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Comment by lukan | Hacker News Reader

Anything having lots of rpm ain't silent. Especially not at night.

So they surely ain't as loud as a combustion lawn mower and are pretty silent in comparison, so maybe you won't notice them in the city with its background noise. But in rural areas I perceive them as noisy even on daylight with normal noise level. And I never saw anyone using them at night - for a reason.

And as for gp .. he is already shadowbanned and you likely cannot see his answer (I have showdead=true). He reacted poorly I think.

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Yeah, in that case, this sounds like a horrific idea.

I could hear a neighbours smoke alarm beeping periodically due to low battery the other night and went around to replace the battery for them the next day.

Also, I wasn't aware of the showdead setting (and had no idea about the answer that had been hidden), thanks for the tip.

chrip

There’s a growing discovery on YouTube and TikTok videos, that some people just live like this.

Your brain will completely tune the beeping sound out after a certain point, if it's a thing you notice at all. Similar reason to reversing truck beepers being replaced with ones that produce white (or other coloured) noise, so you don't lose your ability to hear where they are.

It's hard to believe until it happens to you.

Still hasn't happened to me; beeping smoke alarms drive me crazy.

Can only disagree there (I built an OpenMower based on a SA650B), in a rural area, also cannot hear it from about 10m away, even at night. Though I don't run it at night except when it is just finishing up from the afternoon

Either there is a new generation of ultra silent mowers, or we have vastly different hearing levels.

Edit: but I only know of mowers noise level from what I experience walking around, I don't own one, nor did I research that model number. Maybe I will.

Must depend on the model. I can't hear mine from more than 10 meters away.

At night?

I doubt that. At daylight with normal background noise level, possible.

The modern razor blade based robot mowers are barely audible. Segway claims 58 dBA, for context. Anywhere near a city (which, these smaller robot lawnmowers are really meant for smaller city lawns) is going to have close to that for background noise levels. Maybe it's partially audible if you're standing next to it, but with fencing and some distance between you and your neighbor, you aren't bothering anyone.

Hm. With 58 dBA extra noise in a silent area you can bet, that I will be bothered.

In a loud city where it doesn't matter anyway, yeah well, who cares.

Electric motors can run at quite high rpms with lower decibels. Sure not silent but the origin is low enough that at a distance say 25 feet it’s almost silent.

Yea, my neighbors battery powered mower is super quiet. I don't even know when they run it.

Mine is also electric and my wife says (i'm always too close to it) it's easily 4x as loud. Not sure what the difference is.

True, but remember what’s quiet to a human may be quite different to what’s quiet to a hedgehog. When reading about these things it’s surprising how often things that we might not consider - like how vibrations travel though the ground - can confuse wildlife in ways that we might not expect when viewed through an anthropomorphic lens.

Man I'm sorry, while I don't want my mower running over a hedgehog, it's my lawn. If they don't like the noise they can leave lol

> And I never saw anyone using them at night - for a reason.

...how late you were checking?

I can see reason to set them on say 5AM so it finishes before you wake up

you've never been woken up at 5am by a neighbor using some tools?

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