Autumn cut with an eBike

What do eBikes and pruning shears have in common? Or lawnmowers and vacuum cleaners? The answer's clear for Bosch: their technology. Because the company from Stuttgart has also recognised for its gardening division, that it's a good idea to exchange technological know-how within the company and apply it to applications other than its original use. Some of the new products the company has presented for the 2018 garden season are based on this principle.
So, the Bosch EasyPrune is a pair of secateurs with eBike technology: a battery and a motor are built into the handles, making it easier to cut branches with a diameter of up to 25 mm. And the funny thing is the principle of the eBike which is applied here: "Power assistance when you need it," is the way Henk Becker, managing director of Robert Bosch Power Tools GmbH puts it. A sensor measures the intensity of pressure when cutting. When a certain force limit is exceeded, the electronic assistance automatically engages. The battery makes up to 450 cuts.
Engineers for Bosch garden equipment have also learned from their colleagues at the Bosch-Siemens household appliance division, more specifically from vacuum cleaner developers. Here the main focus was on reducing the level of sound from the Rotak lawnmower while retaining the same performance. After all, the device developers have committed themselves to the principles of user experience and design thinking, thus working together in teams with colleagues from different disciplines and listening to what consumers tell them in interviews or on the Internet. And above all, they don't want their "garden tranquillity" disturbed by lawnmowers, neither their neighbours' nor their own.

The result is the ProSilence technology and "the quietest mowers in their class," as Becker says. In the case of the Advanced Rotak 750 for example, the guaranteed sound power level has been reduced from 95 to 89 decibels. That is 75 per cent less, because the level halves every three decibels.
An additional requirement expressed by consumers is space-saving storage. Therefore the new Rotak lawnmowers have a foldable grass box and some of the models have a telescopic handle which can be collapsed.
And finally, Bosch intervenes when it comes to…