YouTuber’s Laser-Powered Lawn Mower Looks Very Cool, Very Dangerous

“Don’t try this at home” should go without saying here, but we’ll say it anyways: this is probably a hack that should have never been filmed and shared with the world, or even attempted, in the first place. But it’s interesting to see the challenges that arose as it was tested and gradually improved.

To keep the neighbors safe, the laser mower was tested against a slight hill so the beam always ended up pointed into the raised ground ahead of it. The laser is powerful enough to actually slice through blades of grass and weeds, but a lot of the time, it simply weakens the plants, which topple over at the point of scorching. That slowly diminishes the effectiveness of the laser, and its reach, as sliced and fallen plant life build up in its path.

Further narrowing the beam and replacing a single laser diode with an array of 24 smaller diodes did improve its performance, but performance is a generous term for a mower that can only cut a small six to eight foot long swath of grass in a week’s time. The maker did upgrade the laser emitter by mounting it to an automated RC vehicle that could slowly creep forward over time to improve the laser’s ability to cut down plant life, but with a top speed of about two meters per day, it’s still an agonizingly slow way to handle and automate lawn maintenance.

That’s not the point, thought. The point, as Old Ben once taught us, is to cut in the most civilized way possible.