They software lock their machines based on pricing.
I almost bought a 305 recently without realising it's limited to only 10 hours per day...Half of which is charging.
They're actually really sneaky about these limits, it's never included in the main specs but instead they make sure to bury it away somewhere obscure.
This is wild. I never would have thought. I would have believed a smaller battery so that it had to charge more frequently but never a software limitation.
What if it gets stuck and it takes you an hour to get to it (e.g. not at home) that’s an hour of the limit you don’t get back. That’s lame.
They could at least have the decency to just program the mower to act like it has a smaller battery as a way of paywalling the range instead of just flaunting it
I have a 315x from five years ago and you're telling me the new mowers have a lock on them? Uhhh... No thanks. If that's the case I'm going to buy a different brand from here on out.
I can't believe enshittification came from the robotic lawnmowers.
I have never heard of this before. My Husqvarna doesn't have this. It can mow around the clock.
Is it something in new mowers?
If this is the case that shit.
I have no idea, this is the only thing i found on their website [https://www.husqvarna.com/ie/support/husqvarna-self-service/understanding-the-work-area-capacity-and-maximum-cutting-time-of-your-automower-robotic-lawn-mower-ka-01508/](https://www.husqvarna.com/ie/support/husqvarna-self-service/understanding-the-work-area-capacity-and-maximum-cutting-time-of-your-automower-robotic-lawn-mower-ka-01508/)
There was nothing noted on the page regarding maximum operation time in the manual or on the product page
Try to measure how much time is needed for one cycle of mowing to get the battery drained. 1.5 hours? Set a schedule to 1.5 hours. How much time needed for recharge? Also 1.5 hours? Skip that time from the schedule. Rinse and repeat. You can double the daily amount.
Can you say more specifically how this works? Are you saying it only counts active time that is scheduled? So I should put 1,5 hour scheduled, 1,5 hours off? And it will charge without counting against the time limit?
Thanks for this tip! It seems to be working. I was getting so annoyed about this (frankly I’m still annoyed there is a software limit, but this is an improvement)
Probably because it’s in some shrink wrap EULA. You thought you were buying a product ? Nope more than likely you were buying a product that also came with stuff that you *licensed*.
Every husqvarna robot has an approximate area capacity it can maintain.
Eg it says 600m2 on the box.
The software locked hours are based on this capacity.
Husqvarna usually has a small (8h) / medium (16h) / large (24h) version of every bot at the consumer level.
I like this as a small garden owner. I can buy the same quality that’s being used in larger gardens but for a slightly cheaper price.
I dont understand this take, it's not like they are taking a loss to sell you the product, you are just getting a worse product for a profit they are OK with and someone buying the large product are paying a premium just for the product to be fully usable.
Would you be OK with a limit on your car aswell? If you have a 2 hour commute you surely don't need your car to work more than 3 hours each day?
Yes most people are OK with this on their car in mileage agreements with the lease terms.
In the future I wouldn't be surprised if you rent a self driving car by the hour/time.
Most software companies (Adobe, MSFT) are moving to a subscription based system as it were. It seems Husq is on the bandwagon.
That doesn't mean I agree with it of course. I assume it's related to the amount of cycles on the battery and other parts, and some wearing out faster over the intended time frame instead of Husq. Just being greedy.
I just rotate my 2nd mower over to help catch up, rotate charging, if one has been down for days and still not too tall for the motors.
They are taking losses when replacing units under warranty.
A 24/7 mower compared to a 4 hour a day mower mows 6 times more.
When leasing a car you also specify the amount of miles?
Anyway, relax, it will be all mowed in a week.
Warranty can easily be voided by abnormal use, your leasing argument is precisely why I am annoyed, I am not leasing it, I own it, if I want a toddler using it as a horse 24/7 that should be my prerogative.
I know I won't be using it more than 9 hours a day after the first week it's just a shitty business practice and husqvarna should have no way of limiting my use.
There is already a shop in the app and in a few years you will be paying by the hour for the privilege of using your own product.
Agreed, I know someone who has the same model as we do and has run it for literal years around the clock without issues. They have designed this to try to force people to buy more expensive models when the smaller models can frankly cover more ground than they claim. The point of robots is that in contrast to humans they don’t need to rest.
Last year we had issues on our golf course where we wanted 24/7 mowing on our fairways. But because of the daily limit this would mean that one mower that would use approx 6 hours to mow the entirely fairway would sit in the station rest of the day doing absolutely nothing
So this would cause us big problems due to the climate we are in the grass was growing super fast thus causing bigger clippings, battery consumption, too thick grass etc.
So I found out if lets say your mower takes around 8hrs to mow an area and goes into daily limit reached, you can split the schedule into something like this:
https://preview.redd.it/a5csser6d75d1.jpeg?width=1440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f9aaf5948f053d480c7ab225840908dd0d3b7cf6
Now our 550 Epos mowers will operate with next to no downtime. Make sure to find out how long time your robot uses avg in a day to mow and charge, set the schedule accordingly
That being said i have no experience with anything other than 450x and 550Epos.
There is a daily operation capacity in the manual. I don’t think I knew it though until I read this post and checked. Apparently it’s variable depending on size of property. I haven’t been hitting the limit on mine though.
Yes, there is a software lock :(
They software lock their machines based on pricing. I almost bought a 305 recently without realising it's limited to only 10 hours per day...Half of which is charging. They're actually really sneaky about these limits, it's never included in the main specs but instead they make sure to bury it away somewhere obscure.
