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Toro iMow - A Robotic Mower that Works? 106

Posted by Cliff from the shades-of-the-jetsons dept.
sg3000 asks: "Our lawnmower broke -- it's an electric, rechargeable Craftsman mulcher mower, and it seems the battery won't charge any longer. So, now we have to find a new lawnmower. My wife, being an environmentalist, listed her requirements: electric, zero emissions, and mulching. Luckily, she never said she didn't want robot to mow our lawn, so my solution so far is the Toro iMow. Unfortunately, the iMow isn't selling well; They only sold about 500 units last year and Friendly Robotics's US local company declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier this year. They've already dropped the price 50% since it's introduction, so I don't want to pick one of these up and then have Toro discontinue the model. Has anyone had any experience with one of these things? Does it really work? Will my lawn look good afterwards? Will I spend 3 hours watching it to make sure it doesn't run over a neighbor's kid? Does it have little arms that sprout out to run the edger? Should I look for something else, resigned that my dreams of a little robot to mow my lawn are still years away?"

"Apparently, the way it works is you lay out some conductive wire along the perimeter of your lawn, and let the iMow loose. It first mows the perimeter, and then it zig-zags through the inside until it completes your lawn. It looks a little random in action-- kind of like a teenager half-heartedly mowing the lawn after he's been told 5 times to, 'Do it already!'

After a little searching on Google, I learned a little about the mower. Apparently Toro rebrands the Robomower made by Friendly Robotics. There are some mpegs of the mower in action on their site. The movies are pretty funny to watch -- check out the "Handling a Tree". Unfortunately, the robot doesn't seem to be very efficient and there are no good shots of what the lawn looks like afterwards. There should also be a movie showing what the neighbors think when they see this thing in action."
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Toro iMow - A Robotic Mower that Works? More

Toro iMow - A Robotic Mower that Works?

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  • How big's your lawn? (Score:5, Funny)

    by fiftyLou ( 472705 ) on Tuesday September 17, 2002 @09:33AM (#4272304)

    my dreams of a little robot to mow my lawn are still years away?

    For about $50.00/acre I could dress my little brother up in his R2 costume and send him over with the push mower...

  • better mower (Score:2, Interesting)

    by MonaLisa ( 190059 )
    Why not just use one of these instead?

    http://www.smithandhawken.com/jhtml/site/catalog /P roduct.jhtml?PRODID=118&CATID=72&index=1

    Zero emissions, mulching, no batteries or
    electronics to break, and you get exercise
    while mowing the lawn!

  • Is it right for you? (Score:3, Informative)

    by dmorin ( 25609 ) <dmorin@@@gmail...com> on Tuesday September 17, 2002 @09:41AM (#4272350) Homepage Journal
    From the "Is Toro iMow right for you?" page: The Toro iMow works best in the following conditions:
    • No more than 5,000 square feet of lawn.
    • Yard is flat, with slopes no greater than 15 degrees.
    • Yard is free of excessive obstacles.
    I dunno about your yard, but that's not even close to mine. I break all those rules, and I think most of the yards in my neighborhood do, too.

  • electric? (Score:2, Funny)

    by jjshoe ( 410772 )
    electric? the amount of coal being burnt to charge your mower is more then if you were to just get a gas mower...


    but yes, trying to tell a woman she's wrong is impossible :)

    • electric? the amount of coal being burnt to charge your mower is more then if you were to just get a gas mower...

      This is not something I will accept without references. Most gas mowers are extremely inefficient. It is rarely a parameter people care about when buying them. Also, a study in Denmark showed that a typical new gas mower pollutes more per hour than a typical new car (mixed driving, and excluding CO2 in both cases). A modern coal fired plant with filters should be way cleaner for the same amount of energy, except possibly for CO2.

    • Re:electric? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by foobar104 ( 206452 ) on Tuesday September 17, 2002 @10:29AM (#4272577) Journal
      the amount of coal being burnt to charge your mower is more then if you were to just get a gas mower...

      Though some may opine to the contrary, electric lawn mowers aren't about the environment. They're about convenience. My electric mower is cleaner and quieter than a gas-powered mower, and I never have to drive to the store for a quart of oil on a Sunday morning.
      • An electric mower, however, just isn't practical for many people. I couldn't use an electric mower to clear out the hay that grows between all the black walnut and pecan seedlings I planted on a patch of the hayfield way out at the end opposite our house. It just wouldn't be practical to string the 400 feet of extension cord needed, and I'm never enthusiastic about battery supplied gear that drives a big motor. So I use a small gasoline mower.

