Talk:Robotic lawn mower
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[edit] Point of view
This article reads like a sales brochure.
I'm all for avoiding the burning of fossil fuels while cutting down the grass, but I don't see how the Robomower saves gasoline any more than the corded and uncorded electric mowers I have been using for well over 20 years. My research shows the Robomower was only introduced in the U.S. in 2000. Please rewrite this article in an encyclopedic tone.
- The United Nations and the EPA do not prefer the Robomower over Black & Decker or Sunbeam or Neuton or any other electric, so statements about them seem inappropriate in this article.
- What team of psychologists determined that Tiedeman is a genius?
- Remove "fundamentally changing". When more than half of the population is using a robotic electric (or any electric) mower, I'll drink to that, and you can put that phrase back in, along with "massive tipping point".
- It runs on batteries, right? Why doesn't the article use that word? I understand that a sales pitch might want to use "power pack" so the customer might buy the mower before realizing that it has to be charged, but this is supposed to be an encyclopedia article. How much does the mower weigh? How long to charge? How large an area can be mowed on one charge? How many of these are being sold compared to other electrics and gasoline mowers?
- Even a fair sales pitch should mention the need to install wires in the yard.
- "it is hoped the world will reduce ..." — Who hopes? Tiedeman? Then please say so. You hope? That is not suitable for an encyclopedia.
Lastly, consider merging this into Lawn_mower#Robotic_mowers or Autonomous robot. Chris the speller 18:37, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
- The facts on the Robomower look good to me.
- Power pack is the proper wording. Battery is too 20th century. We have moved beyond the word. Chris, is this better. Take a look at it.
- This listing looks non bias. It has been cleaned up. The Robomower is a new invention just as the automobile was in 1886.
- I have indented the above (unsigned) comments by Onenex1000. I just looked at the article on Roomba, and it discusses most of the points I asked for in this article, such as charging times and how to limit its area. It describes the batteries — yes, "batteries", as this encyclopedia calls them (there is a "Power pack" article, but it's science fiction). You might use that Roomba article as a model, although it is not a perfect example. I think in time you will agree that a good encyclopedia gives people the information they want, not the information you want them to have. The better you write an article, the less chance another editor will mess with it trying to improve it. To me, this article still looks more like it trying to sway people than to provide objective information. Chris the speller 03:41, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
- I completely agree with Chris the speller -- the article as written is a sales brochure, almost every sentence is trying to hawk the product. I'll take a shot at rewriting it if it's not cleaned up a bit more soon. It really is not an encyclopedia article. Bikeable 04:04, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
- I've fixed it up. After removing the NPOV stuff, there's not much else in the article. I'll see if I can find some more referenes... -- Mikeblas 18:54, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
The mower is called Robomow, not Robomower. I updated the page but I don't know how to update the title.
*There seems to be agreement that changes are needed in robotic lawnmower articles; I propose to combine them all into one article by the end of the week, if no one objects.
- Mikeblas just added some very reasonable tags to this article: no sources, therefore there's a notability problem, and it seems to be promotional. A quick Google news search for Robomower shows 150 articles in major newspapers, and many of the articles I looked at gave the impression that the journalist was writing about their actual experience with the product or interviewing people who had actual experience. So there's no problem with notability, the question is which articles to use as sources.
- The objection that the article seems promotional is more difficult. I've discussed the general issue of "slant" for home robotics with many people at Wikipedia. My personal feeling is that I could write this article observing NPOV, but I also think it would be a lot of work to keep defending that viewpoint, so I propose to put all the robotic lawnmowers into an article called Robotic lawnmower. Keeping everything in one article will also reduce the workload for those of us patrolling for vandalism and ad-spam, both of which are on the rise in robotics articles. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 21:17, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
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- (copied at Lawnbott) Well ... the new material never materialized. On p. 23 of the May Consumer Reports, there's an article about safety issues in the Lawnbott. I keep hearing news that the Spyder will be out any day, but nothing shows up in news.google.com. Robomower is due for some upgrades, but that hasn't happened either. It's frustrating; I'll put off work on this article until solid information shows up. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 14:13, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
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[edit] Power and energy
Currently it says a larger power usage is required to mow more acreage. This doesn't make sense. Power is the rate at which energy is used, so a mower that used less power would be able to mow more grass for the same battery. Of course, I'm sure the different models don't use the same battery. Anyway, this sentence is confused no matter how you look at it. — Omegatron (talk) 02:24, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
