An ultra-quiet electric leaf blower | Hacker News Reader

An ultra-quiet electric leaf blower

techcrunch.com

181 pointsrnjailamba199 comments

Cool tech, but the GTM strategy will make or break them. Small 2-stroke engines (like those run by lead blowers, weed whackers) contribute a relativly insane amount of noise and air pollution, and their solution is an excellent opportunity to get rid of 2 strokes and make a ton of money/improve QOL for everyone.

IMO, best way to GTM is probably to partner with TTI, Makita or SBD and license the technology with a royalty per unit. The tool industry has gone through many consolidations for very good reasons, no need to try directly competing and raising yet-another battery platform. One of the industries these conglomerates have terrible penetration in is landscaping crews, who are largely still gas driven. If you can deliver gas-like performance in a backpack blower, they might be interested.

If you can't get them interested for selfish reasons, you can force them to switch by going after the pollution issue at a state and local level. Get cities and neighborhoods to ban 2-stroke engines in their communities and contracts. It will be popular with constituents, and landscapers will pass the slight capex cost increase in contract terms. This will force professionals to switch from Stihl to your partner toolmaker, with large investments in tools and especially batteries. This should drive sales in the rest of your partner's tooling ecosystem from an unsaturated group, something you should highlight during that royalty negotiations with your partner.

Now that you've captured the pro market, you can drive consumers and prosumers to the platforms via your partner's preferred channel (HD/Lowes). You can lock them into a new battery platform and sell 3 different models to target each group, again targeting groups with poor existing penetration (although not as rich a group as landscapers).

You can add more prongs to this strategy (exlcusive vs non-exclusive licensing, partnering with a lower tier tool mfg like greenworks/echo) but that's a basic first pass.

> landscapers will pass the slight capex cost increase in contract terms

Not slight. I hate the noise but but realistically, you’re talking at least triple costs, and probably more, to go from gas to electric. You need a shit ton of batteries to last each day if you’re a professional landscaper, and that means serious infrastructure to handle all the battery charging.

Slight compared to TCV. Labor is (usually) the most expensive part; tooling is a one-time large upfront cost that can be depreciated.

IME, the maintenance is much lower on electric tooling than even quality gas tooling. Batteries will also wear out, but I think this wear-out cost will be comparable to costs for small engine maintenance.

I also don't think the battery tech is ready to replace riding lawnmowers (which use quieter, more efficient, less polluting 4-stroke engines anyways), but perhaps the $BILLIONS of dollars being poured into battery research will yield some improvements.

> I also don't think the battery tech is ready to replace riding lawnmowers (which use quieter, more efficient, less polluting 4-stroke engines anyways)

Well that's the law in California starting 2028. And current tech in riding mowers is just nowhere near what pro landscapers need.

The law clearly says they can’t ban stuff with no feasible commercially available alternatives.

Expect court challenges or an implementation delay if no one has built a good electric contractor-grade mower by 2028.

The consumer-grade ride on ones are apparently pretty good already.

Excellent correction, thank you

I tried a mean green, which is a commercial ev mower. It's nice, better than an ego or whatever, but nothing next to a walker or toro

I grew up in California, where rain was less of an issue and most landscapers I saw used open-bed pickups with all their tools. I'm currently in Oregon, most landscapers use box trailers to house everything here, which I think might be key to this.

I saw an entertaining Youtuber with a "Solar powered" landscaping business in Florida, using a box truck with a hybrid inverter/solar charge controller/battery system, to recharge his lawn powertools while driving between jobs. I see this as a much more practical solution that just having enough of "proprietary company X" battery. Keep your batteries charging 24/7 while working, essentially. Toss some solar if the climate affords it on top to charge the larger batteries used for your inverter up. Plug in the entire trailer when you get home.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93F08kdiOfE

Cover a workmans truck roof in solar, and you'll only get 1-2 kWh per day in good weather.

Thats nowhere near enough for a crew of workers using leafblowers - which can be around 1 kw each. Weed wackers and lawnmowers are the same or more.

It is plenty for a crew of builders using impact drivers, drills, screwdrivers, nail guns, etc. though.

However, if the truck is electric, with a 100kWh battery, the 10-20 kWh used by the workers equipment during the day is a pretty small chunk of the total range.

Ford F150 hybrid (or even the full-electric version) can provide all the electricity needed to charge the spare batteries in the trailer while the crew is working with the main batteries.

Sound is barely above truck idle, way way below the gas-powered equipment noise.

The problem in my area is that an F150 is just not manly enough. Gotta have the F250 or F350. Heck, just the other day I saw a landscaper in my neighborhood using an F450 to haul his 1000 pound box trailer around.

To be fair, do you know what else they are using that truck for when it's not within your eye sight? Maybe they are pulling larger trailers and equipment, but this day it only needed to pull the small trailer.

Also, you act like it is the landscaper's problem for driving the trucks. We haven't even mentioned that fleet deals can be made for the larger trucks so they are actually cheaper than the F150 pricing. That leaves the F150 inventory for the soccer moms.

As if it is a single button that needs to be pushed to "solve"

The landscaper that lives down my street goes up and down the street full throttle without any trailer attached six times per day and several more in the evening. I'm not sure if he believes it contributes to his manliness but the sound of that car is off the scale and should be outlawed.

I have to admit, while the US is technically richer I feel like the country is constantly plumbing the depths of decreasing livability for everyone else by insistence on things like gigantic trucks. The reality is that people usually aren't using them to haul big loads and in fact, due to how heavy the cars are themselves, actually are quite bad at hauling big loads. If challenged on why they need a vehicle of such size, of course suddenly they're hauling multiple tons around every evening.

