Like a lot of new technology, it can take a long time for things to catch on. If you were online in the late 90s, you’ll remember odd emails from places like Bebo and the then unknown Facebook landing in your inbox enticing you to join quoting someone you know and their latest social network updates. Of course, back then, no-one new what social networks were, so most of those emails were assumed to be spam.
Naturally, we all now realise Facebook reigned supreme with world domination while Bebo went the way of MySpace and Friends Reunited.
The same happens time and time again with real world technology too – remember Beta Max videos? Those top loader classics were loved by thousands of homes, yet ultimately fell victim to the VHS format which was actually inferior in many ways. The difference was in the marketing rather than the technology, and that’s something that holds true today.
It seems a little odd we admit to compare Facebook to a robot mower, but perhaps that’s another trend that will soon be following a similar trajectory. With prices of automatic mowers falling fast, they’re now affordable to most households, and take away the time suck of mowing the lawn every week through the summer months. That’s going to be music to the ears of many people – who can spend their time instead on things like… well… Facebook!
We’re all time short, and many people cash rich, so it makes a lot of sense to invest in a robot mower. In a sense it’s a way of buying more time – literally. Rather than spending an hour mowing at the weekend you can spend a few hundred pounds on a new mower and get an hour or two of your life back every week over the warmer half of the year. That’s a potential time saving of 50+ hours – the equivalent of two days saved marching up and down the lawn. Granted, mowing is good exercise, but so is playing footy with the kids or taking a walk with your significant other. Compared to mowing a lawn, I know which I’d choose.
You can learn lots more about these brilliant new mowers at https://www.robotlawnmowers.org/.