhood cat or playful puppy having an unfortunate encounter with these things...
Check your premises.
I've been using the husquavarna automower for the last year and it works great.
There's no way this will do as good a job as a person, it will gunk up and fail on any real lawn and you'll have bought some failed gimmick instead of hiring some local kid who could use the work. The whole idea is dumb.
Of course now we'll hear from all the lazy libertarians who think less physical exertion on their part is the only goal in life, but wait until they realize this doesn't deliver that. Then the real whining begins.
>> lawn-mowing robot
So many negligence and injury cases are about to get queued up.
Think of the difference of a relies-on-smooth-floors, air-sucking machine moving around your locked home when you're not around vs. a powerful-enough-to-push-through-stiff-grass, blade-slashing machine moving around a neighborhood full of other people's kids and dogs.
Maybe I should go get that law degree after all.
There are several "robot lawn mowers" on the market already, from the likes of Honda, Husqvarna, and Worx. While iRobot brings it's own expertise to the field, it will still have to play "catch up" with the established (and deep-pocketed) vendors. I applaud iRobot for the effort, but I feel that their offering is more of a "we need to at least show our face" effort than a "we are the market leader" face.
For me, I have little need of a robot lawn mower. It is a pleasure to cut my meager suburban lawn in the summer; warm days with sun and refreshments make cutting the lawn a pleasure.
What would sell me is a robot snowblower. When the snow comes down in buckets and the cold winds blow, I'd rather be warm and cozy indoors than freezing my nether-regions off while shoveling many metric tons of snow off of my driveway.
A robot with spinning blades called Terror...
History will look back on the great Man vs. Machine War that started when lawnmowers demanded suffrage and wonder what iRobot were thinking.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I've got a 6 acre plot, 4 of which is mowed. Generally this takes me 3 hours every Saturday during the warm months. I would love a robot mower. So far, they have all been random paths, except for some prototyping in Ardumower. Random paths are great for suburbia but they just can't cover large open spaces.
This market could really use someone who can handle straight paths. My kind of yard doesn't mind some radio beacons to help with DGPS signals, but fence type transmitters far from the home will be tough. In-ground wires aren't too much of an issue.
Right now, the only automatic mowers I can find that can handle more than 2 acres are more than my zero turn mower. Not that that's a deal breaker, but I would need to buy two to cover my whole yard -- which is the problem.
...welcome our new robot overlords.
Picking up dog shit is for losers. I just leave it where it falls as free fertilizer. Sometimes home owners try to make an issue out of it, but a quick flash of my sig p220 shuts them right up.
Robomow
There are several posts about how this is about time. If you read the article, you'll see that this is a huge step above anything out there now. All existing robotic lawnmowers require you to bury a wire around the perimeter of your lawn. It's essentially the same technology as the invisible fence that many dog owners use to keep pets in their yards. This is fine if you have a nice contiguous lawn, but if you have sidewalks and driveways breaking up your grass, it can be a huge pain. The Roomba system uses beacon transmitters to give it precise location information. This makes setting it up for your lawn much simpler, especially if you have weird geometries to deal with.
I'm excited.
If it goes well and they do a full roll-out, I'll likely buy one next spring.
For people who pay for a landscaping service, this would likely pay for itself the first year, two tops (well, unless the prices are insane; we'll see).
English, motherfucker, do you speak it?
Wow, I wondered who would be ABSOLUTELY STUPID enough to buy into this, and now we know. You truly must be one of the dumbest people online at this hour.
Why queue the jokes when we can just cue them?
Seems like Neato is more clever. I like the capability to mark areas as off limits in a map.
L'Idiot
This sounds like the basis for a great new Stephen King book...
So, they expect you to just leave this probably $1000+ robot and charging station sitting outside your house so someone can walk up and steal it while you're at work?
Seriously, even I bought a Toro-branded Friendly Robotics/Robomow model (Toro iMow 30050) in 2002 from Amazon and still have it today. I think it was under $300 at the time (refurb). The company has been selling similar models continuously since then.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robomow
Get off my lawn robot
For what ever reason robotic vacuums are more popular in Europe.
Husqvarna has had multiple models available for a while.
Bwahahaha. Stupid slash dot editors.
It's _CUE_. Cue the jokes.
Next they'll be telling you "they could care less."
While at first glance, this appears absurd, the bit pattern that corresponds to 65536 is actually the same bit pattern as that needed for the value 1.0, when using fixed point precision with 16 bits to the right of the binary point.
I do not know for sure if that's really what is going on with that line of code... I am unfamiliar with that codebase, and this is just my first impression, but taken by itself, it's actually not really that crazy a thing to see. In C++, one would probably hide that behind a typedef for an int so that it was more obvious that it wasn't just an integer.
