foreign
well I guess my days of going outside are over thanks to ecoflow who sponsored
this video
some people get naturally excited about the outdoors even yard work as you can
see that ain't me which is why the blade
from ecoflow is only the first in what is likely going to end up being a series
of videos covering yard maintenance robots over the next year or so this one
has a couple of standout features first and foremost being that it comes
completely pre-assembled which
really okay well they say it comes completely pre-assembled and it features
what they're calling sweeping technology which means that not only will it cut
the grass it will also remove I guess
leaves needles does it do needles it does needles right because that is a
huge problem in this yard by the way that's Jordan I think this is the first time you're meeting him it's cute
truthfully I don't have much in the way of talking points about this thing and
this is the first time seeing of it but I do know that they offer replace are
those razor blades what the hell that is not the kind of
lawnmower blade I was expecting to see the idea here is that if it hits a stick
or a rock or something it'll just give it'll just spin around rather than you
know whacking it and throwing it across the yard which makes a ton of sense
because if you're operating the lawnmower you're going to be at the back
of the mower behind a shield whereas if
this thing is just running and you're lounging with a drink or whatever yeah
that could be very dangerous this is apparently the sweeper accessory
this really doesn't seem like it would work that well does it
just picking my pebbles in the parking lot I guess so it was picking up rocks
oh yeah who needs a manual when you've got instructions right on the top here
like that that's cheating it's not cheating that's using what's available
to me oh I see
look at these wheels that is
funky so these spin every which way
and these spin this is apparently called
an omnidirectional wheel my mind is
completely blown right now and the unit can clear obstacles as high as 40
millimeters so that's four centimeters or about two inches for my American
friends kind of feel like I'm in my yard playing with tractors you know this
isn't the first you've seen of ecoflow on our Channel bear hole stick is that
they're about capturing storing and using energy in innovative ways to
simplify everyday living so their newest smart devices include the glacier a
portable fridge freezer with an integrated ice maker The Wave 2 which is
a new generation of their powerful compact portable AC and heating unit and
of course the blade the first automated lawnmower with lawn sweeping
capabilities with the idea being that it can keep your yard clear even when the
leaves are falling overall I haven't needed the manual yet
I'm pretty impressed with the Simplicity of the setup
this guy goes on here a little something
like this so the sweeping happens after the cutting then
uh you can pick you can pick you tell the app what you want to do no way oh
you mean if you just have it go through the whole yard twice yeah sweeping first
and then cutting icy power for the sweeping unit plugs in at the back right
here pretty straightforward okay let's find
out what these buttons do there is nothing in the manual regarding the
buttons on the unit because I guess you're basically just expected to
download the app and set it up that makes sense no before we get the app we
need to set up the charging station and the antenna that's what this is we've
got to be more than two meters from a building and we can't install the
charger anywhere where there's less than four meters to navigate
it can go on the concrete right yep okay cool I'm just gonna put it over by the
house over here then oh good water resistant housing
was wrong ah that makes way more sense
the sun's coming out let's go baby yeah that's good oh it was been chilly this
morning thankfully I have this wonderful 3D down jacket from lttstore.com
power brick also has little wall mount holes so you could kind of stick it on
there plug it in and then it should be good to just leave it there forever
you know I feel like for a more permanent installation I would want to
put it somewhere more out of the way oh you're good yeah oh you got to screw it
down too for our purposes this is can you screw it into lawn like does it come
with lawn screws oh that's cool okay lawn screws
I mean should we screw it down then sure let's screw it down let's do it yeah
let's put it over here you know what
kind of feeling this spot right here you're supposed to be able to map out
the yard and set exclusion zones so there should be no reason for it to
accidentally run over its own cord but I would rest easier just having this
go you know through a planter or something like that that I know it can't
climb up onto very important by the way this needs to be mounted level
yeah that's not going anywhere on the subject of inclines it should still be
able to handle this okay ecoflow rates it for 15 degrees at the edge of the
lawn and 27 degrees in the middle of the
lawn so yeah this is pretty flat that
should be okay it comes in the Box powered on I think so I'm gonna power it
on wait we didn't do the antenna
this is a GPS antenna this is
oh okay so this is intended to give a
clear always accurate GPS signal that the robot can compare against to know
exactly where it is and this is particularly necessary because this
robot doesn't have any kind of boundary wire around the edge of the property or
anything like that it only relies on this to know where it is I should have
uh should have cable managed this the other way first yeah there will be no
need to record me doing this for the next four minutes it's the same for both
of them it has to be at least two meters from the building and then at least four
meters of navigation space around it does it go
well it doesn't seem like it has to go right next to the base they show it like
that but why would they have this long cord if I couldn't just put it kind of
wherever I want I'm going to put it wherever I want I want to put it next to
the base all right who doesn't need a GPS antenna
in their yard that's what I want to know let's fire up
