* http://www.superhouse.tv/episodes
* http://www.superhouse.tv/19-husqvarna-automower-basics
Why mow the lawn yourself, when you can have a robot do it for you? Husqvarna have very kindly supplied me with an Automower 320, which is a mid-range robot lawnmower that’s suitable to mid to large size suburban gardens.
Normally I like to focus on low-cost, DIY home automation projects, but this is just too good to pass up! In this episode I explain how the Automower works, how it’s different to a traditional manual mower, and (most importantly!) how my pets react to it.
In future episodes I’m going to try some creative things with the Automower. I can’t go totally crazy because the mower is supplied by Husqvarna as part of a pilot program and I’m not allowed to open it or modify it (yet!) but there are still some fun things we can do without voiding the warranty or having it repossessed.
The Automower range is listed on the Australian Husqvarna site: http://www.husqvarna.com/au/products/robotic-lawn-mowers/
Disclosure: Husqvarna provided me with this mower as part of the Test Pilot program. www.automowertestpilots.com.au
SuperHouse:
– www.superhouse.tv
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Jonathan Oxer:
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– twitter.com/jonoxer
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Just opened my mower and it is making that same metal clanging noise as it mows… Is this normal? It sounds bad
How is your mower going? We have had one for about 6 months now and it's amazing, however it doesn't seem to know about daylight savings.
That yard looks horrible
I think that making these mowers less reliant on the boundary wire, and perhaps some type of vision system that is tied in with the GPS and gyroscope plus I wonder weather a laser mapping system in the same way as the Neato botvac…
Nice review and I certainly considered buying one of these units. However, I went to 5 Sydney dealers and not one of them would install the wires for me. I wrote to Husqvarna asking about installers and they could be bothered to respond to me. So I bought the best Honda self propelled machine instead.
>>>t.co/QejQcdsTOx Expect the mower to run many many hours at a time, several days a week. At first we thought this was strange and it made us uncomfortable. Now that we aren't maintaining a lawn, we are fine with it.
I bought the 305 model (the smaller one) 2yrs 8 mths ago, and it has been fantastic at mowing the lawn. Something I have noticed is the continual mulching has improved the grass, as well as not allowing weeds to flower has made my lawn healthy and soft.
I calculated the cost of having someone else mow (I cant do it, I have cancer and lose energy very quickly) vs the cost of the mower, it should pay for itself in just over 3 years.
In that time I have had to replace the wheel treads twice ( AU $100 each time) and the central back wheel twice, ( au $45 each time,) and the battery once (under warranty). Now, 8 months after the warranty expired, the motherboard has blown up, costing over AU $600 to replace. (not counting labour or GST)
Its a wonderful gadget, but for a pensioner, its very expensive and had I known how high the maintenance costs are, I probably wouldn't have bought one..
Great series. Thanks. Very patient. Were/Are you a teacher/lecturer? Anyway, I am looking for something like this lawn mower but without the mowing. Just a base for a roving CCTV camera. Any to recommend? thanks
Where is your mower tunnel with led lights that you had promised, with the automatic doors?
It is so unbelievable that presenter doesn't say what type of auto mower model he is using. But he only mention the manual mower model.
How about showing us how to give the robot a self defense system. I will not be buying another one until it can defend itself. Like bicycles, police will not investigate or even issue a police report, which you will need to file a homeowners claim. At over thousand dollars a whack, and no insurance companies willing to insure them, I will not be buying another, unless there is a theft deterrent. The alarm does not sound nearly loud enough. The cook would simply throw it in his trunk and toss a blanket over it. He could easily drive away. The alarm we needs to be loud enough to be heard at a distance of at least three or four blocks and cause discomfort to the thief. Tasers located at any grip points would be a welcome addition. A built-in GPS that would detect when the mower is moving more than 5 mph, could also be used to deploy a cloud of pepper spray. Simply making that thing useless and requiring a four digit code is no deterrent to theft. The crooks are too stupid to know that these things can't be operated once taken.
The mower is quiet. Couldn't hear it over the sound of the wind noise from the camera…
Not quite what I dreamed up when I was 15 back in the 70's. Of course then it was Z80, 4040 and 8080; maybe the 8085 was out back then. It was much larger and had a blades on three rims which rotated vertically with 4 100w solar panels like we have today going to 4 deep cycle batteries. It was to be controlled from a house system using planted navigation marks that it would use with an internal INS system so it knew where it was. It would just execute a pre-plan routine and avoid marked areas. At that time I couldn't sort out the pet,animal or possibly a baby or alike in the cutting zone. Even using IR would be a problem. When the ground heats up in the summer it could mask out the lifeform and just keep going. More I tried to defeat it meant more power, larger battery store and so-on.
On this given design am not overall impressed. It's no better than the auto hoover I have. Always bumping into things and getting stuck.upside it could be done bi-daily. What it misses one day it could get the next day I guess.
it's like atari breakout for your lawn
Does it have an open API?
If it's in any way connected to the internet, it should have an preferably HTTP API to start/stop the device?
BTW a smart move from husqvarna, your videos really show the convenience and stability of the product.
I doubt gps would have the accuracy or precision for a lawn mower. I have been working a autonomous lawn mower for a little while and the best solution I have discovered is using telemetry and other cues from the environment. Maybe SLAM mixed with IMU and encoder data would give it the data required for yard sized navigation. Robot operating system may be a good place to start with the lawn mowing automation. Good luck with making it better.
$5,000 :'(
+SuperHouseTV, Have you considered starting a g+ community to go along with your channel?
Have you tried pozyx as a location system? -Not sure if it would easily to get that to work with the mower.
https://www.pozyx.io/
Also: DOUBLE RAINBOW! Only one very patient person has said anything about that so far. For the rest of you, it can remain a mystery 😉