        I don't feel that bad about what I'm doing to the enviroment. Planting 55 hardwood trees this summer on our land means I'm sorta on the plus-side of the karma equation, environment-wise, at least for a while.
      • While it is true that you have conversion costs in generating and delivering the electricity, the place where electric mowers beat gas is in air pollution. Small engines do not have all the exhaust-gas sensors, computer-controlled timing and fuel delivery, catalytic converters and such that cars use to reduce pollution. The typical mower engine spews far more pollution than a recent (like last decade or two) car even though the car engine is several times larger.

        The other nice thing about electric is that when a electric mower hits a tough bunch of grass it pulls more current (ie. powers up) as the motor is slowed down. Just push a bit slower and it will speed back up. Hit a tough bunch of grass with a gas mower and it gets slowed down out of it's best-power speed and often stalls.
    • Why is an environmentalist spending money and gas to chop up happily growing natural plants instead of leaving them alone?

      Come to think of it, why are you growing *grass* anyway? That isn't natural for most locales...
      • I see your point but many locales (in the U.S.) also have laws and/or homeowners association agreements that state you can't let your lawn "go wild." Many of those assocations are real fascists and have all kinds of rules about what you can and can't do to your own property. Of course you're not forced to live in such a "community" but they're quite popular in some areas and in those areas it may be difficult to buy outside them and still be in a desired school district or within a desired commuting radius. It's a crappy trade-off.
      • in the city i live in if you dont mow your lawn they will first fine you and then they'll come through with their even bigger gas guzziling mowers and charge you to mow it. (polluting more ofcourse)


        but lets be realistic, before we worry about mowers and cars shouldnt we worry about something as basic as ciggarettes?


        why? why not?

    • http://www.opei.org/newsroom/story_display.php?id= 30

      Is a good link for this, since it is from a group that is actually trying to portray lawnmowers as clean. However, look closely at their numbers:

      According to them, a walk-behind mower is used an average of 25 hours per year, and a car is driven an average of 14,000 miles per year.

      In two years, the mower produces 2.1lbs. of emissions, and the car produces 20lbs. They go on to claim that this means mowers are cleaner, but the difference in amount of time in use in their example is staggering. At an average of 50mph, a car driven 14,000 miles per year is in use for 280 hours, compared to the measly 25 the mower is used.

      280 hrs. / 25 hrs. = 11.2
      2.1lbs. * 11.2 = 23.52lbs.

      So a lawnmower is producing more emissions per hour of usage THAN A FREAKING CAR, according to the stats given by the OPEI, an obviously pro-lawnmower group.

  • The environmental impact of toxic battery manufacturing and disposal is far worse than engine emissions.

    If your wife bitches, who cares. Is she mowing the lawn?
    • You're not married, are you?

      I can see why.
    • The environmental impact of toxic battery manufacturing and disposal is far worse than engine emissions.
      Bullshit. Lead acid batteries can, and in many areas are required to be, recycled.
      • Ever seen a lead-acid battery production plant?

        They are environmental nightmares. Heavy metals like lead have a habit of leaking into the water table and destroying the ground.

        Recycling batteries help alot -- but I would still argue that the impact of lead pollution, plus pollution created by coal plants is far worse than running a well-maintained gas engine.

  • Unfortunately, the iMow isn't selling well ; They only sold about 500 units last year and Friendly Robotics's US local company declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier this year. They've already dropped the price 50% since it's introduction[...]

    Umm... didn't you pretty much answer your own question? They dropped the price in half and still no one's buying it, and they're on the skids to boot.

    Seems like the answer is pretty obvious to me...

  • If you want to be environmentally friendly... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RedWolves2 ( 84305 ) on Tuesday September 17, 2002 @09:56AM (#4272414) Homepage Journal
    buy this [amazon.com] if you want to be environmentally friendly!!

  • sigh (Score:4, Insightful)

    by StandardDeviant ( 122674 ) on Tuesday September 17, 2002 @10:10AM (#4272481) Homepage Journal

    So, how about you look for a new battery rather than a super robot slave army? I mean, super robot slave armies are nice, but in the end rather hard to find at your local hardware store. Also, let's say you do go for the robotic minion strategy of lawn management. If you're worried about your robotic minion being discontinued, and the price has been dropped 50%, why not just buy two and keep the second as a spare?

    And, just for some extra sodium chloride for your wounds, have you considered the environmental consequences of chunking the whole damn mower or the battery (full of heavy metals) compared to the environmental impact of a quality gasoline-driven mower that'll last longer? Or even just nuking your lawn and putting in wild flowers or a rock garden? You'd be amazed how much pollution the average picket-fence-and-one-point-five-kids lawn contributes to your local watershed in the form of storm runoff becuase of all the crap you have to put on it to make it look "nice" ("nice" here evaluating to the traditional standard of perfection and control accepted by society, not natural chaotic beauty). You need to evaluate your real goals; is your priority the environment, a nice lawn, or no time spent on lawn maintenance?

