Robot Stock News has an interesting post about a new robot company, SmartMow, and their self titled product, a robotic lawnmower. The mower, which is currently available for preorder, will retail for $999 and features lithium batteries, a self-charger and can supposedly mow 1/3 of an acre on a single charge. SmartMow is currently offering this mower for a special price of $749 ($175 reserve price, and the rest when the product delivers in the Spring).

The SmartMow requires a perimeter wire to tell it the boundaries to mow, but only weighs 17 pounds – much lighter than other robotic mowers. You may also remember that iRobot has filed a patent for robotic lawnmowers, so we may be seeing some significant market competition in the coming years. This is a good thing.

Personally, I think laying down a perimeter wire is a significant barrier to entry. SmartMow will have to work very well to attract new buyers and word-of-mouth marketing. The Roomba hasn’t sold millions of times just because of it’s price point, but because it, like the iPod, does what it’s supposed to do excellently – SmartMow should take note.

Thorn, over at Robot Stock News, recently stumbled upon some very interesting patent filings from iRobot that may be a new lawnmower. The 84 page filing has several potential designs for robotic lawnmowers listed – electric, gasoline, Roomba-like, different cutting systems, navigation systems, etc.

Apparently iRobot is considering several different barrier systems, including the standard “electric fence” type system, and a more exotic solar-powered boundary marker system. Also being considered is the use of GPS, “lawn learning” capabilites, clipping collection, and more.

The arrival of a robotic lawnmower (Mowba? Lawnba? Mowr?) has long been rumored, but this news definitely pushes the possibility into the “highly likely” category. One key question is what will the price point be?

Robot Stock News has more details. You can also read the full patent filing online here.

An article appearing in November’s issue of the IEEE Spectrum (a magazine written by and for electrical engineers), asks the question, “Why do toddlers love robots?”. The answer, it seems, lies not in their cute and fuzzy appearance, but more in their ability to be unpredictable and resond to interaction. To arrive at this conclusion, a Sony Qrio robot was placed in the company of a group of 10 – 24 month old children, and the children were observed to see how interested they were in the robot. “The researchers found that the key to Qrio’s popularity was its ability to move and respond to the children in a way that was closely timed to the activity around it.”

The research is being done by Fumihide Tanaka as part of a project seeking to develop robotic teacher’s assistants (I’m going to ignore just how scary this sounds). Researchers found that since the children were very young, responding to emotions was moe important that mimicing true human behavior. They also found that if Qrio’s behaviors were limited and predictable, the once oh-so-popular robotic playmate was soon discarded.

The internet is abuzz with some recent news on iRobot that Engadget uncovered – apparently iRobot’s latest venture will be a gutter cleaning robot named “Looj ” (no, not this kind). The FCC documents that Engadget discovered have since then been made private until October 13th.

The robot is supposed to be remote controlled and has a flipper to send debris out of the gutters. It has apparently has a belt clip to allow you to safely scale a ladder with both hands free.

One of the questions that seems to come up frequently is how this ‘bot will turn corners. It’s also not clear whether iRobot will be targeting this product to consumers or to larger contractors or business that specialize in gutters.

What do you think?

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November has come and gone with quite a bit of new news relating to our cute robotic dino-pal, Pleo. You can check out all of the coverage on our sister site, PleoBot.com. We've learned that Pleo really does exist and that he's pretty cute and cuddly (ha! Our suspicions are confirmed!). He'll be selling for around $250 and displays a wide variety of actions, like getting sick with a cold, limping, pretending to be scared, making sounds, and even responding to his name.

Pleo will also come with a SD card slot and a USB port for donwloading new behaviors (and all sorts of hackery!) There's also several new pictures of Pleo, and vidoes – from PC Magazine and SciFi blog.

Pleo's NiMH battery will allow him to run for about 2 hrs, with a 4 hr charge time, however, there are currently no plans to make it replaceable.



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South Korean company Hanulkid recently announced the upcoming release of its new robot, 'Steamer' at the 2006 RoboWorld conference in Korea. The floor cleaning robot boasts the ability to both vacuum and steam mop floors. It also has a low noise level and comes with a remote control. It has 80W of cleaning power and runs for 2hrs on single battery charge.

The marketing material for the robot says it, "vacuums off dust after brushing, followed by mopping."

I guess they're trying to roll everyone's favorite Roomba and Scooba into one product. I'm not holding my breath for it to be successful … maybe in Korea, but not here.





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People love to anthromorphize robots. I’m not sure why, but they do, and because of this the Smith family is now selling Roomba costumes at myRoomBuds.com. Greg Smith (the father) says,



When I asked about how the business got started, Greg said that the children, age 14, 11, 8, and 6, got their love of robots from working around BattleBot builders, "including Carlo Bertocchini with BioHazard and Donald Hudson with EastyBeast."


This story has already generated a lot of buzz, and has been picked up by Engadget and BoingBoing. I hope the kids can keep up with the demand!



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