A few weeks back we ran a story about a robotic lawn mower, which you can program to cut your grass giving you more time to do whatever it is you like.
When I posted it on my One For The Money Facebook page, someone contacted me saying he had one. Since I knew how much Chris and Jimmy liked the idea, I said let's go cut some grass!
It's not quite as romantic as riding into the sunset on a lawnmower in the 80's flick “Can't Buy Me Love”, but the Husqvarna Robotic Mower will definitely...buy you time.
"At the end of the day I say it gets rid of 99 or 98% of my lawn care work," says mower owner Mike McMahon.
Since he didn't have the time to mow his lawn every week, he invested in what looks like a Roomba for the outdoors. The self-propelled mower is controlled through an app where you set a start time, and the mower starts making it rounds in an area you stake out with wires like invisible fencing.
"When you first put one in, it takes a lot longer to do a yard. And then within about four weeks
it is trained on the whole yard so it knows the optimal pattern," Mike says.
It works very differently than a traditional mower in that it takes off only around a third of an inch of grass each time. So you run it every day.
"You're not shearing off large amounts. You are just taking small clippings and reintroducing in back into the soil," he adds.
And it takes care of leaves as well.
"The leaves decompose as they get sheared underneath the machine," Mike explains.
The machine takes about four hours to do Mike's half acre property...mowing for about two hours at a time. And when the battery it runs on starts to get low, it knows to head back to its
docking station for a 45 minute recharge before its back to business.
In fact, except for having to do a little edgework once in a while...this is pretty much set it and forget it.
"There are no moving parts, not much to maintain, and it doesn't use any fuel. If you put a 100 watt lightbulb in your house, this is about the same energy demand as about 2 hours in your room," he says.
The only thing Mike has to do is change out the blades every six weeks, which run about ten bucks,
and which only cut the things it's supposed to.
"Oh it's coming right at me let's see what happens. If you hit my foot!
The mower didn’t leave a mark.
And Frances....you have to assign a name to your mower...even gets along with Spirit the family dog who just follows it around for a while before getting bored.
“So he doesn't try to eat it?" I asked. “No. And I haven't stuck a ball to it either.”
Now before you get all excited, you need to know the price to have a machine mow your lawn.
They run anywhere from $700-$3,500.
But you know what they say, it’s hard to put price tag on your time. At least that's what I'd tell my spouse if they wanted one.