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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...
>> 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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
This.
Do you want Skynet? Because this is how you get Skynet.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
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.