It may have also helped somewhat if that is the purpose behind this, for the number to have been expressed in some other base than decimal, so that it was clear that it is the bit pattern and not the value that is significant, and doing that might help prevent the initial absurd sense one might get from seeing a line of code like that.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I've got one of the Friendly Robotics/Toro iMow robotic mowers. It's actually pretty awesome once set up correctly, and you're not sending into waist-high grass. After all this time it's got a high battery draw problem I need to figure out but it has lasted considerably longer than I thought it would.
12:50 - press return.
It looks small, whats the hp/kw rating? Run time per charge, max height of grass it can handle, and scores of other things. Looking at it it doesn't seem like it'll handle more than about a .5" of cut depth so you would have to set it to run every other day, if not every day depending on the weather. Which would be fine for it head out every day when I'm at work except that now you're talking a ton of hours wear and tear on it. My roomba vacuum runs most days and after a year or so it's definitely showing the mileage. And that's nothing like cutting a lawn.
Reminds me of the following story: True Value was sued because some idiot picked up his running lawn mower to trim his bushes. After chopping off fingers he decided to sue. Now there are insane disclaimers on lawn mower boxes and documentation.
Greed is the root of all evil.
Hope it lasts longer than their roomba vacuums. After 3 years of use, the sensors no longer work so it does not slow down when approaching obstacles. It also get "stuck" on dark carpet.
My brother researched previous robot mowers, they were designed for shorter grasses like bermuda. Where we live, tall fescue is the top choice as it is heat tolerance, drought tolerant.. but it's recommended to keep between 3.5" and 4" tall. The existing mowers cut to a maximum of 2.5" if I remember correctly, probably a safety issue.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
This seems more like an Ad than a news post.
One clickbait-y article means they are "infamous?"
Wirecutter seems to like them:
https://thewirecutter.com/revi...
Not a "best" recommendation, but a runner-up nod.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
I guess the name lawnba was already taken.
We have them also. They just don't cover a large enough area yet for those of us that can afford them.
They need to make a snowblower robot! It would be worth it not to go outside in this freezing weather and shovel heavy snow.
Remove lawn furniture.
Remove all sticks
Complete all edging around the garden bed
Mow lawn
Clean up lawn clippings.
Put back lawn furniture
Then run iRobot
like this one just a residential version (not costing over 2K). Don't think the iRobot one would climb a slope.
Spinning blades of a robotic lawn mower... Terror... It reminds me of a scene late in Disney's Honey, I Shrunk the Kids where the neighbor kid Tommy was running Nick's radio control lawn mower, and the kids were in danger of getting sliced up.
So how would we ensure that these robots don't get stolen?
That was a bit mean, but pretty funny.
That's a fair point. We had an early Roomba vacuum, and it didn't last long.
FFS. Cue.
Until their tails get caught.
Ladies and gentlemen, "journalism".
Uneducated hacks with a thesaurus and low skills in comprehension.
I actually *like* to sit on a riding mower and mow the lawn with my headset and few beers on a nice warm weekend afternoon, even if it's something that takes 3 hours.
I'd much rather have something that can clear the snow/ice off of my driveway in winter while I stay indoors.
This.
By the time they would get done with the last section pass, the first would be rather grown in compared to it.
Instead of mowing your lawn every week or so to cut it to a preferred length, why not use a GM grass seed that only grows to your preferred height, and then stays there? It can be modified to require less water, as well. Imagine how much money that'd save golfing institutions. It could even be made Roundup-ready to make it easier to kill weeds. Seems Scotts DID test a Roundup-ready grass for golf courses, but the USDA refused to allow its sale; European/Asian customers scoffed at the idea and they decided to kill it. A discovery suggests that set-height grass is possible, but apparently noone has gone forward with making it.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
Snowblower robot! Gee, that'd be swell! (or somethin' like that)
Colder than snakeshit outside, and my old ass ain't hattin'/glovin'/etc. up to go clear the walks and driveway. I feel guilty(wife helps) not doin' it myself, but my self would rather pay my neighbor's kids for the job.
I need a robot snowblower. If nuffin else, maybe one I can run RC. Hmm, that'd let me chase the kids w/shovels when they get slow too. THAT oughtabe fun, yes?
Well, anywho, stay warm knowing that the coming summer's gonnabe HAWT, y'all. Woohoo!
Yea, where I am, 3-4 inches is recommended but a lot of people struggle to have a golf green length lawn. Another reason for longish grass is weed suppression, weed seeds and seedlings need light so if you shade them out...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
The great thing about Roombas though, is that there's a fantastic community around it. Very easy to order third-party replacement stuff, and even 3D printed parts for cheap.
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
This robot cuts the lawn EVERY day. It has to keep the glass short, so it doesn't choke on weeds.
Which means, you will not be able to actually use your lawn for whatever activities. The robot will always be cutting it.