    • "Or even just nuking your lawn and putting in wild flowers or a rock garden? You'd be amazed how much pollution the average picket-fence-and-one-point-five-kids lawn contributes to your local watershed in the form of storm runoff becuase of all the crap you have to put on it to make it look "nice" ("nice" here evaluating to the traditional standard of perfection and control accepted by society, not natural chaotic beauty). You need to evaluate your real goals; is your priority the environment, a nice lawn, or no time spent on lawn maintenance."

      StandardDeviant has a good point here.

      The standard lawn is a water hog. For some locals, such as the ones that most turf verities evolved in, this is not a problem. However, in most areas of the US the turf species that are commonly used for lawns are anything but well suited for the climate.

      In the summer the bulk of residual water usage in Dallas, Texas is for lawns. This has caused the City of Dallas to come into conflict with cities, and counties in East Texas over water rights. The solution for Dallas is not to try to "steal" water from other areas of Texas, or even Oklahoma, or Arkansas; but to start placing restrictions on water consumption. A possible alternative to mandatory restrictions is to have Dallas residents pay, out of their own pockets, at a rate that reflects the true value of the water that they're using to the cities, and countries of East Texas. In any case folks are going to have to start learning to adapt to the climate that they live in, rather than trying to impose their aesthetics on the local environment.

      My $0.02
    • StandardDeviant is mostly correct... BUT.

      A gasoline mower pollutes far more than an electric mower. The small gasoline engine in a gas mower is very inefficient and has no pollution controls. Running a gas mower pollutes about as much as driving your car for 100 miles. Of course, the volatile organic compounds that it creates (which cause cancer) hover in your yard, unlike when you drive.
      (learn more at: http://www.peoplepoweredmachines.com/faq-environme nt.htm)

      If you're concerned about the enviromental impact of your lawn or mowing it, I would choose to replace the battery of your current electric mower. That's probably the cheapest and easiest answer. The battery vendor should be willing to take the broken battery. If not, you should be able to find a municiple hazardous waste facility that will. Of course, you could follow StandardDeviant's advice and replace your lown with something climate appropriate. The benefit is that you probably won't have to water it or mow it. You can find more about that at:
      http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/extension/ xeris cape/xeriscape.html
    • When did electric mowers start being battery powered? The mower I used to mow my parent's lawn had a big old extension cord, not batteries. Our yard was big enough we needed two cords. I guess it meant we couldn't mow the lawn if there was a power outage. But we never got it half mowed, and then had to wait to recharge...
    • Oh please!! Do you really expect anyone who reads /. to try to fix an old mower when they have the opportunity to convince their wife to buy a robot?

      Wait a minute. Slashdot readers have wives??
  • Even better build 2 replacment battery packs and spend the 20 to 30 dollars at HarborFrieght for a solar battery charger.
    Look online at major electronics sites for NiMH battries. Honestly, If you post the specs for the existing battery pack, there are enough knowledgable people here to tell you excactly how to build a replacment battery pack and an appropriate charger.

    Or contact me at pbcoder@(removethespamblock).prodigy(removethespam block).net
    and I will help you with finding the right components. You really should be charging this with solar or wind or both else your wasting your environmental concern effort.

  • review on K5 (Score:2, Informative)

    by random735 ( 102808 )
    Someone on K5 got one of these and reviewed it in their journal [kuro5hin.org].

  • Another NIMBY-mentalist. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by SN74S181 ( 581549 ) on Tuesday September 17, 2002 @10:28AM (#4272569)
    "My wife, being an environmentalist, listed her requirements: electric, zero emissions..."

    His wife, being yet another NIMBY-mentalist, prefers that it be electric, so that the 'zero emissions' instead will be sulfur emissions at the coal fired plant, or long term radioactive waste at a repository, rather than that awful gasoline smell that hurts her nose.

    (NIMBY=not in my back yard)
    • No need to be a jerk about it, eh?

      I don't know about rechargable aspect, but running a conventional (i.e. plugged in) electric mower is far more efficient than running a gas powered one. It's simply because a coal powered plant is more efficient than an $80 brigs and straton lawn mower engine.
    • I agree with the sentiment, but even bad old evil coal/<your finite resource here> plant can be made to be rather efficient and less-polluting (centralized scrubbers vs. tons of little engines on every lawn...?). The question then is, does the loss of power through power lines and the cost of maintainence outweigh these efficiency gains. Even wind power has *some* effect on the environment (you can't get something for nothing), although it is miniscule compared to other sources of energy.
    • Unless they have a solar panel, of course.

      And, as others have mentioned, the efficiency of a power plant is higher than that of a lawnmower.
    • You missing one point. A lawn mower pollutes ten-times as much as a car, because there are no emissions control on a lawn mower. If you use a electic mower I would suspect the pollution would be lower than a gas powered because the power plant that produced the juice for the electic mower had scrubbers and what not.

