Honda will offer a sleek new and — get this — self-driving vehicle for cutting your lawn. It’s called Miimo.
So what is a Miimo? Well, you know how there are vacuum cleaners that roll around your carpet on their own, and you know how there are dog collars that respond to a wire buried in your yard to keep your dog from wandering, right? As I understand it, Miimo, a robotic lawn mower, applies similar technologies to cutting your grass.
Miimo is an electric mower with three cutting modes — random, directional and mixed. You also can opt for a spiral or edge setting as needed.
“Honda’s Miimo robotic lawn mower can tackle virtually any type and shape of lawn, including slopes as steep as 25 degrees,” Honda said in its announcement. “Honda’s robotic mower also navigates smoothly around features like ponds, fences and trees.
Miimo is equipped with anti-theft protection that will sound an alarm and disengage operation if the mower is lifted from the ground. The unit can only be re-started once the owner enters a PIN code.
Miimo will be available in two models — HRM 310 and HRM 520. Suggested retail prices are $2,499 for the 310 and the $2,799 for the 520. Buy either and a technician from the dealership will come to your house and install the boundary wire and docking station.
ht/ the big owe
Hackers’ delight. This should be bloody good fun!
That’s funny. I just bought a Neato robotic vacuum a couple months ago and my wife and I love it. After a few days of watching it in action, I said, “now they just need to make a lawn mower like this.” And they did!
I’ll probably wait a few years before I get one of these, though. The early models are likely to have bugs.
Yeah, I don’t think i want an autonomous machine with high speed spinning razor sharp blades running around my lawn. The lawsuits alone resulting from stray pets, kids, wild life etc, would be prohibitively expensive. And that’s not factoring in the $2500-$3000 price tag on the mower itself.
It also brings forth nightmares along the lines of Steven King’s movie Maximum Overdrive, but without the movie stars or hot chicks.
Automated high speed blades.
Outdoors.
Motorized and mobile.
Unsupervised.
What could go wrong?
Didn’t that shamalamadingdong guy do a movie where people threw themselves in front of lawn mowers?
Skeptical. Might work in suburbia.
I fell for the iRobot Looj many years ago. A remote control rain gutter cleaning system with tractor treads and rubber flippers on a reversible auger. Worked great on dry leaves, but you’d better not have pine needles or they wrap around the auger and pfffft. Wet and heavy stuff? Fuggedaboutit.
Useless. But at least it was expensive.
Plus it’s fun to scare the cats with.
Shoulda called it the Honda Heysoos…
I work for Honda and they are top notch anti union company. Only builds plants in rural places because that is where you get the best and hardest workers. I understand poking fun but we also have self driving cars being intrusive by all auto makers including non auto makers. I’d take my chances with the lawnmower before the car.
Introduced not intrusive
I get some exercise from my Craftsman
6.5 HP Brigs Craftsman push mower that
cost $250 on my big ranch of .22 acres…
in the hood.
I’m sure you can get a mexican for much
cheaper than that. Jeez!