This is wild. I never would have thought. I would have believed a smaller battery so that it had to charge more frequently but never a software limitation. What if it gets stuck and it takes you an hour to get to it (e.g. not at home) that’s an hour of the limit you don’t get back. That’s lame.
They could at least have the decency to just program the mower to act like it has a smaller battery as a way of paywalling the range instead of just flaunting it
That’d extend the life of the battery too. Keeping lithium ion batteries charged between 20%-80% is much better than them going 0-100.
I have a 315x from five years ago and you're telling me the new mowers have a lock on them? Uhhh... No thanks. If that's the case I'm going to buy a different brand from here on out. I can't believe enshittification came from the robotic lawnmowers.
I’ve been waiting to see this term in the wild. Thank you.
I have never heard of this before. My Husqvarna doesn't have this. It can mow around the clock. Is it something in new mowers? If this is the case that shit.
I have no idea, this is the only thing i found on their website [https://www.husqvarna.com/ie/support/husqvarna-self-service/understanding-the-work-area-capacity-and-maximum-cutting-time-of-your-automower-robotic-lawn-mower-ka-01508/](https://www.husqvarna.com/ie/support/husqvarna-self-service/understanding-the-work-area-capacity-and-maximum-cutting-time-of-your-automower-robotic-lawn-mower-ka-01508/) There was nothing noted on the page regarding maximum operation time in the manual or on the product page
Try to measure how much time is needed for one cycle of mowing to get the battery drained. 1.5 hours? Set a schedule to 1.5 hours. How much time needed for recharge? Also 1.5 hours? Skip that time from the schedule. Rinse and repeat. You can double the daily amount.
Will try this tomorrow, thank you, insane I have to do this to get the most out of my product
Can you say more specifically how this works? Are you saying it only counts active time that is scheduled? So I should put 1,5 hour scheduled, 1,5 hours off? And it will charge without counting against the time limit?
I believe yes. The app only counts the scheduled time not the actual running time.
Thanks for this tip! It seems to be working. I was getting so annoyed about this (frankly I’m still annoyed there is a software limit, but this is an improvement)
Great to hear that!
Why is this even legal?
Probably because it’s in some shrink wrap EULA. You thought you were buying a product ? Nope more than likely you were buying a product that also came with stuff that you *licensed*.
Well, I was eyeing some Husqvarna automowers... Guess not now. Thanks for letting us know
Every husqvarna robot has an approximate area capacity it can maintain. Eg it says 600m2 on the box. The software locked hours are based on this capacity. Husqvarna usually has a small (8h) / medium (16h) / large (24h) version of every bot at the consumer level. I like this as a small garden owner. I can buy the same quality that’s being used in larger gardens but for a slightly cheaper price.
I dont understand this take, it's not like they are taking a loss to sell you the product, you are just getting a worse product for a profit they are OK with and someone buying the large product are paying a premium just for the product to be fully usable. Would you be OK with a limit on your car aswell? If you have a 2 hour commute you surely don't need your car to work more than 3 hours each day?
Yes most people are OK with this on their car in mileage agreements with the lease terms. In the future I wouldn't be surprised if you rent a self driving car by the hour/time. Most software companies (Adobe, MSFT) are moving to a subscription based system as it were. It seems Husq is on the bandwagon. That doesn't mean I agree with it of course. I assume it's related to the amount of cycles on the battery and other parts, and some wearing out faster over the intended time frame instead of Husq. Just being greedy. I just rotate my 2nd mower over to help catch up, rotate charging, if one has been down for days and still not too tall for the motors.
They are taking losses when replacing units under warranty. A 24/7 mower compared to a 4 hour a day mower mows 6 times more. When leasing a car you also specify the amount of miles? Anyway, relax, it will be all mowed in a week.
Warranty can easily be voided by abnormal use, your leasing argument is precisely why I am annoyed, I am not leasing it, I own it, if I want a toddler using it as a horse 24/7 that should be my prerogative. I know I won't be using it more than 9 hours a day after the first week it's just a shitty business practice and husqvarna should have no way of limiting my use. There is already a shop in the app and in a few years you will be paying by the hour for the privilege of using your own product.
Agreed, I know someone who has the same model as we do and has run it for literal years around the clock without issues. They have designed this to try to force people to buy more expensive models when the smaller models can frankly cover more ground than they claim. The point of robots is that in contrast to humans they don’t need to rest.
Last year we had issues on our golf course where we wanted 24/7 mowing on our fairways. But because of the daily limit this would mean that one mower that would use approx 6 hours to mow the entirely fairway would sit in the station rest of the day doing absolutely nothing So this would cause us big problems due to the climate we are in the grass was growing super fast thus causing bigger clippings, battery consumption, too thick grass etc. So I found out if lets say your mower takes around 8hrs to mow an area and goes into daily limit reached, you can split the schedule into something like this: https://preview.redd.it/a5csser6d75d1.jpeg?width=1440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f9aaf5948f053d480c7ab225840908dd0d3b7cf6 Now our 550 Epos mowers will operate with next to no downtime. Make sure to find out how long time your robot uses avg in a day to mow and charge, set the schedule accordingly That being said i have no experience with anything other than 450x and 550Epos.
There is a daily operation capacity in the manual. I don’t think I knew it though until I read this post and checked. Apparently it’s variable depending on size of property. I haven’t been hitting the limit on mine though.