From spring through fall, Donald Francis counts on the eight members of his lawn crew to keep his 3 acres of grass in southern Indiana trimmed. All eight of them are out there at once, mowing, mowing and mowing until they’re worn out. Then they go rest in tiny sheds while they wait for the mowing to start again.
Francis doesn’t pay his lawn crew. He doesn’t even feed them–except to give them some juice after each mowing session. In return, they don’t complain about the workload, and they never ask for days off. Why would they? A robot never needs a personal day.
Yes, that’s right, the lawn crew at Francis’ Martinsville, Ind., walnut farm is made up of robots. They’re Auto Mowers, from Husqvarna, one of three brands of robotic lawn mowers that have munched their way into the U.S. lawn-care business in the past few years. The mowers are matched indoors by Cye, a robot from the Pittsburgh firm Atheon that can vacuum floors, drag laundry baskets down the hall and perform other simple, repetitive tasks.
Home robots are on the march these days. They don’t look anything like Rosie, the Jetsons’ robotic maid, with her white apron and cap; or even like R2D2, a vaguely humanoid cylinder. Instead, they look most like the bottom half of an upright vacuum cleaner. But it’s OK that they don’t look human, as good as they are at doing the most tedious of household tasks.
“My lawn looks great, like a golf course. It never gets tall,” Francis says. “The robots do an excellent job. It’s the only way to go.”
Even so, Henry Thorne, Atheon president and Cye’s developer, forecasts that at least for the next five years, home robots will remain an electronic novelty, not ready for widespread household use. “Our robotic vacuum is the best you’ll find, but even it is too technological; it’s not as simple as vacuuming by hand,” he says. “It has to be as easy to operate as a toaster oven, and that’s a long way off.”
Retailing at $1,999, Husqvarna’s Auto Mower is expensive–particularly if bought in a squad of eight–but Francis says the expense easily justifies itself by the time and noise pollution he has saved since buying his lawn robots last year.
“I had to get this mowed 26 times a year, and the three acres of lawn took about a day to mow, so basically the robots save me a month of work each year,” Francis says. And they’re nearly noiseless. “You can hear the neighbors’ riding mower half a mile away, but these are so quiet you can be right outside with them and barely hear a thing,” he says. And because they’re electric, there are no fumes and the use of fossil fuels is minimized.
Husqvarna is one of a few companies with robotic mowers out. Toro sells the machine under license from Friendly Robotics, the U.S. makers of the Robomower RL500, which also sells for $499 and was developed by a former officer in Israel’s air force. The three robotic mowers have their technological differences but also have some basic similarities. Laying a guide wire out on the perimeter of the grass (flat or only slightly sloped lawns are preferable), the homeowner dictates what area the robot will mow, and then the machine does the work at its own pace, either retreating to a recharging station on its own or being moved there by the homeowner.
Unlike an electronic dog fence, the mowers’ perimeter wire doesn’t have to be buried underground. The manufacturers say it can be staked down on the surface of the ground, because grass will grow to conceal it within a few weeks.
Cye, the in-home robot, does not use guide wires. The user has to welcome it into the home by spending an hour or so at the computer creating an electronic map of the space where the robot will be working. Once it has its map, Cye can be told to perform any of countless tasks, says Russ Dryer, customer support manager for Atheon.
“It could open the back door for your dog at the same time every day, or it could pull a laundry basket down the hall to the laundry room,” he says. “Bring a tray of drinks into the living room. Come into your room and play an alarm sound to wake you up. Or be waiting for guests inside the front door, and lead them to the room where you are. You’re only limited by your own creativity.”
Testimonials from Cye users on the company Web site (www.personalrobots.com) tend toward the mundane, such as carting dirty dishes into the kitchen from the TV room–but it’s precisely for the mundane tasks that we need robots most.
Cye sells for $2,995 with either of two accessory packages. The first is designed for home security. It’s a Web-enabled video-camera that mounts atop the robot. While away from home, you can dial up your Cye and pilot it around your home to check doors and windows or see if you left the stove on. The second package has a vacuum cleaner and a wagon, only one of which can attach to the robot at once. Towing the wagon, Cye can handle 30 to 35 pounds, Dyer says.
Thorne has a master’s degree from the Robotics Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh. He’s been building machines since boyhood, when he built an entire pinball machine out of scrap sheet metal and other cast-offs.
