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Robby Garden XP joins the robotic lawnmower brigade

Robby Garden XP joins the robotic lawnmower brigade
The Robby Garden XP robotic lawn mower
The Robby Garden XP robotic lawn mower
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The Robby Garden XP robotic lawn mower
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The Robby Garden XP robotic lawn mower

Kids could soon be looking for another way to make some pocket money with robotic lawn mowers such as the Husqvarna’s Automower Solar Hybrid robot mower now staking a claim for the job. The latest yard roaming mower to join the fray is the Robby Garden XP that uses its patented grass detection sensors to get the job done without the need to install a virtual perimeter wire. It also mulches as it goes to help fertilize the lawn and eliminate the need for post-mowing raking.

The Robby Garden XP’s sensors give it the ability to recognize the lawn, although non-mowable areas will need to be differentiated using something the robot can recognize such as stones or a hedge. The robot can also navigate around obstacles like trees or playground equipment. It has a cutting width of 22cm (8.6-inches) and can handle difficult terrain and inclines up to 27 degrees thanks to its four-wheel drive.

The robot’s 6.9 Ah rechargeable Lithium battery should be good for up to four hours of mowing depending on the chosen speed and can be started, paused and stopped at the push of a button. Additionally, it can measure the height of the grass to be mowed and adjust the speed of the blades accordingly to conserve power and reduce noise when there is little or no grass. An in-built tilt sensor will also stop and cover the blades for safely carrying the 7.9 kg (17.4lb) robot from the front to the back lawn.

The Robby Garden XP doesn’t come cheap though. It’s priced at 1,559 euro (approx. US$1,119), which would cover a lot of weekend mowing jobs from whichever neighborhood kid you could wrangle to do the same job.

Via Red Ferret.

3 comments
3 comments
christopher
I\'ve got the smaller version of this (the green one) - it is very cool, but the software is mind-numbingly stupid - the \"mow your lawn\" algorithm is this:
1. Turn 10 degrees and Mow until obsticle or no grass.
2. Reverse direction.
3. Goto 1.

Yeah - it does happen to work - and will get your lawn mowed in a few hours with only the occasional little patch missed - but it does mow pretty much every bit of your lawn 10 times over in the process.

The batteries are amazing - it mows for well more than 4 hours continuously - but if they could just make it smarter - it would only have to mow for 30mins to get it all done properly :-)
matthew.rings
I agree that smarter compass & GPS software, even with a small camera for object & position identification would dramatically decrease the mow time, energy consumed. Why not on the first pass, the user \"drives\" it around the perimeter of the various yard sections (maybe numbered 1, 2, 3, etc, for presets), and from then on, the mower knows where it is, and the boundaries. It then sets up an efficient back-n-forth pattern to minimize mowing repetition.

The user can then move it from place to place, and input the preset memory for that yard area, and away it goes for another efficient mowing experience, that takes no longer than pushing a gas-guzzler/CO2 spewing mower.
LawnBott owner, the red one
I have one of the big brothers to this one. In the US it\'s called the LawnBott, i think this model is the Spyder. Pretty cool sensors if it doesn\'t need a wire.