For the love of engineering, Husqvarna, the market leader in robotic lawn mowers, has decided to give the Mars Curiosity Rover the birthday celebration it deserves. Husqvarna has updated over 100,000 robotic lawn mowers to enable them sing Happy Birthday on 5 August, the Curiosity’s 10th anniversary on Mars. From a choir of robots on earth to the loneliest robot in the universe – Happy Birthday!
Curiosity is the largest and most advanced rover ever sent to Mars. On its very first birthday on Mars, it was engineered to sing Happy Birthday – to itself. In order to save on its batteries, its birthdays have passed unnoticed ever since. But this year there will be a change. Husqvarna has developed an update for its robotic AutomowerÒ lawn mower, enabling it to sing Happy Birthday. The update is available to a total of 100,000 AutomowerÒ, of models 405X, 415X and 435X AWD. The initiative is fuelled by Husqvarna´s long history of engineering and innovation, where robotic lawn mowers have played an important role in the company´s success.
We are a large group of tech nerds and engineers working at Husqvarna and sometimes we test new technology just because it´s our passion. So we have this alarm module on the AutomowerÒ robotic mower, and we started to play around with it to see if we could do something fun. Meanwhile 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?, says Björn Mannefred, Robotics Software Manager at Husqvarna.
Alarm system as singing voice
The technology is based on the AutomowerÒ robotic mower´s existing alarm signal. In this case Husqvarna uses the integration platform IFTTT to enable the mowers sing Happy Birthday. Husqvarna has been working with IoT and external third-party solutions for years, for instance together with Google Home, Amazon Alexa and IFTTT.
– For a long time, we have been building an infrastructure where different modules can be added and combined to our robotic mowers to create new and innovative solutions for our customers. As the Curiosity’s birthday came up, all the building blocks were already there. And as our robots on earth are so loved and so much part of family life, we thought we´d extend that love all the way into space, says Linda Lindqvist, Product Manager Robotics at Husqvarna.
How to join the choir
Users will be notified about the update through the Husqvarna AutomowerÒ 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 AutomowerÒ robotic mower will automatically start to sing at 12pm, 3 pm and 6pm (local time) on 5 August, as an homage to Curiosity’s 10-year anniversary on Mars.
Following Mars Curiosity Rover´s Birthday, Husqvarna will make the Happy Birthday song available to owners of the three AutomowerÒ models permanently from the beginning of September, to add joy to family birthdays.
Want to see the Husqvarna´s choir of robotic mower sing Happy Birthday? Please click here (https://youtu.be/p0_RPlSe344). For more info visit www.husqvarna.com/happybirthday
About Husqvarna
Husqvarna, a brand within Husqvarna Group, is a market leader in innovative, high-quality and sustainable products and services for shaping green spaces in parks, forests and gardens. Since 1689, Swedish-born Husqvarna has a strong focus on research and development and is a pioneer in robotic lawn mowers and chainsaws. Today, the product portfolio consists of the next generation of robotic mowers, riders, chainsaws and trimmers for professional as well as private use. Sustainable value creation, product innovation and digitalization remain important for the journey ahead. Husqvarna products are sold in more than 100 countries. Husqvarna Group, which also includes Gardena and Husqvarna Construction, has 13 900 employees around the world and net sales in 2021 amounted to SEK 47bn.
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