      I am no expert so correct me if I am wrong.

  • Zero Emissions? (Score:1, Insightful)

    by rogerl ( 143996 )
    My wife, being an environmentalist, listed her requirements: electric, zero emissions, and mulching.

    Just because a {Mower, Car, Bus, anything that moves without Animal power} is electric does not mean it is zero emissions. The power has to come from somewhere. It may not be produced in your back yard, but it is most likely produced in someone's back yard and it does pollute in some fashion. It may not pollute as much, but the only zero emission power plants I know of are hydro and wind.

    A note on Hydro: just because it does not pollute does not mean it is environmentally friendly. Just ask any fish if they can get back up stream to spawn.
    • Not only that, but the mowed grass actually emits hydrocarbons [ucar.edu] -- the same amount a gas mower does.

      For example, a team of U.S. and European scientists recently found that mowed grass emits hydrocarbons at a level of 20 to 60 parts per billion--which is comparable to the level released by the gasoline-powered mowers cutting the grass. In an article published this year in Environmental Science & Technology, the team reported: "The results of these experiments suggest that common lawn mowing releases substantial amounts of reactive VOCs and should be considered in urban air-quality control strategies."

    • I suspect that large-scale power generation can produce more power for less pollution, since they don't have the space and dynamic load constraints that cars and household engines have.

      As for hydro, I don't really give a damn if a particular fish can spawn. I'm a bad greeny: I care a lot about things that poison me or screw up the ecosystem in ways that endanger my food supply, but not much about anything else.

    • Actually, hydro plants emit butchered fish and change the cycle of fresh water entering the oceans.

      I am quite concerned with the affect large-scale wind power generation would have on world weather patterns. Windmills slow down the wind . . . maybe that wind is doing something important.

      -Peter

  • Lawn alternatives? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Strange Ranger ( 454494 ) on Tuesday September 17, 2002 @10:58AM (#4272792)
    Doesn't anyone else think lawns are just a bit silly? What's wrong with forest floor? Plant some nice big shade trees, don't rake the leaves, have a wild flower spot, some herbs and veggies.. whatever, all done, and your only emission is oxygen.

    Our relatively new home has made me feel like a grass farmer all summer. What an ass I feel like spending hours upon hours farming the perfect turf.. with NO CROP. We are buying 8 large locally indigenous trees this fall and roto-tilling much of the back yard. The goal is to have an attractive semi-wild looking area that is really a food and flower producing garden, and where it isn't, it'll just be good old forest floor. I will feel a lot better about watering that.
    • I hope your homeowner's association is more reasonable than mine. At least 80% of our ground must be covered with Kentucky Bluegrass, here, in front-range Colorado, where some municipalities are discussing condemning farmers water rights because there isn't enough water to keep pretending this isn't an arid climate.
      I've even heard that some of the neighbors have discussed lodging a complaint with the assocation against me, because I do a partial hands-off mow of my back yard, using two stakes, some parachute cord, and a self-propelled mower to do the part of my back yard that can be done as an uninterrupted circle. This allows me to set it up at the end of the day, let it take one lap, manually mow what's outside the circle, and do the bulk of the mowing in the cool and dark(well, ok, it never gets DARK around here, with all the light pollution... don't get me started on that), cutting down dramatically on the pollution produced, and letting me save my sun exposure time for hiking.
    • We have a house in the woods that's almost exactly as you described. We have a little lawn, but most of the property is woods. Yeah, we don't have as much to mow, but that environment is a love-nest for mice, chipmunks and other various "get-in-your-house-and-run-around-creating-abnoxio us-noises-at-night" type critter, We had to get outdoor cats to keep the mice population from exploding. However, the woods also make a nice home for foxes, so we need to get new cats every summer to make up for the ones that get eaten.
      • If you put your cats out there just to be eaten by foxes, I don't think you're having much respect for the cats. Why don't you keep the cats indoors and let them eat whatever gets in, let the foxes have the mice which are still outdoors, and never the twain shall meet?
        • Well, we don't just LEAVE them outside - they can come and go as they please in the garage which has a loft they can sleep on if they want to get off the ground and out of harms way. We keep them in there at night to prevent them from being snacks for nocturnal animals.

          Do you live in a rural area? Having barn animals is just a way of life out here.

    • Doesn't anyone else think lawns are just a bit silly? What's wrong with forest floor? Plant some nice big shade trees, don't rake the leaves, have a wild flower spot, some herbs and veggies
      Having seen homes that have similar setups... they look awful when next to a decently-manicured lawn. My grandmother's front yard has several large oaks, giving it lots of shade. What little grass is present grows in small tufts and clusters -- too much for a weedwacker, too little to really justify a lawnmower. The ground that doesn't have any covering washes away. Unless the leaves are raked on a regular basis, they get full of bugs if it's a wet autumn, and are a fire hazard if it's dry.