the app one device has been found Eco
flow blade 0282
connecting camera or lidar sensor blocked now in
safety protection mode oh
see this my friends is why you always
remove the Peels and is a perfect opportunity for us to talk about how
this thing navigates it has a camera it has lidar and it has GPS so
theoretically it should be able to handle the obstacle avoidance of course
that we've set up for it here which includes a trampoline these random two
by fours that are propping up this tree these saplings that my in-laws put in
the middle of the yard for some inexplicable reason that concrete found
this is going to be really challenging press the power button okay power button
followed by the start button so that's what these buttons are there's power
start and I think go home and charge I guess I guess there's also stop
okay power button start button
um okay and it lived there forever all
right oh here we go okay now I've got the quick start guide assemble product
antenna mower is not charging oh okay I
can so I should put it on here come on
um oh oh sorry buddy
oh sorry I pressed the emergency stop
when I put it on the charger it got mad sorry buddy okay
search antenna signal continue moving antenna to find a stronger signal and
fix the antenna week six drop
signal I see I knew it mower control
if you can manually control it oh do not stand behind the charging
station
There She Goes okay those front wheels trip me out
control mower turn around
it's going all right that's that's pretty intuitive
well done mower control practice completed if only my driver's licensing
test was that fast you got the basics get out there create
mower work map remove all dogs soccer balls and
branches from the yard it was a soccer ball all right no dogs oh you got the
soccer ball the grass needs to be shorter than three inches which I mean
this grass just barely grows I guess it'll probably be fine and you need to
keep within two meters of the mower and follow it during mapping
satellite signal is weak okay you are
definitely going to want to set up the base station somewhere where the signal
is consistently good I will say that so
can we go back now okay create mower workmap here we go
retest
stupid planter and let's just see if moving that a couple feet away gets us
over the threshold yes
door's about to
it says it's strong but then the unit itself is flashing orange which
indicates that it is not strong
so now it's complaining about this one but it didn't complain about this one
before okay
What if I do a little thing
hold on hold on no I think I'm gonna get
away with it okay so now I have to manually take it
to the edge of the lawn then tap start to start the mapping oh I gotta drive it
yeah I have to drive it the whole way you drive the perimeter you want to move
oh my God and then once that's there it'll plan the road itself all right all
right I'm working on I'm working on it jeez come on all those gaming skills put
them to use oh yeah yeah Peak gamer moment right here I feel like I'm taking
my really weird dog for a walk
he uses a Wi-Fi leash okay he prefers
that oh this is cool it has the map all
like drawn in real time here that's pretty sick and it looks like I
did manage to fool it with my quick swap of the GPS antennas location
uh okay oh yeah oh yeah bud now seems
like a good time to mention that you can set multiple areas and then you can draw
a path between them in case you happen to have two yards approaching starting
point tap complete to save the map no go
Zone the mower is not allowed to go in
this area okay should I make a no-go Zone under the trampoline I think so
okay sure yeah let's make a no-go Zone then if Eco flow is watching which I
know you are I wouldn't mind if it went a lot faster
like if you could put it in race mode I'm sure lawnmower racing is a thing
somewhere oh I think it got a little confused
uh yes quit mapping wait what
oh are you kidding me well you're okay you're okay oh we're no we're good oh
Dynamic mode Let's Go uh how how 1.6 inches sure okay
uh uh save
nice yeah I'm not being a no-go's on okay let's try it let's try again with
the no goes on hey there it goes look at that Perfect Circle baby
start just started
oh I would say you should probably stay six
inches away from the obstacles yeah okay so now it's gonna do stuff
look at it go that is adorable
you know what it's on mowing mode I probably just shouldn't have the sweeper
accessory on it at all yeah I'm gonna take the sweeping
she's got some give or she's got some go
whoa okay this seems like it's gonna take a
while oh okay we apparently brought a decibel meter
it's really quiet 60 something High 70
low it changes the height of the blade for a
slope yep oh interesting this is an assumption I don't know this but I would
have to guess that once it's kind of run the area once it gets a bit of a better
idea what's shaking yeah it'll plan its own route and it'll
just zigzag back and forth kind of like you would normally mowing the lawn yourself
right now because we haven't told it where all the obstacles are
it has to kind of get a feel for it figuring things out interesting and I
think we'll be cutting a little bit low for a first pass given how high the grass was to start yeah probably there I
saw the 2x4 it does not like my two by four system for holding up this tree
I've been meaning to implement a better system but I don't live here anymore so
it's been a low priority it fell over like fell over it's a miracle it's alive
this is going to take a very long time
which theoretically doesn't matter because unless you're going to write it
you don't have yeah no no no that's not allowed that's right in the manual
Jordan you know what it wasn't very clear what the method to
the madness was initially but it's starting to take shape
you can see it found this obstacle it's like nope.png right here
and other than that it's kind of doing a
thing now and I should say as long as this looks like it's going to take the
cutting width is actually wider than most other mowers out there at about 26
centimeters
I think this wheel's just kind of gummed up here and we're a little bit low on
the cutting height yeah I think I'm going to raise the cutting height
yeah okay I'm gonna set the cutting height to two inches and see if that
