Allison interviews Dennis Koehler from Gardena and Matt Cardon from Orbit. Dennis discusses Gardena’s robotic mowers, and Matt describes Orbit’s smart water management devices.
Gardena has a long history of supplying robotic mowers to the European market and has begun to tailor their mowers for use in the U.S.. Dennis describes Orbit’s Sileno Flex Robotic Lawn Mower that has been specifically designed to cut the various grass types typically found in the U.S.
The Sileno mower is fully autonomous and can be programmed to automatically mow your entire yard through a mobile app. It has a unique cutting disk that rotates at 2,500 rpm and has razor-sharp mini cutting blades that extend outward with centrifugal force. Grass cutting height is easily adjustable with a knob on the top of the mower.
Safety is a primary design factor of the Sileno mower. Since the mini blades are extended only by centrifugal force, they automatically disengage if they hit anything hard. There is ample space between the cutting disk and the edge of the mower for additional safety. Also, the Sileno mower has a very sensitive collision sensor that immediately causes the mower to change direction if it contacts an obstruction.
The Sileno mower has a charging station and can mow up to 0.2 acres on a single charge.
Matt describes several of Orbit’s B-hyve smart water management systems and devices. First is the XR Smart Indoor/Outdoor Sprinkler Timer that automatically controls underground irrigation systems.
Next is the B-hyve Smart Hose Watering Timer time which connects directly to an outdoor faucet and controls a sprinkler attached to the hose.
All of B-hyve smart timers are connected to WiFi and are configured through a mobile app. These smart timers have access to local weather information and adjust watering schedules based on how much rain the yard has recently received or is about to receive.
Learn more at https://us.gardena.com/ and https://orbitonline.com/
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Transcript of Interview:
Allison: I nearly killed myself tripping over a fake plant in the Gardena booth and I’m here with Dennis Koehler who I think is going to be talking to us about robotic mowers. Is that right?
Dennis: That’s right. So, okay, robotic mowers, a fairly new concept to the United States. It’s been around in Europe for quite some years now, yeah, but here it’s pretty uncommon. This is actually the first robotic mower that we have designed specifically for the needs of US customers. We used to sell robotic mowers for quite some years in the US already, yeah, however, it was the European models.
Allison: What’s different about what an American lawn is versus a European lawn?
Dennis: It’s actually the types of grass that you have. In Europe we typically tend to have grass types that you really cut down, so you cut short, yeah, that is nothing that consumers in the US actually want, yeah. Typically you want it a little bit longer and you have various grass types which actually require it, yeah, to be cut longer, yeah. Specifically in the southern area where you have these warm season grasses, yeah, they need a longer cut.
Allison: So it’s basically the difference between boy haircuts and girl haircuts.
Dennis: So to say, yeah, if you want to say so, yeah, and so far we only could do the boy haircuts, yeah. And also you have a much bigger variety of grass types in the USA, yeah. In Europe, I mean, we have just kind of, you know, one or two different types and that’s basically it, yeah. And here we have various types of grasses depending where in the United States you are with the different climate zones, yeah. And one mower so far was simply not enough to cover all these grass types, yeah. So this is the first robotic lawn mower that has been designed to cut basically all the grass types that you find in the USA at all different lengths that you need.
Allison: So it looks nice and space age. It looks like something in one of the Tom Cruise movies, the one with the red ball, you know, the car that he was in. It’s got cool wheels and looks all space age.
Dennis: Yeah, so it’s no space age at all, yeah. So let me let me show you a few features of that mower, yeah. Yes. We can also look underneath then.
Allison: We definitely got to do that.
Dennis: We definitely got to do that, yeah. So, you know what you would do? We will actually start with that, yeah.
Allison: All right, we’re gonna mow this artificial lawn.
Dennis: Oh, let’s move it around, yeah. So that’s actually what it looks like from below, yeah.
Allison: So I just see a circular non-blade.
Dennis: Yeah, you see it. So this is what we actually what we call the cutting disc, yeah. And this cutting disc rotates with around two and a half thousand rpm, yeah. And we’ve got these razor blades here, yeah. So they’re they’re really super, super sharp.
Allison: Do they just flip out under centrifugal force as it speeds up?
Dennis: Exactly, yeah. So you turn it, yeah, and it’s just a centrifugal force that, you know, pushes them to the outside.
Allison: Nice and simple.
Dennis: Yeah, pretty nice and simple. It’s also a safety feature because if these hit something, yeah, like a piece of stone or whatsoever, yeah, then they will just, you know, flip it.
Allison: Disengage, basically.
Dennis: Yeah, disengage, basically, yeah. So that’s the idea. I mean, this whole thing, it’s it’s a robotic mower, so it’s an autonomous machine, yeah. Meaning that you don’t need to be present when it works, yeah. It does the job automatically, yeah.
