Husqvarna, the market leader in robotic lawn mowers, has decided to give the Mars Curiosity Rover the birthday celebration it deserves as it celebrates it’s 10th birthday.
Husqvarna has updated over 100,000 robotic lawn mowers around the world to enable them sing Happy Birthday on 5th August as it is the Curiosity’s 10th birthday on Mars. From a choir of robots on earth to the loneliest robot in the universe – Happy Birthday!
Inspired by the pioneering technology of the Mars Curiosity Rover, Husqvarna has developed an update for it’s robotic Automower® lawn mower, enabling it to sing Happy Birthday. The update is available to a total of 100,000 Automower® of models 405X, 415X and 435X AWD. The initiative is fuelled by Husqvarn's long history of engineering and innovation, where robotic lawn mowers have played an important role in the company´s success. Husqvarna will make the Happy Birthday song available to owners of the three Automower® models permanently from the beginning of September.
Speaking about the inspiration behind Husqvarna’s latest mission, Björn Mannefred, Robotics Software Manager at Husqvarna said:
“Curiosity is the largest and most advanced rover ever sent to Mars. On it’s very first birthday on Mars, it was engineered to sing Happy Birthday - to itself. In order to save on it’s batteries, it’s birthdays have passed unnoticed ever since. But this year there will be a change. We heard about the upcoming birthday of the rover on Mars. And from there the idea was born. For us this is a way to pay homage to the great engineering work of NASA by letting our robotic mowers celebrate a fellow robot. Because nobody should have to sing Happy Birthday to themselves, right?”
The technology is based on the Automower® robotic mowers existing alarm signal. In this case Husqvarna uses the integration platform IFTTT to enable the mowers to sing Happy Birthday. Husqvarna has been working with IoT and external third-party solutions for years, including Google Home, Amazon Alexa and IFTTT.
The thousands of Husqvarna Automower® owners in Ireland will be notified about the update through the Husqvarna Automower® Connect app where they will be asked to install the update. Consumers can then decide if they want to join the choir. If they accept, the Automower® robotic mower will automatically start to sing at 12pm, 3pm and 6pm (local time) on 5 August, as an homage to Curiosity’s 10-year anniversary on Mars.
Jordan Healy from Husqvarna said “We know that many of our robots have been given names by their owners – randomly we know of at least 15 that are called Dave! This activity is something fun in August when our Automowers® are very busy in gardens around the country”.
Want to see the Husqvarna´s choir of robotic mower sing Happy Birthday? Please click here.
For more info visit www.husqvarna.com/happybirthday
Slán go fóill.