by wcchandler on 4/14/22, 1:01 AM
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.
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.
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.
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.
by cameronhowe on 4/14/22, 7:30 AM
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.
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: https://creativecommons.org/faq/#can-i-apply-a-creative-comm....
by Element_ on 4/13/22, 3:04 PM
by shimonabi on 4/14/22, 12:53 AM
by daenney on 4/13/22, 2:15 PM
by ratsforhorses on 4/14/22, 6:37 AM
by Mountain_Skies on 4/13/22, 2:52 PM
That's a pretty neat project that has the potential to get a lot of interest. I haven'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'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?
by bri3d on 4/14/22, 12:32 AM
Using slic3r as the coverage planner for mowing is an extremely cool and clever idea.
by snshn on 4/14/22, 1:45 PM
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.
by mdaniel on 4/13/22, 3:44 PM
> The border outline is programmed via a standard XBox controller
wow, that's awesome (I mean, the whole project is awesome, but that's an especially user friendly touch)
by H1Supreme on 4/14/22, 1:06 PM
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't that steep).
by catmanjan on 4/14/22, 3:25 AM
RTK GPS is still too expensive for this to be affordable
I think a sickle style mower is the future of electric mowers as they use less energy per blade of grass cut