iRobot Terra is the robot lawn mower to complement your Roomba

Even before smart homes were a thing, iRobot has been making autonomously moving cylinders and boxes that leave families fewer reasons to argue over chores. Over the years, the Roomba has become a household name, literally and figuratively, for such robots. Now iRobot is taking the technology and lessons it learned from inside homes to the outdoors. With the iRobot Terra robot lawn mower, not only will you be able to escape the hassles of mowing, you will also escape the tangles of boundary wires.

Lawn mowing robots are nothing new but iRobot wants to set itself apart with two key features. First, and unique to this outdoor robot, is the use of standalone wireless beacons. While most of its kind require messy boundary wires or beacons that need to be planted as deep as, well, plants, Terra’s beacons can simply be pushed or, if necessary, hammered, into the ground and are guaranteed to stand firm.

The second key feature Terra promises is the same technology that has made the Roomba a favorite. With its Imprint Smart Mapping, the lawn mower will know where it is, where it’s been, and where it’s going. It can navigate around obstacles or avoid them, all while mowing in very straight lines.

In other words, you don’t really need to tell Terra how to mow your lawn. All you need to do is to do it. And you don’t even have to do it manually, even, thanks to the iRobot HOM App, that same app that controls the Roomba vacuum cleaner and the Braava mopper.

iRobot is keeping most of the details under wraps, like specs and most especially the price. The Terra robot lawn mower will launch in Germany first followed by a US beta program sometime this year.