“Alexa, mow the lawn”: How the Evolution of Smart Home Tech has Changed how Americans Spend Their Time

In a Public service announcement from the 1950s, a father challenged his son, “kids these days have so many more leisure hours than our generation ever had. What are you going to do with all that time, Wally?”
If only our granddads from the 1950’s could see us now: with our mini computers we carry around in our pockets, with our robot vacuums and robot lawnmowers.
And when we have all these magic tools, why not use them?
If technology, at our best, makes our lives easier and gives us more freedom, why the heck shouldn’t we leverage it to our advantage?
Especially on those sunny saturdays when we have other things to do than lawn maintenance... 

Putting It In Perspective: How technology has changed life for homeowners in the last century

Before 1900, nearly all household chores were performed manually. (Remember all that time your grandma spent shucking green beans? Remember Dad spending all those countless hours to ensure a healthy lawn and a glorious flowerbed?)
Well, preparing dinner looks a little different these days, and so does perfecting your turf.

Back in the day, if you were rich, you could employ servants to help with the cooking and cleaning. But if you weren’t rolling in the dough, you faced the challenge of performing laborious household chores yourself….

Which was a full time job.

In fact, you could spend upwards 12 - 14 hours a day cleaning, wiping, scrubbing, shucking, weeding, harvesting, and cooking.

The average 1950’s housewife burnt 1,200 calories per day, just keeping on top of the home and trimming the landscaping in the front yard. 

What Created the First Push in Household Technologies? 

In the first decades of the twentieth century, America saw a great decline in household helpers and servants.

This meant that daily household tasks were suddenly the woman’s problem.

Luckily for the ladies, this created a boom of new automated household appliances and gadgets to make a gal’s job easier. Among them were:

• 1880s: The carpet sweeper starts sweeping up those dust bunnies
• 1903: The electric iron steams up the laundry room
• 1907: The electric vacuum cleaner replaces the carpet sweeper (way before the Roomba rumbles around living rooms)
• 1912: The toaster makes breakfasts delicious across the nation
• 1912: Canned foods make it possible to whip up supper in a snap.

By the 1920s, Americans were living the high life, with hot and cold running water, gas stoves, automatic washing machines, refrigerators, and vacuum cleaners.

And we never looked back.

​But there’s still one type of household servant that’s there to scrub the bathrooms, wash the dog, and yes…. do yard work.
And we call that household servant the Modern Teenager. After all, The Modern Teenager is typically happy to be your in-house lawn care company because she needs spending money to buy pizza at the mall.

The Joys of Watching Your Teenager Mow the Lawn

Here at Autmow, we would never want to deprive you of the joys of looking out the window to see your teenager, sweating bullets, pushing the lawn mower for hours.
Indeed, there is no finer joy in life than watching your teenager perform manual labor on your large lawn.

However, there will be that tearful day when your teenager goes off to college, and you’re stuck with a growing lawn, a push mower, and no one to push it.... suddenly your beautiful lawn feels like a hassle.

(Are those tears on college orientation day because you’ll miss your kid, or because you’re stuck mowing the lawn now? Deep questions.)

That’s why so many empty nesters decide to invest in a robot lawn mower -- because it’s equally as awesome to look out your window to see a robot mower cutting the grass.

(Because it means you can get other projects done around the house, perfect those flower beds, or go on adventures with your partner!)

When the kiddos go off to college, you don’t want to spend all that time mowing the lawn… it’s time to enjoy your life.
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The future is now!

Automatic Home Appliances (and robots): Creating Time for What Matters Most

Talk as much smack as you’d like about technology, but the fact of the matter is, our technological advances in the last century have changed the American family forever. And now it's here to perfect the contour of your lawn.

In fact, according to The Economist, today’s parents spent twice as much time with their children as they did 50 years ago. And we’re also spending far less time on household activities.

So the next time you throw the laundry in the dryer or start the dishwasher, think about all the time you’re saving by utilizing that appliance.
Instead of scrubbing, you can join the pool party with your kids.

Which is another major reason why more and more families are investing in things like robotic mowing. When you spend 40 hours a week at a paid job, you want to free up as much time as possible to hit the golf course or go hiking with your spouse.
​
The grass will always grow, but you can never get the time back from all those hours of pushing a lawn mower.

(Seriously... why are we still mowing like this in 2020?)

The Kicker: Working Americans Are Still Working More And Enjoying Less Leisure Time

All the more reason for Americans to put down that push mower: we’re still working more than ever and enjoying less leisure time.

According to The Wall Street Journal, “On weekdays, Americans with full-time jobs spent 8 hours and 8 minutes a day working or traveling to work, five minutes more than a decade earlier.”

We end up with about 45 minutes of leisure time each day -- after you figure in the commute, the dishes, the laundry, the dusting, the childcare, and yes… mowing the darn lawn. 

Saving Time At Home With A Robot Mower

These days, we have a robot task force to vacuum our living rooms, to wash our clothes, sanitize our dishes, and secure our homes from robberies….

If only we could employ a fleet of robot lawn mowers to be our lawn care service of the future!

… Oh wait… WE CAN!

In fact, managing a robot to make your lawn look fresh out of “Better Home & Gardens” is easier than you think.

From your smartphone, you can tell your automower to move to another section of lawn, change your mower’s weekly schedule, map out your property, and more.

Which means not only are you freeing up time on lawn care, but you and your neighbors can all enjoy better-looking lawns.
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To learn more about how an autonomous lawn mower can help bring your household into the next century, click here. Because if a robot can vacuum your floors, why can’t it provide a lush carpet of perfectly-mowed lawn to save you time? After all, technology is here to work for us. It’s time to let it.