      A friend of the family has a no-cut "lawn". She replaced all of her grass with ivy and vines. There's not a lot of upkeep for it, but it's also not usable for anything: you really can't walk through it or plant anything near it. And it looks like a lawn that's just gotten overgrown.

      Our relatively new home has made me feel like a grass farmer all summer. What an ass I feel like spending hours upon hours farming the perfect turf.. with NO CROP.
      Not to be unsympathetic, but if you didn't want a yard, there are probably a lot of options -- apartments, condominiums, city townhomes, or houses in the woods that you wouldn't need to landscape.
    • Let me guess, you don't own a house?

      While I'd love to just let the yard turn into a meadow and never mow again, my neighbors would most likely stop talking to me, and my daughter wouldn't have a yard to play in. Besides what do you do about the occasional backyard grill-out?
      • for specifics..
        - We have a house with 1 acre backed against forest. Built in the 20's and newly remodeled. No homeowners assoc. (i.e. We refuse to live in a neighborhood with a name - usually hot and treeless, and the thing the neighborhood was named after isn't there anymore because they plowed it down to build the neighborhood) We have a small front yard kept nice to keep the neighbors happy - takes 12 minutes to mow. Landscaping, rocks, cobblestones, RR ties, grill, deck and pool around the house. Large treeless yard out back being converted to "attractive semi-wild" looking area - remove 90% of the grass there, leave paths etc.

        I wasn't saying NO grass, I was saying having a large lawn is silly unless croquet is a priority. I don't know about kids these days (none of my own yet) but all through my childhood our yard sat empty while all the neighborhood kids and I were across the street playing in the 300 acre forest - which was infinitely more interesting than the vast green carpet behind the house.

        "Having seen homes that have similar setups... they look awful when next to a decently-manicured lawn."

        Beauty [enature.com] is in the eye of the beholder (just a random yard.. very cool site).
        • "Built in the 20's and newly remodeled. No homeowners assoc."

          Built in the '20s and no homeowner's association don't necessarily go hand-in-hand. While I'm enough of a New Urbanist to agree with you on the hot and treeless assessment of suburbia, the concept of a homeowner's association is not new.

          My home - built in 1917 - is part of a homeowner's association that was founded in 1906.

          Aside from making sure that we mow our tree-filled lawns, our homeowner's association protects the historical significance of our neighborhood.

          I think your "forest floor" idea sounds good and who knows, it might work where you live. But my older neighborhood does have *a* *lot* of trees and only in the very densely treed portions of the neighborhood do you see the effect you might be going for (haven't checked your link...)

          What we do have is a lot of non-grass groundcover like ivys. My neighbors have no grass in their back yard. Granted, most of the yard is taken up by pool, but the remainder is non-grass and wild *looking.* I emphasize that it only looks like "forest floor" because I know that the non-grass portion of their yard has to be cared for more intensely than the grass portion! And they have native plants back there. I think your forest floor might be higher maintenance than grass...

          • > I think your forest floor might be higher maintenance than grass...

            Almost definitely. But not by too much in the long run I'm hoping. And the rewards should be 1000% better. Flowers and herbs and veggies and critters to me are worth twice the work of lawn farming.

            I had forgotten about the historically bent associations. We have those closer to the city in the historical portions. In this region though "historical" tends to mean 1680,1750...1860. 1917/1920's I'm fairly sure wouldn't make the cut. Years ago I was shocked when I went to the west coast and saw historical signs on buildings from 1920's-30's. I thought..that's not even OLD much less historical. Funny, now I realize folks from Greece and Rome feel that way when they come to my town. Really shows the value of "YMMV"
            /degression
            • For what it's worth, I'm trying the forest floor concept up close to my house under a HUGE cottonwood. Once I get through the first two seasons of weeds, I think I'll be okay.

              I consider my house "new." I wanted to live in another neighborhood that was built in the 1880s. But I had to settle for this new, sparkly suburbia! Long story involving an urban-phobic spouse.

              My house *is* going to be 100 years old in 15 years. Not bad. She's gettin' respectable, now.

              And trees. After 80 or 90 years, the neighborhood actually has trees. Big ones. (And yuppies with leaf blowers, but that's another digression involving me, a rake, environmental concerns and building my upper body strength...)
        • Nice, grassless yard and yes, it probably takes waaaaaaay more maintenance than grass. I'm not saying it shouldn't be done, I'm just saying folks should be aware of what it really takes to "get back to nature."

          In my area, I can and do grow most of what I saw - astilbe, hosta, ferns. And they take one very important resource - water, water, water. And your time to pull the "weeds." That nice lawn ain't just native stuff that came up after they rototilled. ;-)

          It's well-manicured and well maintained. Someone - like my next door neighbor - spends a lot of time out there. Otherwise, you'd see nothing but bindweed and lawn ivy and that's not what's in those pics!

