Have you ever heard of the Automower?
Chances are you haven’t.
“That’s the No. 1 issue. Nobody knows about it,” Steve Quinton said as he prepared his booth at the annual homebuilders’ association home show during setup Thursday night.
Amid the hammering, clanging and banging going on at the Glacier in Mount Pearl as others were getting ready for this weekend’s show, the Husqvarna Automower silently rotated around a square of AstroTurf, occasionally parking itself in its docking station.
After receiving a series of emails from mainland public relations firms about the Automower, I decided to check it out, thinking it was something new.
But the Automower has been on the market since 1995 in Europe, though it has been slower to break ground in the North American market.
About 100 have been sold in Newfoundland and Labrador in the last eight or nine years.
I was skeptical. Fine enough that people use robotic vacuums inside their homes. But I was imagining this thing running amok, chasing dogs, mowing down neighbours’ flowerbeds, careening into the street and getting flattened by passing cars.
But Quinton, Husqvarna’s territory manager for Newfoundland and Labrador, explained the mower is programmed via satellite technology that maps a person’s lawn, including the location of trees and flowerbeds and other features.
If someone tries to steal it, it will let out a screeching alarm, send a text to the owner’s smartphone app and track its path by global positioning system (GPS) as the thief flees.
One has been stolen in Canada, said Quinton — in Ottawa — and it was tracked down within an hour.
The Automower can be left out all season long and will mow in rain, at any hour of the day it’s programmed for, and while homeowners are away on vacation. It will take a pass if your grass hasn’t grown significantly since its last turn around the yard, Quinton said.
It won’t bring you a beer, but oddly, earlier models included a cup holder — since discontinued because it didn’t really make sense.
The mower looks kind of like a toy sports car.
Some people have them souped up with elaborate decals to make them look like racing cars or, in the case of one St. John’s owner, a ladybug. Some owners in other parts of the world have decked them out in leopard skin, flags and other personalized statements.
Some have named their machines — Ralph or Chopper for example — and they are treated more like pets than lawn equipment, Quinton said.
The device, Quinton explained, is designed to stop and retract its small, shaving razor-like blades if children, or anyone else, get too close. It can also detect objects — Quinton threw his iPhone under the mower and the device passed over it, leaving the phone intact without a scratch.
It did run into my feet twice, but Quinton said that’s because it was in demo mode, and was not programmed for the space it was operating in.
The machine weighs about 20 pounds. It promises the “perfect lawn” because it is said to never miss a spot or cut the grass in the same direction. It climbs hills, but potholes must be filled in.
If it tips over, it will send a message to the owner. It doesn’t talk, but you could imagine if it did, it might say, “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.”
Usual retail price ranges from $1,899.99 to $4,199.95. The higher-priced models have more range — the top-of-the-line Automower will mow four acres — and more features.
Installation — programming the device to a customer’s property — depends on the complexity of the site, and can cost $300 to $800. To use the device on multiple lawns — at the cabin on the weekend in addition to around your house, for example — customers can purchase extra docking stations.
And at the end of a season, owners are expected to bring the Automower in for service and an updating of software.
About a million have been sold around the world, Quinton said.
This being Canada, I had questions about the prospects of a robotic snowblower.
That, said Quinton, is currently not on the drawing board, as it would require a much larger battery than the ones used to operate cordless lawn mowers, chainsaws and other devices.
But you never know.
The 35th Canadian Homebuilders Association Newfoundland and Labrador Annual Home Show runs at the Glacier in Mount Pearl Saturday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Exhibitors include real estate brokers, property developers, door and window retailers, kitchen cabinet manufacturers, charities, landscapers and green energy promoters.
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