It doesn't matter what they usually do. It just matters what they occasionally do. For hauling, or range, or number of passengers... people don't buy a vehicle that satisfies their average daily requirements. They buy one that satisfies all the requirements they expect to encounter.

It would make far more sense to spend less and simply rent for the 99th percentile use (which btw most people probably actually never use). The issue with these big trucks is severe negative externalities for other road users and pedestrians - if that didn't exist I would not care at all if people wasted money.

Also these big trucks have really sucky hauling capacity, it's actually a weird part about them that few people seem to note (and confirms my suspicion most people get them for other reasons).

Small pickup trucks used to be popular, when I was a kid most pickup trucks weren't much larger than a station wagon, but the government fucked it up by setting MPG requirements lower for larger trucks, incentivizing manufacturers to go big. At this point consumer tastes have adapted to the market and small trucks probably wouldn't sell well even if the regulations were fixed to make them feasible.

For my part, my tastes never changed. Modern pickup trucks are hideous giant blob abominations. But that's not the way most people feel anymore.

People import kei trucks, even though importing is a pain, so there's some demand for small trucks. If the MPG standards were addressed, I think it'd be a hard sell for a real 80s style small truck (although, I'd buy one), but a 1998-2011 style Ranger is still pretty small. Build it with a c-max/ford fusion PHEV power train +/- RWD, stuff the batteries under the bed (like the 1998-2002 Ford Ranger EV, get pretty good gas mileage and decent EV only range. Doesn't need to be huge.

But they don't let me design cars.

> If the MPG standards were addressed, I think it'd be a hard sell for a real 80s style small truck

They'd just have to be EVs instead of ICE.

The youtuber got 4-5kWh per day on his trailer. It looked like enough to supply most of his needs (all equipment is electric including a zero turn radius ride-on mower). He's only a one-man crew though. A 3-4 man crew would need a different equipment config.

Yeah - I think that is one of the critical pieces in his setup. He can have a (relatively) modest amount of batteries, and cycle through them as he's using all his tools one by one. In a big crew, where each stop every tool is being used non-stop for 30 minutes, then 10 minutes drive to the next home to repeat, batteries won't be able to charge enough. You'd probably need 3x the batteries in that case (which, per-person, is roughly the same I guess).

You watch the Edison Motors shorts on Youtube?

They are making a hybrid diesel electric semi that uses the diesel as a generator. They are getting a lot of inquires from the large work truck related industries because of the capabilities to be a large power source without having to constantly run the engine.

I skimmed through a bunch of Edison Motors videos, and this was the most informative: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=an6e2Lh9u58

The easy solution is an inverter connected to any truck or van's alternator. Solar does not have energy density to realistically work.

Also, contractors can mandate access to an outdoor AC outlet while they work. It’s cleaner power than ICE alternator -> inverter, and also cheaper for the contractors.

Anyway EGo has a whole day backpack battery for this use case. Not sure how heavy/sweaty/uncomfortable it is, but it lets the tools be much, much lighter than ICE versions.

Imagine the competitive advantage of a lawn maintenance company that advertises their all-electric tools - "Your neighbor won't hate you by the time we leave".

I've seen contractors use batteries pretty effectively. They just plug in gang chargers and have batteries charging all the time.

also, california has a bill stopping sales small gas-powered engines after 2024 (such as leaf blowers and lawn mowers)

"To be clear, Whisper is not building a leaf blower (just the propulsor), but the company is already in talks with a few potential partners to bring the ultra-quiet blower to the market"

from the article

I saw that -- those potential partners could be almost anyone. I specifically think they should go with a tier-1 tool maker, especially over "lower tier" tool makers or a household electronics brand.

Stihl, Echo, and other companies that landscapers use are already all making electric blowers and weed trimmers.

Do you have any insight into who, if someone else is making their tools? I have never seen then their electric offerings used in person; I would love to know what the market penetration is like.

Likewise, I have not seen any performance benchmarks comparing the gas/electric, even from an OEM.

If a vendor is making an electric and ICE version, but the electric models just do not sale...is it a marketing problem? is it a shelf space problem at the places people buy? is it performance issue? is it they already own ICE models and don't need to buy new? a 2-stroke engine is super simple to maintain, and i'd imagine any landscaping company getting the eye of Sauron in this thread has someone on hand that can repair them.

Maintenance is non-existent, until they stop working. Then, your only option is to stare at a circuit board and hope you figure out what blew, or just throw the whole thing away.

2-stroke engines have some advantages. They also require little maintenance, especially if they are used often. Refueling is much faster than recharging, meaning a much smaller capex investment. Large electric batteries are still painfully expensive. Ours got left out inn the rain accidentally, and it was very nearly cheaper to buy a new one on sale than to buy the replacement battery from the manufacturer.

That said, the noise and fumes suck. Nobody likes that part. I have an electric lawn mower, but still use a gas leaf blower and chain saw. Since I use those less frequently, the carb tends to gum up if I'm not careful, but it still beats the prices of electric versions.

I've had battery string trimmer w/ various attachments and blower for years now. I only have 2 of the batteries, er, had. Neither of them will charge now. Both batteries came with the 2 pieces of equipment I have. To now replace those batteries by just buying the battery, it will be more expensive for 1 battery than I paid for both of the devices together. It will be cheaper for me to buy a new device with a battery. It's almost like it's cheaper to buy a new printer with ink than buy the replacement ink.