          Good luck. I mean that. I'd like to have a lawn like that but I really only have time to mow!

        • Beauty [enature.com] is in the eye of the beholder (just a random yard.. very cool site).

          You do know that something like that will probably INCREASE the amount of yardwork you'll have to do, don't you? Pulling weeds alone will take you more time than an average lawn mowing. And will have to be done more often than your average lawn, as well.

          Don't forget the fertilizer to keep your plants healthy (unless you happen to have good soil. I live in FL, and there's no such thing as good soil here). And watering in the summer. And mulch to keep in the water. And, with all that shade over the stone walkway, you'll probably need to wash/bleach/scrape (depending on how often you do it) the mildew off.

          There's a reason most flowers in the wild are wildflowers. It's because wildflowers grow quickly and die quickly...they're weeds. Flowers and plants that most people want in their yard are much pickier and must be tended to.

          Of course, in the end, you get a much better product than just some grass...but it is more work.

          Or, you could plant a few hundred year old oak trees and turn it into an actual forest. At which point, you'd have little to worry about, except for the large limbs falling on your house/car/neighbor/etc. Oh, and the roots getting in your sewer/septic system, or under your house and pushing up one side of it. Or breaking your driveway.

          Want low maintenace? Put in a tennis or basketball court.

        • We own 20 acres out in the middle of nowhere, and actually have a street (2 lane dirt/gravel with a wooden bridge ove a small creek) named after us because it had to be built for our property to be reached from a paved road. Within the past year we have been fighting the city over the rezoning of the land adjacent to us (along the same edge of the property we have our 1 acre lawn cleared around the house) for a planned community. To discourage future children from wandering onto the property and disturbing my family of foxes, rabbits or wandering into the nest of coral snakes I left. I am cultivating a hedge that is growing well in the year since i planted it. It contains green brair (.5 - 1.25 inch thorns on the parent plant) and poison sumac. But back to the point, i don't mow the lawn. The rabbits keep it pretty trim and we have a nice thick covering of dollar weed and a number of mints. No vines, no mowing, no watering, green all year(north fl does ocasionally frost) and nice soft ground cover. perhaps you should look into getting a bunch of rabbit, i've never found an electric kind with no emisions but i've not looked too hard

  • Replace the batteries (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jhines ( 82154 ) <john@jhines.org> on Tuesday September 17, 2002 @11:07AM (#4272864) Homepage
    Batteries are only good for a certain number of charging cycles, and/or other limits based on the various technologies.

    Go to a battery place, there are such things now, and bring your old battery in for recycling, and take back a new one.

    Far better ecologically than discarding and replacing.

  • Get a pushreel lawnmower (Score:4, Insightful)

    by uncoveror ( 570620 ) on Tuesday September 17, 2002 @11:09AM (#4272874) Homepage
    If you use a pushreel lawnmower, [organic-ga...oducts.com] they use no gas, oil, or electricity, and dont make any noise. They don't mulch, so your wife will need to make a compost pile, or just leave the clippings where they fall, which is not a problem if you mow often enough. Sometimes primitive technology can solve modern problems.
    • Wow, sounds great, but I have to ask, do YOU actually use one? I have heard, in addition to the positive aspects you list, they are quite difficult to push...
    • > If you use a pushreel lawnmower, [organic-
      > ga...oducts.com] they use no gas, oil, or
      > electricity, and dont make any noise

      Thanks for the suggestion. My wife did buy two push mowers to try as a replacement for our electric, but neither one would work well in our lawn for some reason. They kept flipping over and they cut the lawn in a jagged way. After the second one, I decided that push mowers weren't going to work for us.
      • My neighbor switched to a pushreel mower and she really likes it. I've borrowed it a few times and had the same problems you described. The standard answer is that you have to train yourself and your grass. She said the first 4-6 times she used it, it was frustrating and she wasn't happy with the results. Eventually, either she got the hang of it or the grass got to the right height and texture to handle it. It is a bit ragged and you have to go over some spots a few times from different directions. My biggest gripe was that we have ~10 large trees on our lot and I don't like picking up all of the small twigs before I mow. My horrible, loud, polluting gas mower just chews them up.

        It hasn't been a problem this year because we haven't watered or fertilized and our grass (where there is grass) hasn't grown. I mowed once a week during the spring, twice in July, once in August, and its about time to mow again.

        I think I would be happy with ivy, moss, and clover. I've seen yards that were all ivy and I don't like the effect, but I've got ivy and vinca growing around some of my trees and I don't try to fight it back too much.

        Only peripherally related to this: Does anyone know what I can grow under some huge oak and hickory trees that doesn't require *any* sun (these spots just don't get any). I've thought of just giving up and using rocks and bark to landscape the area, but it gets covered with leaves in the fall and you can rake rocks too easily (and I hate leaf blowers).

