Being a homeowner comes with many responsibilities. Bills have to be paid on time, repairs have to be made, and there is a constant flow of maintenance to keep up with. During the warmer months, one of the main maintenance projects any homeowner has to undertake is lawn work. The season starts with having to clean up fallen twigs and leaves, treating grass with fertilizer and weed blocker, grooming mulch beds, bushes, and trees, and of course, mowing. Within a week, it’s time to start pulling weeds and mow again. The cycle doesn’t stop, only changes up a bit if you need to focus on bushes overgrowing one week instead of weeds sprouting up. Mowing has to be done each week because grass that grows too long not only looks messy but can become a breeding ground for unwanted pests and in some regions become a fire hazard. For some people, this can mean toiling for hours on their lawn under a hot sun. Now, with the help of a drone, homeowners have a way of taking care of their lawns while relaxing on the couch.

In 1995, entrepreneur Udi Peless co-founded Robomow with Shai Abramson, a former Team Leader and Project Manager in the Israeli Defense Force. Headquartered in Even Yehuda, Israel, Robomow provides customers in the United States of America, Europe, and Israel with domestic robotic devices. The idea for a drone that could mow the lawn came to Udi one hot afternoon after his wife asked him to go out to cut the grass. Since then, Robomow has gone through several model upgrades. Currently, they offer three versions of their electric, automatic, drone lawnmowers. One model each depending on the size of your lawn ranging from a small yard of 1/20 an acre up to a large yard of 1/4 an acre. Each model has variations available to customize your lawn care needs.

The way these drones work is quite simple. The first step is to layout and bury a perimeter wire that will guide where the lawnmower will go, much like a geofence system. Next, position the charging base in a location that will allow the mower to gain easy access to your lawn. While the drone is charging, program it through an accompanying app or through an Alexa home device. You can set up the time of day and days of the week you want the lawn to be cut. If certain areas of the lawn tend to grow fuller than others, you can program the drone to pay special attention to those areas. There is an anti-theft setting that will not allow the drone to work if it has been lifted off of the ground. The code programmed in can also be set to lockout functions as a child safety feature.

Once fully charged, the sensors on the drone will allow it to navigate your lawn with ease and precision. The drone will not cross over the boundary lines of the perimeter wire. It will sense it’s way around garden and mulch beds, trees and bushes, and even decorative landscape features like rocks. It can even safely meet obstacles like hills and divots in the ground. Though water and weatherproof, the drone has a sensor that will alert it to rainfall. The mower will return to the charging base, and when the sensor picks up the rain has stopped, it will resume mowing. The drone can even respond to voice commands through the app or Alexa.

A Robomower does not come cheap, but neither does standard lawnmowers. A Robomower for a large yard can cost upwards of $2,000. Comparatively a hand push mower can cost anywhere from $400-$500 while a ride on mower can run from $3,000-$8,000. Because it is powered by a rechargeable battery, Robomower is an environmentally friendly option as well. But perhaps the biggest benefit of an automatic lawn mower is that it does the work for you. As stated on the Robomower website, “It’s about more than just an exceptional mower. It’s about restoring more of your most valuable resource: your time.”