Adapting to a Robot

Abstract

Introducing robots into the home changes the work that the homeowners carry out. This paper explores in depth how garden work and the garden change when a robotic lawn mower is introduced. The methodology in this study is autoethnography, which gives access to personal experiences and thoughts. The paper describes how the usual work of manually mowing the lawn is automated and new tasks emerge as the gardeners adapt to the robot mower. A conceptual framework is presented and used to analyse these changes. Some gardening tasks become redundant and new tasks appear, and a new urgency is added to some of the old tasks. In addition, awareness about the robot mower's movements is important to keep it active and avoid damage to the robot and things in the garden. The paper suggests that unwanted changes that become too demanding are important for user acceptance or rejection of robots in the home environment.