Allison: All right, so we’ve got to talk about safety here. So little kid runs out in the yard or a small puppy, what happens when this thing comes right at him?
Dennis: When this thing comes right at him, yeah, I mean, it might hit it slightly, but it has super sensitive collision sensors, yeah, and it will immediately…
Allison: Only a little bit hit the child?
Dennis: Just, you know, a little touch. It’s gonna be a little touch, yeah, so nothing serious, yeah. It will recognize it immediately, yeah, and just turn and go a different direction.
Allison: Kind of like if your Roomba hits you?
Dennis: Right, exactly. I mean, still it’s recommended not have the child outside when the robotic mower is running, but basically nothing can really happen, yeah.
Allison: Okay, and it’s not like there’s any exposed blades or anything if it was to bump into…
Dennis: Nothing at all, no, no, no, no, no, no, I mean, it’s just this, it’s right in the middle, there is a lot of distance between the blades and, you know, the housing.
Allison: Yeah, and all the covers. So I notice there’s like a comb on the front.
Dennis: Exactly, yeah, so the idea here is specifically if you cut high, yeah, it’s like a comb, yeah, and, you know, it’s also a protective feature, so no one can actually get the foot or a hand below.
Allison: Yeah, yeah, right, right.
Dennis: Still you need to get the grass through so it can actually get to the cutting disc.
Allison: Yeah, right, and it’s got, just looks like normal casters on the back, but it has big treads on the front.
Dennis: Yeah, so it’s front wheel drive, and it’s got extra big wheels because if you, I mean, it needs to make its way through this high grass, yeah, if you cut high, then you have like high grass like this, yeah, so it needs to get through, so we have these extra big wheels for that, yeah, and we have super powerful wheel motors, yeah, so it can actually go through.
Allison: And I assume this is battery-powered?
Dennis: It is battery-powered, exactly, we have a charging station here, yeah, so that’s the charging station actually.
Allison: Oh, one of the questions Steve is asking is what about variable height, like can you change the height of the cutting?
Dennis: You can change the height up to four inch, yeah, so between very low, yeah, and up to four inch.
Allison: How do you do that?
Dennis: You do that, so we turn it around again.
Allison: Okay, flip her over.
Dennis: Flip it over, yeah. Oh, there’s some fun in here, yeah. He’s open the cover on the top now. So, and this is where you actually adjust the cutting height, yeah, so you turn that knob, yeah, you turn that knob.
Allison: It just goes from, oh, it goes to 12, no, to 13.
Dennis: Yeah, and when you, when you look at the cutting disc, yeah, you see the cutting disc, yeah, now I’m gonna turn the knob.
Allison: Okay. It’s really simple, it’s just moving the cutting disc in and out.
Dennis: Just moving up and down, right? Okay. Yeah, and then we got a, we got a control panel here, yeah, so this is, this is a very basic control panel. We got, we got a smartphone app for it, yeah, which offers much more opportunities to, you know, do different settings, because talking about this being an autonomous system means that you, you basically, you do a schedule for it, you program a schedule and then it just does the job on its own.
Allison: Yeah, just like an indoor vacuum.
Dennis: Like an indoor vacuum, yeah, and the cool thing about it is that in that smart app that we have for it, we, we have implemented an algorithm that considers the different grass types that you have here in the USA, yeah, because these different grass types, all of them require different treatment, yeah.
Allison: So is that gonna change, is it gonna be variable speed or something?
Dennis: It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s basically about the frequency of cutting, yeah, so how often you actually cut it, yeah. Specifically, these, these, these grass types in the, in the, in the southern part of the USS don’t require that much cutting, yeah, so maybe just, you know, once or twice a week, yeah, and then other grass types you can basically cut every day. The idea of a robotic mower is to work continuously, so it’s not that you send it out once a week and then it does the job and then it remains in the charging station for the rest of the week. The idea of a robotic mower is to maintain the lawn at a specific length, yeah, so it works continuously, it always just cuts a little piece of it, yeah, which then falls down, it goes back into the soil, so this also means you don’t need any fertilizer anymore.
Allison: So you’re not actually picking up the, the grass, it’s just getting a trim every day.
Dennis: Yeah, it’s getting a trim every day, it drops back into the soil and it’s like a natural, it’s composting, it’s a natural fertilizer to the lawn, you don’t really need a fertilizer anymore, yeah.
Allison: Okay, so it’s, when it needs to be charged, it goes back into the charging station. About how much area can it do or time can it go?
Dennis: So, area, now I need the help of my colleagues because 800 square meters, what is 800 square meters?
Allison: In freedom units.
Dennis: 0.2 acres.
Allison: Okay. 0.2. 0.2 acres.
Matt: 0.2 acres. 0.2 of grass, right, so yeah, so you know, it may be like a half an acre yard or something, he’s got a house and you’ve got your driveway and other things.