The replacement of batteries is going to be a show stopper for a long time.

Yeah you have to manage the batteries. Don't try to charge them hot. Don't store them at full charge. Don't leave them on the charger any longer than they need to reach full charge. Don't leave them outside or where they might freeze.

Still easier (so far) for me than fooling with oil/gas mixing, starting troubles, cleaning carburetors, etc.

I bought an electric chain saw at Harbor Freight and I love it. I'm sure it would not be adequate for use by a tree service business, but it cuts well and I don't have to fool around with mixing oil and gas, fooling with the choke and throttle to get it started, and hoping it starts at all because I only use it once a month at most, and not at all through the winter. As a homeowner, for those occasional-use lawn and landscaping machines, I'll never go back to gas engine power.

I liked mine, up until the battery died and I saw the replacement cost. I upgraded to a much more powerful two stroke and haven't regretted it once, though I cut enough wood that mixing the gas isn't much of a hassle anymore.

Weed whackers and push lawn mowers though- electric is really the only way to go.

> If you can't get them interested for selfish reasons, you can force them to switch by going after the pollution issue at a state and local level. Get cities and neighborhoods to ban 2-stroke engines in their communities and contracts. It will be popular with constituents, and landscapers will pass the slight capex cost increase in contract terms. This will force professionals to switch from Stihl to your partner toolmaker, with large investments in tools and especially batteries. This should drive sales in the rest of your partner's tooling ecosystem from an unsaturated group, something you should highlight during that royalty negotiations with your partner.

While I agree that two stroke equipment has a lot of downside, I really can’t get behind the idea that it is acceptable for an interested party to lobby to legally ban their competitor’s products as a sales strategy. This feels like ethics free capitalism exploiting nimbys to force small business money into a large corporation.

It's acceptable when the competition is knowingly pushing asshole levels of noise and air pollution. Fuck gas equipment. The sooner they are forced out the better.

I’m not a fan of the externalities of gas powered small engines, but I strongly disagree that the ends justify the means.

I simply don’t want businesses making decisions about which of their competitors products I can own and use. If the ban derives from a community interest in stopping a nuisance, that’s fine.

I draw the line at using legislation to force a market advantage.

these are not isolated events. these are thousands of workers buying the the most offensive products, in regards to noise and pollution. these workers dont care about the annoyance that they bring to millions of people every day. same as any worker that used lead paint, CFCs, asbestos, or any number of other harmful items.

they need to be stopped. if a corporation wants to step in and help that along, even using unethical lobbying methods, then yes, this is a case where the ends very much justify the means.

It’s not really fair to blame workers when there’s no good alternative available.

That’s doubly true for things like asbestos mines, where the people designing the mine didn’t work in the mine.

If you really want to understand the problem, the next time you have a plumbing issue, go to Home Depot, and attempt to repair it using lead-free parts.

My basic Dewalt 20V battery leaf blower works great for me. I was going to minmax it into an Ego or Dewalt 60V but I bought the lesser model because it was on a great sale, and I've found it plenty powerful. The dynamic of moving air around is one of diminishing returns, so I suspect doubling or tripling the input power wouldn't actually add that much.

> the next time you have a plumbing issue, go to Home Depot, and attempt to repair it using lead-free parts

I'm scratching my head as to what you're referencing here. If you're just pointing out that "lead free" brass has a slight amount of lead in it, at least that's an amount which has been deemed safe for drinking water. If you're saying that doing residential plumbing actually requires using parts that haven't been approved for potable water, I don't know that you can be helped.

Your DeWalt has a battery life of 15ish minutes on the high end according to the manufacturer. Then you need to charge for 90 minutes or have another $140 battery on hand.

What works great for you doesn't sound like a great solution for an operation that needs to run motorized equipment for hours per day.

That spec seems in line with my experience, but you don't run the thing full bore continuously. I generally run around 1/2-3/4 power and burst when I need more power to get something unstuck. It's nonlinear, so the battery lasts much longer this way.

I'd say the main sticking point is this culture of defaulting to leaf blowers to the exclusion of other tools. I've seen professional landscapers collect an entire parcel's worth of leaves into one big pile by blowing. But they're more appropriate for getting stuff out of beds and initial coalescing, and then going after each of those piles with the next collection step (I've yet to see a landscaper blow the leaves all the way to the dump).

FWIW the real price of Dewalt 6Ah batteries is more like $70-80. Rotating through 3-4 on a job is straightforward. The point is that lower externality options are most certainly available and practical, regardless of costing a little more to purchase.

Is your objection to the nuisance factor or to people owning equipment capable of being a nuisance if used inappropriately?

If so it would make more sense to regulate the externality than it would to have a company dictate that we must buy their products.

Why not outlaw the actual problem. Set a noise and pollution limit if the problem is noise and pollution.

Well, if you live in the US, that boat sailed over a century ago.

For instance, the automobile and gas industries forced through legislation (by buying elections) that ripped out and prevents us from rebuilding a decent passenger train network.

The knowledge that it happens doesn't mean that I have to like it, accept it, or not fight against it.

> Cool tech, but the GTM strategy will make or break them

I'm having trouble seeing what google tag manager has to to with it.

Assuming you’re not joking, OP’s referring to their go-to-market strategy.

Good luck enforcing the ban. Gas leaf blowers are illegal here, but you have to call the police (non-emergency line) and have them show up while the leaf blowers are still going. Basically impossible.

Yeah, the way to do a ban is to set a large fine ($5000) and pay a $500 bounty to citizens who report the violator. Neighbours who are annoyed by noisy leafblowers will jump at the chance to collect those bounties.

