Dear Mr. Dyson,

I have a simple request: please do for the lawns of the world what you have already done for its rugs and carpets. Thank you in advance for your considered attention. You are the man.

Most sincerely,
Ken Head

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Vacuum cleaners have lights, and lawnmowers have bags. That’s the way it has always been, so there must be a good reason, right? (Can you even imagine a drawing of a lawnmower without a bag? Preposterous! That would be like a camel without its hump.)

As it turns out, about as many of us have need to remove grass clippings from our yards as we do to clean our rugs in the dark, and yet the counter productive bag attachment remains a fixture in the world of lawncare.

Homeowners have been trained by decades of design stagnation to believe that the lawnmower is as good as it is ever going to get, and so grumbling over how horsey it is to use has all but vanished. But if average weekend warriors understood how terribly the current design is flawed, they would be appalled by the needlessly poor treatment their lawns suffer at their own hands.

The Problem
Grass clippings contain nutrients that are constantly needed by the plant, and yet much time, effort and energy is spent removing them. These remnants that could/should be reprocessed back into the natural turf ecology are instead most often sent into landfills to leech into unwanted locations. Nitrogen pollution is perhaps the most well-known environmental issue, but their are others. The secondary effect is that additional fertilizers are now required to reach needed levels within the soil, which in turn is a significant source of water pollution.

The Opportunity
Reengineering the lawnmower to more cleanly and evenly cut grass blades will improve overall health and appearances by reducing plant tissue damage, while moving away from collection bags will address a fundamental flaw with the current approach.

The Insight
The cyclone effect that is created by a spinning mower blade could almost certainly be harnessed more fully to stand the grass blades upright for trimming as well as aid in the mulching process.

The Execution
All bets are off here. We can only wait and see what the future might hold, but I personally hope that one day an entire industry will once again take a dramatic leap forward like what followed the release of the G Force. Of course the reel mower design is far superior in most every instance, so figuring a practical way to shift to that design would be an amazing start….

The Selling Point
The time has come for a cooler push mower. Zero turning radius is nice, but most folks can’t justify the expense of a riding mower. If the results are superior and the ease of use is better, people will want to own an outdoor Dyson.

The Incidental Benefits
An educational program could be established regarding proper lawncare techniques by creating informed consumers. Known issues like underserviced blades could be addressed with innovative programs like swapping dull used ones for recycled, professionally sharpened ones, further enhancing results and increasing vendor/client interaction. And the mower isn’t the only piece of equipment in need of help, as any suburbanite will tell you if you can hear them over the drone of those annoyingly loud, smoke-spewing, gas-guzzling leafblowers.