  • To be environmentally friendly.... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by shoppa ( 464619 ) on Tuesday September 17, 2002 @11:17AM (#4272931)
    Our lawnmower broke -- it's an electric, rechargeable Craftsman mulcher mower, and it seems the battery won't charge any longer. So, now we have to find a new lawnmower.

    That's hardly environmentally friendly. And it also doesn't speak well for the technical ability of a slashdotter. The obvious thing to do is not to buy a new lawnmower, but to replace the rechargeable battery.

  • I think they were the first ones to make these types of mowers; saw a battery as well as a solar cell model on their page a year or two ago (http://www.husqvarna.com/). I guess many makers of lawnmowers/power tools are on this band wagon or are trying to get on, so surf a few web sites and don't get yer panties all in a knot over one maker that is going down.

    As others pointed out, you could also investigate alternative ground cover. I'm unfortunately not into gardening myself, so this is all out of that store of useless info you hear somewhere and only listen to with half an ear, but I once heard of plant species which would do nicely as lawn and which don't grow more than a few millimeters in height, so you don't need mowing at all.

  • If your wife is really so much of an environmentalist, she'd be out there every week breaking her back with a nice clean old-fashioned manual rotary mower. It's good exercise too.

    Why not rub it in by purchasing a big old 15 HP gas-driven monster. Make sure to get it second-hand, and make sure that it belches plenty of toxins and leaves soot everywhere. Also be sure never to change the spark plug(s) or perform more than the minimum maintenance required to keep it running poorly.

    Environmentalist indeed.

  • I don't know where you can buy one but this [solarmower.com] looks promising. Solar powered, zero emissions, nearly silent, fully automatic. You just buy it, bury the wire and let it go. No mention of price and how much of a slope it can handle. Max lawn size is 1200 m2. Definitely puts the Toro to shame on the enivornmentally friendly aspect.

  • Robo-mower (Score:4, Informative)

    by maggard ( 5579 ) <michael@michaelmaggard.com> on Tuesday September 17, 2002 @12:06PM (#4273298) Homepage Journal
    I hand-held a buddy a few years ago through getting his robo-mower. He likes it, mostly.

    Arguments in the robo-mowers favor were that he has a simple small yard, few obstructions (house, two trees, sometimes car in driveway, never any toys, kids, pets, etc.) His land is fairly private so there was little fear of the mower being robo-napped. The biggest feature was he has little time at home, a passion for gadgets, and grass 'stuff' triggers his allergies.

    Those pointed out the mower does a moderately good job. It doesn't hurt anything but it's coverage isn't optimized, once done following the perimeter it pretty much goes on random and trundles around the yard without any apparent strategy. Thus while the drunk walk does eventually cover all of the yard it's also quite inefficient at doing so, may mow the same spot a dozen times while the wedge next to it remains untouched for a long time.

    'Course efficiency isn't all that important as long as he's not the one out there doing this all. And as long as it is sunny out the mower just keeps going on its own so he usually simply puts it out on a sunny morning and comes home after work to find the yard clipped & reclipped. Pop the 'bot back in the garage and the lawn is ready for the weekend.

    However, he is in a particularly good situation for the mower. The theft concern would be a big one for most folks; the fear of some bored kids coming along and "liberating" the 'bot. There's also the point his yard is absurdly simple with few obstructions, nothing that the 'bot could ever accidentally mow-over. Also his yard is sunny, small, and the grass is never allowed to get tall.

    Cost-wise it's pretty much a trade-off. So far the mower is competitive with having a lawn crew come by once a week. On the other hand they'd also edge the walk, fertilize, leaf-blow, etc. Should the mower last another season or two without repairs it'll have justified itself mostly. Should something break, well, it's not like the lawnmower-repair/bait-shop down the street knows how to fix one of these...

    My own parents go the lawn-crew route and are quite happy. Dad isn't up to mowing the yard and they do a mostly good job. The lawn always looks great; unfortunately they've damaged trees by nicking their bark regularly and occasionally over-edge and take out the garden border plants. On the plus side they keep it all looking like a golf-course, don't mind putting away a forgotten sprinkler and hose, take care of the leaves in the fall.

    In another buddies case he went with an old fashioned push mower when his gas one died. He says the effort is about the same, while the gas mower had powered wheels it took a lot of effort to maneuver so overall there was little effort change in the mowing. However he says it's a lot nicer following the snickity-snick of the mechanical then the roar, dust, and fumes of the gas one.

    As to no-lawn - in some cases that's an option but in many it's not. There are often local laws about keeping up one's property and the hassle and ill-will of being different may not be worth it. Also the effort and cost of a more 'natural' look is often about the same as the green desert. Finally resale value of a house is greater with the traditional grass lawn then with other more eco-friendly or labor-saving alternatives.