1984

How is a story about the government dictating the future by controlling information about the past relevant in a discussion about noise complaints? Referencing HOA-level pettiness seems more relevant.

Unless your point was "anything the government does is bad", in which case 1984 is a bad example.

I'm assuming he's referring to sitting up an environment where citizens are incentivized to report other citizens for crimes, leading to reduced trust among everyone.

He could also have referenced 'Papers Please', or any movie about East Germany.

Trust is already gone. That’s why we have neighbours who behave antisocially in the first place.

Basically worked in DC. There's one dude in my neighborhood with a gas beast but otherwise everyone in earshot has converted over.

I do start to feel like society needs post police-person enforcement options in general. Hopefully short of the city dispatching drones to check!

5th largest economy in the world is banning 2-stroke leaf blowers soon.

https://www.businessinsider.com/california-gas-leaf-blower-l...

They might be over reaching trying to ban all gas powered garden equipment. Some 4 stroke lawn mowers are not too bad.

As much as I and other citizens of CA loathes their over reach, I'm actually in support of this because there's so many leaf blowers that run around here during the day. Most people in my bubble agree with this sentiment.

I personally have an electric blower because they're less smelly than gas blowers and easier to maintain.

I'm not too worried about landscaping pros because their existing equipment will be grandfathered into these new laws and I'm confident the market will bring equipment to pros that they'll end up preferring over gas.

You should LTW without UA.

(You should learn to write without using acronyms.)

in my city (in Poland) there is a ban on the use of combustion and electric leaf blowers. The aim of the restrictions is to eliminate secondary dust (PM 2.5, PM10) emissions from streets.

https://www.poznan.pl/mim/info/news/zakaz-uzywania-dmuchaw-d...

so back to sweeping I guess?

I recently bought a Kärcher push sweeper and it's life changing. Completely silent and cleanup same sized patio space in fraction of the time. Yet when I recommend it others the response is usually "na I need my blower" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

To be fair, that sweeper isn't an exact replacement for a blower. It works on hard surfaces, but a blower works everywhere.

Naw, we'll go to using the water hose and a sprayer!

It's not as uncommon as you might think/hope.

When I was a kid, the city would send trucks around in the fall to vacuum up piles of leaves left at the curb.

I think it would be cool to vacuum things up.

Interesting my city, Encinitas in the US, banned it to reduce green house gas emissions.

https://www.encinitasca.gov/government/departments/developme...

In Los Angeles, they imposed fines and even jail time for their use near residences in the late 90s. Gardeners responded by staging a hunger strike that lasted 7 days in front of city hall, and the city walked it back and has not bothered enforcing the ordinance since.

Before Lithium ion batteries, a ban on ICE blowers probably meant having to rake which is way more manpower.

Next up - how about ultra-quiet hair dryers? Younger folks are running those things right next to their ears, day after day...

I hear(haha) the Dyson is quiet... but we need a quiet hair dryer that doesn't cost hundreds of dollars.

It’s overall quieter, but with a pretty noticeable high pitched whine. Not sure if that’s better or worse for your ears on balance.

I was thinking the same thing. Dyson hairdryer is interesting, but really high pitched sound.

I also wonder... could this work in reverse for vacuums?

Isn't the Dyson hairdryer already related to the Dyson vacuum, I assume they are sharing lots of tech already, although one runs on battery and the other has to be plugged in (would love a Dyson wireless hairdryer, but we aren't there yet).

> for vacuums?

Oh, yesYesYES - why didn't I think of that? Neither age nor male pattern follicular deficiency can ever free you from that noisy chore.

My Miele is quiet enough to vacuum in the baby's room while he sleeps

Impressive! What model?

C3 Brilliant. Absolutely the best vacuum I've ever owned

House has a central vac, but we never use it, preferring the Miele. I've been thinking about putting a much bigger unit in the garage to actually get some aggressive suction, but the Miele is more than good enough, so why fix what isn't broken

I would like a quiet blender. I find it absurd the level of volume we tolerate with household appliances in general, but the new ultra-powerful blenders are just ridiculous to me. It is louder than my car, and it's meant to be used indoors!

encase the whole thing in a polycarbonate shell... lol someone already made a product

https://blenderbuffer.com/

I think it's noisy because they use bearinged motors instead of bearingless. Because it's cheaper.

Apparently the Wolf Gourmet Pro-Performance is pretty quiet. Only $500 ho ho.

And by bearings I mean brushes.

BlendTec sells a model that's barely above quiet conversation.

https://www.blendtec.com/products/professional-800

And another one is dish washers - if you've ever heard one with the insulation off, they're horribly loud.

I wear earpro for my blender. You're not kidding.

Are they? I thought the 1970s were the peak era of the blow dryer.

Finding a quiet hair dryer is something I've been interested in. It's outside my field of expertise, but I'm curious if some of the principles from Zipline could be applied to a hair dryer?

There's research showing hearing loss can lead to dimentia. There's absolutely value in removing a handful of minutes of damage daily.

Quiet propeller explanation: https://youtu.be/z58RORCUTao?si=Q1b7rSQkUnBeQjY2

"My rake is faster than your leaf blower"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-XqbXi7tNo

Most of the use of my leaf blower isn't really for blowing leaves, at least ones the size where rakes are useful. I mostly use my leaf blower to clear the sidewalk and streets from lawn clippings and other debris from mowing. Those clippings are pretty small, most rakes wouldn't be as effective as a leaf blower at clearing.

