OpenMower – Open-source robot lawn mower [video]

This was a pitch of mine. Replace traditional lawn care with automated solutions. I would’ve distributed this to ~6 mowers. That was the easy part.<p>The hard part was making it look nice. The people that pay high prices for lawn care want it to look it a certain way. I couldn’t get over that hurdle.<p>I could but it would’ve been me driving over the already cut grass with specific grooming tools, and effectively negating any benefits of me over traditional labor.<p>I really think this tech is the future, and I’m glad there’s FOSS solutions to get hobbyists 90% of the way. The last 10% is going to be the real struggle for a startup.

Post needs to have the title updated. Even though it is called OpenMower it is not open source, it uses the CC-BY-NC-SA license. The readme of the project has been updated to remove the claim that it is.<p>Of course a person is allowed to license their software however they like. However, I might also note that creative commons is not recommended as a license for code: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;creativecommons.org&#x2F;faq&#x2F;#can-i-apply-a-creative-commons-license-to-software" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;creativecommons.org&#x2F;faq&#x2F;#can-i-apply-a-creative-comm...</a>.

Another open source robot mower with community following: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ardumower.de&#x2F;en&#x2F;home.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ardumower.de&#x2F;en&#x2F;home.html</a>

I&#x27;m currenlty building the (mostly) 3D printed one from this website: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;repalmakershop.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;repalmakershop.com&#x2F;</a>

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;ClemensElflein&#x2F;OpenMower" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;ClemensElflein&#x2F;OpenMower</a> for the code.

I found this in my archives <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ecomowtech.com&#x2F;hardware.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ecomowtech.com&#x2F;hardware.html</a> it&#x27;s probably 8 years old, lovely idea, wonder if they ever did something with it... tangentially maybe microbial batteries could one day become efficient enough or be used in places where slow is ok <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Microbial_fuel_cell" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Microbial_fuel_cell</a>

That&#x27;s a pretty neat project that has the potential to get a lot of interest. I haven&#x27;t looked at robotic mowers very deeply; currently I use an electric plug-in mower, which is about as non-automated as you can get. But I&#x27;m wonder if there are any that support changing the deck height for different areas of the yard. From a software POV, this seems doable but is there any hardware out there that supports this feature without requiring manual intervention?

Using slic3r as the coverage planner for mowing is an extremely cool and clever idea.

Now add third axis to it (height of the cut), and make it plot 2.5-dimensional shapes on your lawn to make life interesting for your cat and make neighbors jealous.

&gt; The border outline is programmed via a standard XBox controller<p>wow, that&#x27;s awesome (I mean, the whole project is awesome, but that&#x27;s an especially user friendly touch)

How does this do on hills? This video shows a small, flat yard. Mine is many times this size, and has lots of elevation changes. I looked into robot mowers a few years ago, but I still would have had to mow at least 30% of my yard by hand because of the steeper parts (that really aren&#x27;t <i>that</i> steep).

RTK GPS is still too expensive for this to be affordable<p>I think a sickle style mower is the future of electric mowers as they use less energy per blade of grass cut