On March 3, Greenzie, a producer of autonomous mowing software, will unveil its fourth annual major software upgrade, 4.0. All Greenzie-equipped mowers globally receive these over-the-air updates, aiming to unlock increased efficiency and productivity for landscaper customers.
The new update installs automatically in seconds and features four major customer-inspired performance boosts: mapping closer to obstacles, a refined user interface, smoother mowing with less turf damage and reliability improvements to reduce unnecessary stops. Additionally, Robotic Ready manufacturing partners gain access to AI/ML tooling Greenzie has been using internally to improve the customer experience and provide insights to customers on their savings, job efficiency and return on investment, according to the company.
Mapping closer to obstacles
Since the first production mowers driven by Greenzie were released in 2021, owners and operators have been requesting the ability to map closer to objects. Greenzie has redefined the mapping process to align with customer needs, while also adhering to evolving safety standards and nomenclature.
Now, instead of striping to start, the mower defines an inner boundary to clearly outline the mowable area. Additionally, the mower will outline any keep out zones it encounters while striping, with lines around the obstacle only possible via software control. Once striping is complete, the mower will navigate around the inner boundary to reach the starting position, ready to start another job.
New user interface
The revamped user interface features bolder, larger fonts for easier readability and precise boundary demarcation. Plus, it displays the remaining mowing time front and center, so customers know how much time they have for pipelining activity.
Editing a previously mapped job is now simpler, and users can more easily see whether settings are turned on or off. Additionally, the new interface is now multilingual and translated to all languages thanks to its web app with no app store installation required, and it works on any mobile phone or tablet.
Smoother operation
When mowing autonomously on zero-turn mowers, making perfect non-rutting y-turns is critical to efficiency and health of the turf, according to the company, and Y-turns are a primary area where speed is lost and turf damage occurs, especially on slopes. Greenzie built an internal interactive Y-turn editor, coupled with data from over 2.8 billion square feet of turf mowed, to generate improved turns that prevent grass rutting. This new development has led to improvements in Y-turns, according to Greenzie, reducing turf damage.
Reliability improvements
Behind the scenes, Greenzie’s 4.0 software release introduces performance updates designed to minimize unnecessary stops. This includes automatically resetting sensors, mitigating hardware disconnects, recovering from cell signal degradation and handling GPS jumps. The improvements implemented through this update are backed four years of autonomous mowing data encompassing the equivalent of 26,000 operator days (or 150-plus mowing seasons), according to the company.
“The Greenzie 4.0 software is a huge step forward in autonomous mowing technology, offering enhancements that respond directly to customer feedback,” said Charles Brian Quinn, Greenzie co-founder and CEO. “Using our massive trove of autonomous mowing data and our work on safety standards, we’ve improved how our mowers map jobs, improved Y-turns, simplified the user interface and, frankly, fixed lots of issues causing stops in the field. So, the 2025 mowing season will be better than ever for Greenzie customers and our Robotic Ready partner manufacturers. And our AI/ML efforts are bolstering our rave-review-garnering customer support programs.”