I also use it to blast out the dust from the garage. Its a lot faster at clearing the dust and cobwebs out of the garage than manually brooming it all.

I am mindful of the level of noise though. I use an electric one which is way quieter than gas ones.

Have you tried using a broom?

I used a broom before the leaf blower. It's a lot faster than a broom and way, way easier.

Honest question : Does humanity really need leaf blowers ?

I don't think so. It seems to be mostly a thing in the US, I presume for aesthetic purposes?

In the UK we just leave them. For most roads, pavements and grassy areas (especially public areas), it's usually left alone, the leaves are good for the soil anyway. Admittedly they can be a road hazard when you get lots of layers of leaves, but then so is ice, mud, frogs etc. I think road-sweepers might take care leaves in particularly hazardous cases and in busy city areas, but I've rarely seen them.

Leaf blowers are poorly named. Blowing leaves accounts for maybe 5% of their use. They are primarily used by landscapers to blow grass clippings off of sidewalks and driveways.

Personally I think they should be banned because they are annoyingly loud almost half a mile away.

Need, no. I do want a tidy yard and to not track dust, leaves, and twigs in to the house.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broom

Take your shoes off at the door. Then you won't be dirtying your floors.

The others suggested broom technology and advanced taking shoes off technique.

I would like to humbly offer two additional contributions to this field.

Robot vacuums are getting cheaper and better at a surprising rate. I can track all manner of chaos and debris into my home, and my robovac keeps my floors very clean.

As an alternative, there are welcome mats (also known as doormat). As a bonus they can be configured to greet or repel visitors.

For managing large property, absolutely. As long as we play sports outside near falling leaves we need leaf blowers for safety. Good luck clearing leaves off a baseball or a football field with a rake, it would probably take an entire weekend of labor instead of a couple of hours.

I’m not even sure humanity wants them.

I lived in socal for years in a home where the property management paid for landscaping. Every week, they would come and use leaf blowers to blow my dust onto my neighbor’s lawn.

The next day the neighbor’s landscaper would come and blow their dust onto my home.

The SoCal desert has a reputation for being dusty, but I think it is just a result of leaf blowers being used on unpaved driveways and an unintentional war between neighbors who haven’t even consented to the hostilities.

To ask this question, you must live in a city.

My pool area. My gutters. My roof during fire season. Underneath deciduous trees in the fall.

A cordless leafblower is one of the best things I ever bought.

Same. I live in a heavily wooded area and it basically rains needles in the fall. I'm up there every other week this time of year with the cordless blower clearing off the roof. Couldn't imagine doing that with a rake or broom or something.

My ground-floor Seattle apartment gets flooded with gas smells once a week because of these gas leafblowers. The noise is insufferable and the smell is nauseating. It saddens me as a society we have collectively agreed this is 'worth it' to have the plants by the road get leafblown in the fastest and cheapest possible way, because the health concerns are very real and the alternatives seem possible. But always ignored.

> City of Seattle to phase out gas leaf blowers by 2027

https://mynorthwest.com/3893695/city-of-seattle-to-phase-out...

5 years is a stupid amount of time to wait for this, but at least it's coming.

I will buy one of these for my neighbor at my own expense as soon as they are available.

Dude loves his yard, I get it, but he is out there for at least 30 minutes every single day with his gas blower. Usually over dinner time when we are eating outside on nice days.

Wonder if getting neighbors to subsidize quieter tech is a viable approach. Nobody cares about their own noise but everyone cares a lot about the neighbor.

Even if you bought it would he use it? There are already electric blowers that aren't very loud. If they're using a gas blower then it might be more about something else--in which case I have a feeling they won't be interested in quiet leaf blowing tech.

I think the only effective solution will be for cities to start banning gas powered leaf blowers. I'd definitely vote for that.

I would even say, start burning gas powered leaf blowers. How often have I have seen people using it on just a handful of leafs. It almost takes less effort to pick them manually.

But picking them manually does not emit insane amounts of air and noise pollution which is most of the "fun". What's the point of doing anything if it doesn't hurt anyone? Kind of like motorcycles.

Not just banning, but enforcing the ban. Our town banned them ... with a $50 fine, which landscapers are happy to pay the once or twice a year they get dinged, if it means they don't have to buy new equipment.

Confiscate the equipment instead of fining people?

Not excessive in terms of monetary cost for both private individuals and businesses, but does actually solve the problem, and much more disruptive in terms of hassle caused.

Downside is logistics on the police end: they actually do need to take those things with them, which is a bit of a hassle, and then do something with them (e.g. send it to a recycling company or whatnot).

> Confiscate the equipment instead of fining people?

That is not how private property works...

There are many crimes that if you use your car to commit the crime, the car is seized.

Yes it is. Illegal property is constantly being seized.

When they tried enforcing the leaf blower ban in LA, the landscapers went on a hunger strike that lasted 7 days until city officials backed off.

Denver (and the rest of the Front Range) has a proposal on the books to ban the sale of gas lawn equipment, and tax incentives to buy electric.

> Further regulations would limit the use of [gas] equipment during the summer ozone season. Starting in 2025, public entities, like schools and cities, would be banned from running equipment from June through August. Commercial landscaping businesses would face the same restrictions in 2026.

I'd vote to apply that to residences as well, but you have to start somewhere.

[1] https://www.cpr.org/2023/07/07/denver-gas-lawn-equipment-ban...

They are so fucking loud. The one outside my apartment makes it too loud for me to take meetings inside my apartment. I can't hear anything over the noise. I lived in another place where I could literally hear one that was over a mile away (it was at a construction site where I could see them doing it at night).