    Oh, and the old hire-a-kid? I tried that at my old house - none were interested. Nobody I know has any kids in their neighborhoods interested either. One acquaintance did tell a story of a new-to-the-neighborhood kid coming by asking but as his dad had just bought the house with the money from a large & very dubious job-injury claim the fellow declined.

    • The one thing it is not is a robot, unless your definition of robot includes dishwashers. It's the moral equivalent of something an earlier poster described: tethering the mower to a central stake and letting it wind itself in.

      When we bought our little patch of ground, I bought a manual reel mower to go with it. I quickly found that reel mowers only work if the surface of your lawn resembles the felt on a pool table. So I bought a power mower, and manhandled that thing around for a while. Then I found a friendly service that comes by every couple of weeks with a big honkin' mower, takes care of the leaves, leaves no muss behind, and leaves me a bill every month.

      When they come up with a robot that cuts grass, rakes leaves, shovels the sidewalk, edges the flowerbed, and accepts packages from UPS, give me a call.

      Until then, I'm waiting to hit the lottery so I can hire a small domestic staff: maid, cook, houseboy...

      Pas devant les domestiques...

  • electric, zero emissions, and mulching.

    Nothing is zero emissions. It may not emit them right there but that battery gets charged somewhere and emissions are emitted there.

  • and it seems the battery won't charge any longer.

    Why not replace the dead battery? That's what I did in my Black and Decker cordless electric. (In my case, I did have to crack the plastic body, since the bolts had rusted, but it was nothing duct tape couldn't fix.) A hell of a lot cheaper than a new mower, and more enviromentally benign than throwing the old one away.

    I'm sure you could order a replacement battery from the manufacturer. It's the Right Thing To Do.

  • Well, as has been pointed out NUMEROUS times, the answer is to replace the battery pack. But, apparently your technical ability is somewhat lacking - but that is the answer. If you really want to make the thing shine - do a complete teardown, check/replace motor bearings, brushes (if it isn't a brushless motor), sharpen or replace the blade, clean the deck, etc - make it like new. The thing will probably run a long while if you do this regularly.

    If I was going to by the iMow, it is obvious from reviews and such that while the mower may work, it works in a really crappy, non-intelligent manner. Just a random walk, with simple sensors. I would buy one of those, rip out the standard "electronics" (something tells me that the iMow doesn't really have a real computer in it), and replace them with a good micro-controller, add some good sensors (I think it only has a simple non-directional "bump" sensor - I would replace that with an array of bump sensors around the perimeter). Leave the wire, then add code the controller to tell it to go around the perimeter, measure the distance, then make another lap inside the first one (with a few inches of overlap). If obstacles are encountered, add code to go around the obstacle, but map it for later - the code would be similar to a generalised paint/fill algorithm...

  • One point that no one has picked up on yet is the fact that the iMow takes 10 times longer to mow the same patch of land as a human-controlled mower. This means it takes 10 times more power and thus would probably cause more emissions than even a normal gas mower. I got a Black and Decker CMM1000 [amazon.com]; it works quite well and appeases the environmentalist in me.
    • Since a gas mower produces more emissions per hour than a car does, I highly doubt that the iMow produces more net emissions than a gas mower, despite using 10x the power. (How much power is your car using? Lots.)

      Gas lawmowers are fuel-efficient but extremely dirty.

      But you are correct in stating that there are even better solutions than this-- I recall somebody making a solar-powered robot mower, too, and I will personally stick with an unpowered rotary mower.
  • You could make jumpers out of the wool

    and kill it for meat

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday September 17, 2002 @10:24PM (#4278692)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Can it run Linux?

  • I have a Friendly Robots model, which is the same as the iMow. I have used is for a few years now and find it very useful in the open back lawn. It is a few feet long and so does not work well in the narrow strip between the houses. In automatic mode it's safty software turns it off on hills greater than 15 degrees, but I can use the game pad like control to manually drive it and have set the wire to have it avoid the hill. I leave it out many Saturdays or at night and go shopping or make dinner and it is done when I return.
    It's more a 80% solution, a way to reduce the work than a complete solutions, your will still need a edge trimmer. I normally in a wet summer put it out every few days and run the normally mower over the edges and strip between the house every two weeks. There are some OS bugs in the firmware, but I think the product is generally good and I recommend it.
    It is very safe with lots of sensors safty features and warning lights. The quality of cut is very nice.
  • A friend of mine has a IMow. It's cute to watch but takes a long time. His lawn at about 2000 square feet is about half the size of mine. His IMow took almost three hours to do the job. He still had to manually hit a few spots it missed.

    My non-self propelled gas mower takes me about 25 minutes. Plus I get a little exercise to boot.

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