I just happened upon this pic while searching for something else.
This is the Friendly Robotics Robomow RL500. My very first robotic mower. Crazy to think, I bought my first one in 2004! (No, that date isn’t a typo!)
It had 3 real spinning metal blades, a 24 volt lead acid battery pack, and roughly a 3-5 hour runtime per charge.
Speaking of charging, it took almost a full day to charge the batteries, so you only got one mowing session per day.
And forget about docking stations. When the battery went low, you needed to go find the robot in the yard and manually drive it back home. Then take the battery pack out and plug it into the charger.
This was absolutely state of the art back in the day. How far we’ve come since then!!
6 Likes
Kinda funny how most mowers still have a very similar design. Things really haven’t changed a lot.
1 Like
Sounds like way more hassle than it’s worth?
The surprising thing was how good of a job they did cutting the grass. With the metal blades, they could chew through the tallest toughest grass!
The subsequent generation robots eventually gained docking stations and automated scheduling. so they kept getting better and better over time. I think I ended up owning about 5 or 6 of them. Still have a few in my barn, gathering dust.
3 Likes
There’s a guy on FB who posts about them. He did a video showing all the different versions and evolution of the product line he has had over the years. He’s a dealer for several mowers.
1 Like