Our HOA requires weekly (during growing season) lawn mowings. So on top of the $450/mo, we also have to fork over $30-50/wk to some maintenance company. They take around 10 minutes to do the entire lawn, mow, edge, weed, and pickup. I cannot complain about the speed, or the cost actually.

My neighbor has a family member come and do their lawn (I offered my guys to them for free, and they turned it down). So every Wednesday or Thursday, for nearly 4 hours, there are various 2-stroke engines going on. It is a HUGE noise, and my home office faces their house so for most of the day I'm having to ask people to repeat themselves because I cannot hear them over the sound of the neighbor's lawn equipment.

My (older, empty-nester) neighbors on both sides are like this. Landscaping is their hobby and they enjoy spending several hours, multiple times per week with an assortment of power equipment. My one neighbor has 3 lawnmowers: 1 ride-on, and 2 push mowers. He and his wife use the push mowers _at the same time_, and then they follow up with another pass by the ride-on.

I pay $35 per week and it's done in ~10 minutes.

Even current electric leaf-blowers are much quieter than the gas-powered ones. "Even more quiet" is of course always nice, but s/gas/electric/ today would already eliminate >95% of the problem.

My city has a subsidy for electric law equipment, both residential and commercial. That's in addition to a ban gas leaf blowers.

> electric law equipment

Subsidized tazers?

Law, not law enforcement.

Must be the new electric gavel.

Heard it's 40db quieter.

I see the whispersystems folks have moved on to aerospace https://twitter.com/moxie/status/1582154037700399104

That's nice, but I hope whoever they partner with has a way to dampen the high frequency sound. It may be overall quieter than the other blowers, but that high end frequency is rough on the ears.

Yeah, but my neighbor across the street will never get one. He likes making noise.

City-wide rule which forbids using noisy polluting ones?

Good luck enforcing it

California's ban starts January 1st, 2024. A handful of US communities (~150 as of this comment) have also instituted bans. This will drive a shift to electric blowers, and the existing combustion population will eventually age out. You don't have to ban existing units, you target the supply chain. There are no antique gas lawn blowers that will be tenderly loved and cared for as they age, they'll be thrown out and replaced with electric.

California: https://www.sacbee.com/news/environment/article277979858.htm...

Washington DC: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/05/gas-leaf-blo...

Miami Beach/South Miami: https://www.axios.com/local/miami/2023/08/01/leaf-blower-ban...

Evanston, IL: https://dailynorthwestern.com/2023/04/02/city/evanston-bans-...

Oak Park, IL: https://www.oakpark.com/2023/03/14/oak-park-bans-gas-powered...

DC's rule is more or less honored. Maybe one of ten crews will still use a gas-powered leaf blower.

Let neighbors record and turn in the evidence for a bounty, it'll be solved in a few weeks

Yup. DC managed to do it. https://dlcp.dc.gov/page/leaf-blower-regulations

Maybe they can tune the leafblower for a harley sound?

We must share a neighbor. Mine is outside every day leaf blowing. I saw him literally blowing one leaf across his yard to get it to the street.

Unless cities create laws against loud lawn equipment, the cheaper (louder) option will always be chosen first.

I'm also not even convinced that, all things being equal except noise, that some people would choose the quieter option. After all, people spend $$$ making their vehicles LOUDER, even when it doesn't always add performance.

There's nothing like the sound of a healthy V8.

There is one thing better, though. Stand near a P-51 Mustang when its engine starts. Wow.

There's even a book written about it - "Sigh of a Merlin". (The P-51 engine is a Merlin V12.)

Please keep this attitude on the track, and away from where people live.

Ripping your engine in loud cities, no matter how great you think it sounds, is like urinating on the toilet seat or throwing your trash out the window. Might make your life a little easier or better, but it's just flagrantly inconsiderate.

> the cheaper (louder) option will always be chosen first.

Not if the quieter versions are cheaper. Electric leaf blowers are already mostly cheaper than gas powered ones, it is just that for large scale commercial purposes, gas powered ones still have an edge in cost and more importantly in terms of "how long can I work without swapping/refueling." I suspect the line will continue to drift toward electrics given that there is a lot of yearly advances in battery tech and not much development in gas powered engines.

For home use if you don't have a large area to cover, it's even cheaper to get an AC leaf blower. Just need an extension cord that can reach to the extent of your yard. Obviously less universally practical for professional landscapers, battery technology is critical for them.

AC wall power just doesn't have the watts to run a powerful motor. A battery can do this because it can charge longer than it runs if you want. Leaf blowers might be okay, but a lot of AC powered stuff lacks power to be good.

It would help if the US switched to 240V mains power (for everything, not just dryers and stoves) instead of the wimpy 120V it uses now.

Technically speaking we do have 240V in all of our walls, you just have to use 2 of the hot wires instead of 1 hot wire and the ground-referenced neutral. 240V 30A+ outlets accessible from the garage/driveway should be becoming a lot more commonplace in the EV era, if they become common enough companies might start designing heavy duty lawncare equipment that can take advantage of it.

>Technically speaking we do have 240V in all of our walls, you just have to use 2 of the hot wires instead of 1 hot wire and the ground-referenced neutral.

No, you don't. Have you done any house wiring? The only place you can get 240V is at the panel; from there, there are branch circuits that go through the walls. Each branch circuit uses a (probably 14-gauge) Romex cable that has 3 conductors: hot (black), neutral (white), and ground (which has no insulation). There's no way you can just open the wall and get access to 240V.