Allison: We’re listening to Matt Carden right now and he’s gonna step in and talk a little bit about SmartSpring, oh wait, I didn’t ask one question, pricing.
Dennis: Pricing, it’s gonna be $999.
Allison: Okay, that’s a lot of lawn, a lot would be needed to be done to do that, but it should work. Very good, all right, so Matt’s gonna step in and talk about SmartSprinklers.
Matt: Yeah, so let’s talk about B-hyve, maybe we can come over here.
Allison: Oh, this product has a name?
Matt: This is, yeah, this is the Gardena Selenoflex is the name of this one. These products are our B-hyve Smart Timers. Okay, so, yeah, let me come over this way. Okay, so we’ve got three different versions that we’re showing today. We’ve got a couple of underground irrigation controllers, so this is our XR and then we’ve got an indoor/outdoor over here as well, and then we’ve got a timer that actually connects to a hose faucet, so if you’re tired of going out and turning on the sprinkler, letting it run and forgetting about it so it floods the yard, right, or if you forget about to turn it on.
Allison: So that’s if you’ve just got a simple hose sprinkler sitting out there.
Matt: Simple hose sprinkler, yeah, so you can just connect it. All of them are used on, you can use it on the app, right, so it connects to Wi-Fi, you can control it on the app, but where the real magic happens is with smart controllers, most people will overwater their lawn, right, because they’re trying to make it super green and they just don’t know any better, but there is some science behind how much water a launch to take.
Allison: That would make sense.
Matt: Right, exactly, so the B-hyve controller has algorithms built into it and it connects to Wi-Fi so it knows what Mother Nature is going to do, right, it knows how much it’s going to rain, what humidity and some of the other weather factors are, and it’s going to water your lawn and your yard in different zones accordingly.
Allison: Now you haven’t said the word AI yet, are you sure you don’t want to work that in here?
Matt: Let’s work that in because this is definitely an AI, you know, system, you know, it’s these algorithms work with Mother Nature, they’re using artificial intelligence to to know exactly how much water, and if you think about it, you want that root zone to be moist, but you don’t want it to be too moist because then you’re gonna lose water into the ground.
Allison: So is it somehow measuring underneath?
Matt: It’s, it’s, that’s what the AI does, right, it’s, it’s, it knows what Mother Nature is going to do and, and so it, it has algorithms in the background that’s running. You can get soil, soil moisture sensors and put them in and connect it so that you can know exactly how much moisture is there, but the, but the beauty of it is that it gets really precise without even the, the, the moisture sensors.
Allison: Moisture sensors. So how is it, this kind of thing has been on the market for a while, we have a smart sensor that knows it’s gonna rain today, I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna sprinkle, what’s, what’s new now?
Matt: Yeah, so what’s really neat is we’ve got this Gen 2 that we’re showing, which is our hose tap timer, this is a new product.
Allison: Never seen that before.
Matt: Yeah, and, and most people don’t know about the, the, the hose faucet timers, right? They just connect to, to a hose. We really pioneered this space, there’s been a couple of other companies that have come out with them in the last couple of years, but we’ve pioneered the space, so it’s got better connectivity, it just functions better than what we’ve had in the past.
Allison: So how much does the hose faucet timer cost?
Matt: So here’s the beauty of it, all of these are WaterSense certified, so there are government rebates that are out there that you can get, so most of them, so this one would retail probably anywhere from \$160 to $180.
Allison: Which, which is this one called, what’s it by name?
Matt: This is called the XR, so it’s this guy right here.
Allison: The whole smart indoor/outdoor sprinkler timer?
Matt: Yep.
Allison: So that’s how much?
Matt: That’s probably gonna be between \$160, $180.
Allison: That’s really, it’s really good, yeah.
Matt: Yeah, yeah, but then you get the rebate.
Allison: Sure.
Matt: And it gets much cheaper. This is probably gonna be around \ $75 or $80.
Allison: And he’s pointing to the smart Wi-Fi hose faucet timer.
Matt: This one right here, yeah.
Allison: Very good, this is really interesting. So where would people go to find out more about these products?
Matt: So they can go to orbitonline.com or gardena.com, either one, and they can check out both products. Can I just add one last little…
Allison: Yes, you only have five seconds, go.
Matt: Okay, so the beauty of both of these together is…
Allison: By the way, this is audio only too, so that’s why I keep asking what you mean when you say these. You mean the sprinklers and the lawnmower?
Matt: The sprinklers and the lawnmower together. Either one of them by themselves are gonna be a little more eco-friendly for your lawn, and they’re gonna make the lawn more healthy. But we feel like there’s real synergies bringing them together under one roof. And so you’re gonna see more innovation coming out, trying to combine that automated yard care in a way that’s gonna be healthier for the lawn, and that’s gonna really drive more eco-friendly solutions.
Allison: Very good. Thank you so much for your time.