Robot mowers

[Fixastuff]

Lymow can also cut at night, Iit cost me $2200 with 3 sets of blades and a spare battery. You would have to buy an altrox (I think) zero turn with tracks in back to mow my yard. I believe they are around $18k or so. The only neighbor I can see cuts his yard with a 20k ventrac. He is very interested in my robomower from our conversations. Both of those machines are great but cost way more and you’re still out there wasting time on a seat while I’m playing with my son.

 

[litework]

The Yarbo is about 225 pounds; she's thick. The Lymow is maybe 80 pounds. Pretty big difference in weight. The Lymow would probably be a bit better with compaction in taller grass. The Yarbo is more of a utility robot and specializes in doing a number of very different tasks. Maybe it isn't the best robot mower but it can also trim, blow leaves and snow, and can pull a pretty decent sized cart around. It has a follow mode. It's pretty cool but I haven't yet found a way to justify the initial cost. It's neat and if it snowed more than a couple of times a year here maybe I could.

The robot mowers are more designed for urban/residential areas. My fenced in portion of my yard is 1/8 of an acre. I couldn't get my tractor in there, so I was push mowing it and didn't enjoy that one bit. With the robot mower I have, I push two buttons on my phone and move on to another task - usually mowing the rest of my lawn with a finish mower. My smallish robot will not complete its entire assignment in one charge. It returns to the charging station when there's about 15% of the battery left and 90% of the yard completed, charges for a couple of hours then finishes mowing the yard. I do this about every two days and I'm pretty happy with it in its limited capacity. The finished product is pretty good.

 

[CloverKnollFarms]

I mow a total of 6 acres. But the residential grass of 3 acres could be handled by a couple Lymows it seems

 

[newbury]

Just wish they would legalize residential sheep in Fairfax County. Totally fenced yard, would be a good alternative.

 

[CloverKnollFarms]

Just wish they would legalize residential sheep in Fairfax County. Totally fenced yard, would be a good alternative.

We can do that here

 

[LittleBill21]

Lidar is good for avoiding things in front of it, so I don't see the dog being in any danger from the mower itself.

However, having a house infested with children, which meant a yard littered with toys. I lived in fear that the mower would grab a Hotwheels or something and fling it at the dog (or me!) The heavy duty dog toys we buy for destructo dog get flung against the fence with impressive force of you happen to not see it in time. The heavy duty ones are always black for some reason.

you greatly underestimate the power of these units. i can prolly grab it the blade and stop it without issue

 

[Fixastuff]

Snow should be gone for good soon. I’ve never been so excited for mowing season to start.

 

[CloverKnollFarms]

What sort of robot mower will cover 9 acres TWICE per week? 18 acres per week is incredible

 

[kf4uda]

I just got through ordering a Lymow One Plus. It is supposed to ship in mid March. Thanks @Fixastuff for your feedback on your mower. Hopefully I will have some good feedback to give as well.

 

[BravoXray]

After the last snowfall we had, I went by a house a little bit up the road, and there was a guy with a remote control snow blower cleaning his drive. It wasn't very big, looked like about a foot wide, but it was throwing snow 3 or 4 feet to the side.
Never saw one of those before.

 

[Phil Timmons]

How many dogs per acre do you have to feed it?

(I was so sure that had to be a joke) ;P

do they have a Cats-as-fuel option?

 

[dnw64]

Last weekend we stayed at a hotel that has a golf course attached. They were using robot mowers on the rough at least. Not sure about the fairways. One huge advantage for a golf course is that they can work through the night and be less disruptive to play. These ones had 6' tall flags on them.

 

[Ricn]

I mow two acres around the house and if not feeling up to doing it, the youngster down the road does it for me, a real bargain for us and no damage, hurt animals or mishaps plus we like helping him make money. He's a real help with firewood as well when needed, growing up on tractors he runs our Kubota like a pro. My wife has a house vacuum that runs around doing a very good job then returns itself for another charge.

 

[dnw64]

I mow two acres around the house and if not feeling up to doing it, the youngster down the road does it for me, a real bargain for us and no damage, hurt animals or mishaps plus we like helping him make money.

Similar, except that I refuse to mow the lawn and have a semi-local (local to our shop, and I've known him and his family for decades) guy mow for me.

I could probably save money buying a robot mower, but he also does spring/fall cleanup and other lawn-type stuff as needed. He's a young-ish guy (late '30s?) and a go-getter. I like to support people that go the extra mile (he works full-time for our town and does lawn work, firewood, etc on the side).

 

[Phil Timmons]

Similar, except that I refuse to mow the lawn and have a semi-local (local to our shop, and I've known him and his family for decades) guy mow for me.

I could probably save money buying a robot mower, but he also does spring/fall cleanup and other lawn-type stuff as needed. He's a young-ish guy (late '30s?) and a go-getter. I like to support people that go the extra mile (he works full-time for our town and does lawn work, firewood, etc on the side).

Good post and good ethics on your part.

Sort of funny looking back (more funny strange than funny haha) . . . we covered this back when (last Century, now, I suppose) we sat in Senior level Robotics Engineering class discussing Ethics in relation to Humans and Robots.

Was not so much about Safety (although very important) nor weapons (Terminator or now Uke-Russia) nor Asimov's "Laws." It was about THIS. Economics. What should happen as Human "work" (and therefore income) is replaced by Automation.

Consensus at the time was while some percentage of "work, work" would be reduced, we could still take care of everyone by just reducing everyone's workload(s) and maintaining pay. So like say 10% of existing human workload were reduced, we could all "drop" 10% -- like maybe to 36 hours from a prior 40 hour week, and still maintain prior pay.

Has not turned out this way.

 

[Phil Timmons]

Tech question?

What Safety Features are you seeing on them?

Ultrasonics, or maybe bump-guard limit switches? E-Stop buttons? Maybe time-out(s) you manually reset every so often? Cameras with WiFi or other links back to your phone or network?

Thanks!

 

[Fixastuff]

Mine has a camera avoidance system and a front bumper switch.

The camera avoidance works great but it won’t go up under bushes like that so I run it in bump mode and just sacrifice a toy every once in a while.

 

[RayIN]

I can only base it on reviewers who have them. Thats what they claimed at a cut height of 4". I'm not claiming to know the most. Otherwise I wouldn't be asking questions

One of the electric ZTR mowers add says their stats are reached by mowing grass 3" higher than deck setting. Which IMO isn't bad, even for a gas engine version.