helps this lawn is just not level enough for it to go that low to the ground
yeah and see now it's not getting stuck as it tries to turn it's supposed to be
accurate to two centimeters for positioning two centimeters yep I think
I found a tree honestly I don't think that really matters because if you run
it every day and it's off by just a little bit yeah it'll kind of it'll kind
of grab everything eventually like it's more of a maintenance type of program
than a you know oh crap I haven't done this in three weeks oh I need to get
every blade I definitely should have set a smaller area for just a product demo
yeah we should have swept first there's some pretty big pine cones and stuff
here ah
okay whoops that's a little big for it uh yep
oh there's still a lot of these uh oh uh oh I'm sorry
okay no no no you're good don't uh go
for it all right
okay I'm supervising
forget about figuring out obstacles yeah I should have just had this as an
exclusion zone or set it up as a separate zone for just sweeping because
nothing grows here anyway then again if this thing was sweeping the yard every
day stuff might eventually grow here I only hope that once the tables are
turned our robot overlords give me a job like this to do
I'm gonna take the sweeper off for now we can take a look at the sweeper later
oh man and what is that so tight you've
really got it on there how did I do that
oh no I think my little Switcheroo with
the GPS antenna may have confused it it's about to run over my camera
operator here um it thinks it's in the middle of the
mowing area and it's clearly not it's like headed for the rock bed we're gonna
do the setup properly give me a minute we're gonna reset the map
and we're going to create a new map the GPS is not mad at me this time which is
good man imagine this becomes a thing companies sponsoring videos with us just
to reinforce that people need to read the manual before setting up their
product I can even see just looking at the
preview of the map on my phone though this is way better here we go okay
it absolutely nailed the start location
so we are definitely right this time oh
hey it's worth noting it has a rain sensor so if it detects rain it'll go
hide away in its little dock presumably charge up I guess and then when the rain
stops it'll go mow the lawn again okay it's already taking away smarter path
around the yard cool all right well let's go eat and we'll be back all right
good luck buddy
we're back and it definitely went everywhere you
can actually see it was quite methodical here but as I mentioned before it's
pretty clear that this is the kind of thing that you wouldn't want to run once
every two weeks it's the kind of thing you'd want to set to run more like every
day it did a way better job of cutting close to this thing now that it doesn't
have the sweeping attachment on it so I think that sweeping is something you'd
want to be a little more manual about maybe not just leave it on all the time
definitely a learning curve I will be very curious to see if it can actually
sweep any of this stuff because like hey it actually sounds whoa hey hi sorry it
sounds more like a lawnmower now I also feel like you've got to have the right
yard configuration like it's pretty clear that there are
some very challenging things about this particular yard the fact that all this
brick work is very wavy and sort of all
over the place the fact that I have two by fours holding up a tree
minor things like that pretty lumpy too the ground is extremely lumpy but I have
to wonder if you're the kind of person who can afford one of these would you
just have a flat lawn you know right ecoflow recommends using the blade in a
lawn that's between a hundred to three thousand square meters the bigger the
lawn is the better it will perform it's not a replacement for ever going outside
and working on your yard that much is very clear yeah but what it is doing
right now is an 80 20 job of it this is
better than I would have done as a teenager I mean speak for yourself I was
a night I was a good teenager no you know what I don't know if I was
giving the sweeping enough credit before it's definitely picking stuff up and in
Dynamic mode it's actually going pretty quickly I do wish you could chop and
sweep there are some places that it didn't do a great job but it's rated to
handle three inches and that's more like four four and a half
so on the one hand even though this is a sponsored video we went out of our way
to use it in the real world so you guys can see it in action and you don't end
up with unrealistic expectations but on the other hand we did kind of go out of
our way to put it in a very challenging situation
and it's definitely doing stuff like you
do another pass of this thing with cutting another pass with sweeping here
actually you know what I'm gonna hit the thing hey buddy
it did this little part right here
it actually picked up a crap ton of stuff lawn clippings leaves Twigs all
this crap was it a pretty small area actually and
it charges fast enough that you could even run it twice a day for the first
little bit if you just wanted to get things up to scratch no you know what I
would totally map my work area just with
wider borders and I would just leave the sweeper on all the time because you can
have different areas that do different things oh so I could set it to mow this
and then dock for a couple hours and then sweep that
sick it went and took a nap after doing
a very small amount of this challenging area and we were like what the heck is
up with that any questions I had before about whether
the sweeper works or not have been put to rest
it went to take a nap because the thing was full it picked up all of that
just going around here and then along here
yeah okay sweeper mode confirmed does sweep
it depends on your standards it's never gonna get right in there next to the
edges it's never going to get under the trampoline or anything like that but if
you just want the place to not be overgrown and you don't want to go and
do it yourself the only challenge with that is the
price it's not cheap we're gonna have a
link down below where you guys can check out both the ecoflow blade and sweeper
accessory come on come on