>240V 30A+ outlets accessible from the garage/driveway should be becoming a lot more commonplace in the EV era

That's only happening because people are paying a lot of money for an electrician to pull a heavy-gauge cable through the walls and wire it to the panel. It's not normally a DIY project. It might be easier in many garages though since the panel is frequently located there, and some garages are unfinished.

Technically, you could rewire one of your branch circuits to be 240V by connecting the neutral to a hot, and using a different circuit breaker, but this would be totally illegal since it's not to code.

You only need heavy gauge wire for a high amperage circuit. There are NEMA receptacles for 240V 15/20A circuits, you could absolutely wire one up with the normal 15/20A wire and have it be up to code as long as you use the correct receptacle on the circuit. It might not be exceedingly useful in the short term, but with an adapter you could use imported European equipment at least.

For a few things, mostly things don't need that much power and lower voltage is safer.

It is much more convenient to recharge a battery than to get out a huge extension cord, even for non-professionals. The battery ones are cheap enough for most, even if you just have a small driveway but a neighbor's very large tree to worry about.

Yep, unfortunately this is why people will happily spend 5x as much for a vacuum cleaner that's much less powerful (and basically a dustbuster), just because it's cordless.

You can tear my Dyson V10 away from my cold dead body. The best vacuum cleaner is the one you actually use all the time.

> More and more communities have enacted usage restrictions on leaf blowers due to the noise

There's also a market-based reason why it could work: my HOA needs to choose between two competing landscapers, one that blasts the sound of a two-stroke engine for a couple hours a week, and one that doesn't. This does not seem like an unrealistic scenario!

I believe CA has tried to ban gas based leaf blowers: https://www.cnet.com/home/yard-and-outdoors/loud-gas-belchin...

I will never understand Americans seeming obsession with moving leaves about. Do I have to become a father first?

Blowers are really useful for moving leaves, lawn clippings, etc into piles where they can be easily moved into a compost pile or yard waste container. I can understand your confusion if you have never used one, but it is much easier and quicker than sweeping.

IMO where they really excel is getting grass clippings and detritus out of flower beds and off gravel, places where a broom or rake don't work at all. And once you're using a blower for that, you may as well use it for the leaves too.

FWIW I never had much luck with a blower when I was in the north east outside Boston, we had masses of leaves across 2/3 acre in the Fall. I used a rake.

What do you do about the terrible volume of decaying leaves where you live?

Leave them be? They turn into compost and improve the soil.

I mean, it's called a rake, right?

Stop blowing the damn leaves in the first place. Better to just leave them

> The result is a leaf blower that emits just 45 decibels of noise at 50 feet and full throttle.

"full throttle" here means half the normal CFM I bet.

The article says based on measurement of Whisper Drive thrust it moves more air than a handheld leaf blower.

Volume of air is only part of what matters, the other is pressure. Pressure tends to make noise.

They give those numbers too.

Handheld ≠ backpack which is what professionals use.

Highly related: Ismo's comedy about quiet leaf blowers and people on the moon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Eo2uq5k1O0

It looks like the pipe they're blowing through in the video is a bit wider than the competitors. Does that affect the sound? It would seem that if you force the same amount of air through a smaller pipe, it would be louder.

Pairs well with retailers' push to electric implements.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/30/home-depot-lowes-bank-on-ele...

https://corporate.homedepot.com/news/sustainability/home-dep...

I bought a Li-Ion leaf blower and baby chainsaw this summer. The chain saw is great for "the things that you'd use a baby chainsaw for", is plenty for my small urban lot, and much more convenient than a rarely-used gas engine chain saw.

The leaf blower is adequate, but not quite the equal of my older 2-cycle Echo commercial leaf blower. The electric won't move closed pine cones or acorns nearly as well as the gas. It is more convenient though for 95% of the smaller tasks and slightly quieter than the gas. Having just bought it, I'm not in the market for another new one for quite some years, though.

It had never occurred to me that one could move acorns at all with a leaf blower. Do you have fairly thick grass?

I don't use the blower on acorns in established grass (I use a rake and/or a high-lift mower then).

I do use the blower on newly being-established grass (fresh seeding or over-seeding), where the raking and extra walking/pushing would destroy the new grass.

Thanks!

The only downside I see for electric yard equipment is the vendor lock-in with batteries. Other than that, they work just fine.

Pay up front for two batteries and a fast-enough charger, and you can charge one battery while you wear the other down; there's still some downtime, but after wearing out a battery the human operator probably needs some downtime, too.

The cost is basically equivalent, minus the battery cost; consider it a prepayment for gasoline, and it probably works out on that front, too.

Vendor lock-in on those batteries might not be quite as "lock-y" as other examples of vendor lock-in.

One can buy or print[1] cheap adaptors to use cross-brand batteries.

I wonder if it would be plausible to manufacture/sell a line of generic batteries with easily swappable adaptors for major brands, similar to how some AC/DC adaptors have a replaceable wall socket connection for different countries. Perhaps someone on HN knowledgeable on such things knows if there would be some technical or legal issue with that?

[1] https://www.printables.com/en/model/25735-18v-ryobi-one-to-m...

I bought a Dewalt battery -> Ryobi tool converter so I could use their cordless PEX cincher. It works fine. But I left the battery connected for some days (something I do all the time with the Dewalt tools), and it bricked the battery. Presumably it was lacking some sense/control lines, or the adapter had its own large quiescent draw, or maybe that's just the expected behavior for the Ryobi system? Obviously I accept the blame and I won't make that mistake again, but the point is it's not seamless. Also the adapter certainly did affect the weight/balance.