“Robots are the ultimate machine,” Thorne says. Cye was, in effect, a trial run for Thorne’s present, far larger project. He has contracted with the University of Pittsburgh’s system of 17 hospitals to roboticize one of the facilities. Twelve of his robots will soon take over moving carts through the halls of the hospital, shuttling patients’ food, medical records, garbage, laundry, infectious waste and other things through the building so humans don’t have to.
Vacuuming floors
In any setting, Thorne says, “robots will be great for a two-dimensional task that is repetitive and high-labor.” In the home, he believes the best application for robotics is vacuuming floors. “That’s something that is perfectly suited to automation, he says. “
A competing robotic vacuum is being tested in Sweden this year by Electrolux, a company with ties to Husqvarna, maker of the Auto Mower. Named the Trilobite, after prehistoric sea creatures that cleaned rocks and other surfaces, “it works almost identically to the Auto Mower,” says Mike Ward, Husqvarna’s North American product manager for Auto Mower. He expects it to reach the U.S. within the next three years, depending on its success in Sweden.
If indoor robots are still mostly for the gadget-happy, robotic mowers may be ahead of them on the ease-of-use curve. And two of them, Toro’s iMow and its parent, the Robomower, both around $500, cost about the same as a human-operated mower. (All three models leave their small clippings on the lawn to nourish the grass as they become mulch; they clip often enough that the clippings are small and nearly invisible on the lawn.)
“It’s going to be really easy to get started in your lawn,” says Bill Gross, who sells the Toro iMow at his Bonanza Service store in south suburban Dolton. “You can’t believe the setup. It’s no problem. You lay down some wires on your lawn, make sure there are no obstructions, and let it go.”
Gross calls these units “everyman’s robotic mower” because of the price. On his own, he experimented for a few years in attaching robotic brains to lawn mowers. He got one to the point where he could sit in his basement at a monitor and remotely pilot the mower around his yard, but he couldn’t get the price low enough to interest big companies in manufacturing it. Rather than take a sour-grapes attitude toward these new units, Gross welcomes them eagerly. “This is really what everybody wants, and now that the price is like a regular mower, everybody can have one,” he says.
He warns that the machine is not yet perfect, though. Mowing in a random pattern rather than the traditional box or back-and-forth pattern that a human-piloted mower usually traces, the iMow sometimes misses a spot or two in the lawn, he says. “So you have to use the hand-held remote to send it back over those–and that’s fun. Besides, with an automatic dishwasher, you always have to rub a few spoons clean. That’s just the way it is.”
Another shortcoming Gross has identified is that because the mowing unit is relatively light (Toro’s weighs 70 pounds) and such a cool toy, it would be easy for admirers to steal. (They’d be frustrated, though, because without its power station and guide wires, the mower wouldn’t do much or last long.)
Another local Toro dealer, Ken Fox of K&D Sales & Service in Geneva, concurs that although a robotic mower will do the work itself, its owner probably ought to be out in the yard while it’s operating. “It has all kinds of safety features. If it hits anything, it turns around, shuts off and sounds a bell,” he says. “But you ought to be out there with it just in case some neighbor kid runs in to ride on it or something.”
Neither Fox nor Gross sees being outside with the mower as a big inconvenience, though, especially because it’s quiet and doesn’t churn out gas fumes. “I’m just going to let it run around in my yard while I play with my three kids,” Fox says.
Although Atheon’s Thorne and others suggest that home robots are still little more than electronic toys, several people in the industry agree that down the line even better applications will be found. One bit of news that should make Midwesterners excited is the report that Friendly Robotics, maker of the RL500 mower, is developing an automated snow blower.
“It would probably have to have a remote control–it couldn’t operate autonomously like a mower or a vacuum,” says Gross. “But who wouldn’t love to sit inside the house on a cold morning and just press buttons on a remote to have the snow picked up?”
Where to find it
Looking for mechanical assistance with household chores and yardwork?
For robot dealers in your area, contact these sources:
– Cye is sold directly from the company. Call 888-550-7658, or visit the Web site, www.personalrobots.com.
– Husqvarna’s Auto Mower is currently unavailable through any Chicago-area retailers. For information on the products, call 800-448-7543 or visit www.husqvarna.com.
– Robomower RL500 is sold by Chicago-area dealers. (RL500 dealers offer a free 14-day trial period.) Call 888-404-7626 or visit www.robomower.com.
– Toro’s iMower is sold in Chicago-area stores. Call 800-348-2424 or visit www.toro.com.
