Honda Miimo Lawncare Robot Unveiled

Honda Miimo: New Lawncare Robot

If you hate taking care of the lawn as much as I do, you could just live in an apartment, but if you’ve got somewhere between $2600 and $3000 burning a hole in your pocket and an affection for robots (I, of course, only have the latter), you could put in an order for Honda’s newest creation, the Honda Miimo, a robot that might put you in mind of an iRobot Roomba for yardwork.

The Honda Miimo is designed to cut the lawn multiple times a week, shaving off less than a quarter inch of grass at a time.  The idea is that such small clippings will not need to be collected or leave your lawn looking unsightly while they naturally fertilize the lawn.  It utilizes an electronic perimeter to stay within your own lawn, with two models available based on the total area you expect it to mow.  It even shuts itself off if picked up so you can’t maim yourself while showing it off to the neighbors, and it sounds an alarm and requires a PIN to restart if said neighbors get jealous enough to steal it.

The Honda Miimo runs on a lithium-ion battery, making it cleaner to run than a gas lawnmower and thus better for your lawn and the environment at large.  It will return to its docking station to charge when the battery is low, and uses sensors to navigate the lawn, avoiding obstacles and even devoting extra time to especially long patches of grass.  The blades are flexible, so they won’t shatter if they hit something, and a fan pulls grass toward the blades to provide a more even trim.

Honda’s previous foray into robots produced the Asimo, a practically unsellable but utterly amazing piece of robotic engineering.  This is Honda’s first venture into producing robots for public sale.  Current plans are to sell the Honda Miimo in Europe only, but perhaps success will allow it to come to the United States, where saving time and effort at enormous expense is practically the national sport.

That sound you hear is the anguished cry of a million teenagers who only wanted to earn some summer cash.