I don't see any hard impediment to making compatible batteries, it just feels like a soft lock in of momentum where it's easiest to go with the flow. I've seen plenty of aftermarket batteries for the major brands, but I don't use up enough batteries where I want to chance them having a very limited lifespan (as Chineseum batteries often do IME). I'd rather pay slightly more for a solid brand and know it will last for several years. And I don't think there are any incentives for the name brands to make batteries that work with each other, especially considering there are only a handful of companies making the major brands.

I've pondered buying more Ryobi tools since I have the means to power them, but then I ask myself if I really need to buy it at all rather than buy lower quality (eg lack of brushless motors). Perhaps that calculus would be different if I had an adapter to Milwaukee and was looking at their tools, but honestly Dewalt has swamped the market with enough different models that the last thing I need is to figure out other company's line (more soft lock in!). And some tools are fine in corded versions from whatever brand, like I'm contemplating a handheld planer and don't see how cordless would be super helpful.

There are a few large vendors to choose form though. While you have to choose your battery system up front, there are some good choices. the vendors have to compete as well as for companies they have stuff and batteries break all the time so if one vendor is a problem they just move one crew to a different system and distribute their old stuff to other crews. Or just start buying the new vendor for all crews and when not much of the old stuff is left throw it away.

Note that the above is about professional grade tools where you will find is useful to be locked into a battery system. For typical people have a drill on a different battery from the blower isn't a big deal, just buy a couple batteries. When the battery wears out in 10 years buy a whole new tool with a new battery.

I present you with an even quieter alternative:

https://static.grainger.com/rp/s/is/image/Grainger/32MJ58_AS...

It makes your worker stronger and healthier too and both makes them more money (longer hours) and saves them money (lower costs). They will thank you.

The wind can still move leaves with less noise.

They should license the tech to existing players. I don't think people will be willing to pay a huge premium for this. You don't like a leaf blower for that long and the electric ones already aren't very loud anymore.

> To be clear, Whisper is not building a leaf blower (just the propulsor), but the company is already in talks with a few potential partners to bring the ultra-quiet blower to the market

Yeah. I mean, the headline is just straight up false:

> Whisper Aero unveils ultra-quiet electric leaf blower, powered by aerospace tech

The makita ran at 1500w and leaf at 1000w, are they moving the same amount of air?

I could build a leafblower with a noctua fan, it'd be real quiet but quite useless

Hard to say what the actual tech is but it sounds like they use way more blades and rotate much slower than traditional fans.

This "sounds" great. We will need a "cash for clunkers" program, but with leaf blowers.

Perhaps I should replace the fan in my desktop computer by one of these things ...

The noise is, unfortunately, the point. HOA people in fancy HOA communities want to hear the affirming rumble of engines doing work. Or at least that's the summary of what I've seen/heard from people who've tried to promote quiet electric stuff.

Yes, it’s definitely the noise and not the fact that gas powered leaf blowers provide >50% CFM over electric.

WANT

All the damn landscapers around my neighborhood to get these (fat chance).

Take my money.

Nah, I'll keep my 250 cc walk behind leaf blower, thanks.

Neighbours hate this one simple trick!

I don't have any neighbors fortunately ... but I do wish I had a smaller yard to not need one that big.

This thread is full of people who haven’t used a leaf blower before. An electric leaf blower might be enough to clean off a sidewalk, but you’re not going to do any serious amount of work with an electric blower, especially in the US where most power outlets only supply 120V. That’s why people use gas blowers. It’s not about the noise and not about cost. It’s about having a product that actually meets the functional requirements of the job.

I will say, though, that requiring 4 stroke engines would be a huge improvement until there is a viable alternative.

120V just affects the charging time of a battery, not the output of an electric motor. Presumably you would not be tethered to an outlet while operating a blower.

There are corded blowers, mowers, weed-whackers, and chainsaws. Those are not for indoor use.

STIHL has electric blowers that run for over 2 hours.

It is about the power you lose when going electric, rather than runtime.

I have both and there is nothing the electric one (Makita 36V) can't shift. You just have to walk a bit closer...

The downside for me really is the runtime.

that actually meets the functional requirements of the job

That would be a rake.

The reason people use leaf blowers is the same as the reason they use motorcycles. They are loud and obnoxious and people enjoy being loud and obnoxious, no matter the availability of superior tools. I have seen my neighbors spend upwards of an hour pissing around with their noise blowers on yards that could be raked in 15 minutes flat.

There is some asshole in my neighborhood with a jet-pack style double-barreled leaf blower that can be heard from four blocks away. I'm sure if you asked this scumbag he would tell you how very necessary it is for him to be the world's loudest sociopath. I don't buy it.

Raking is a hell of a lot more work. I'd rather use the electric leaf blower for 5 minutes over using the rake for half an hour.

> the functional requirements of the job.

Who decided that sidewalks must not have a few blades of grass, leaves, or a bit of dust?

And who decided that it doesn't matter how much destruction to the environment, the worker, resident, or passerby occurs to accomplish that? Better get those goddamn sidewalks spotless! No matter the cost!

I certainly never asked for this highly-destructive standard, but have to pay for it indirectly though rental/hoa fees. Even though, it is illegal in our city.

Several folks have brought up that new equipment is costly, but know what's cheaper? Stop doing it! Use a rake on the big pile and then quit! We had clean-enough sidewalks in the 80s. Just stop this bullshit.

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