Stihl iMow - suggestion for improvement

  • Hello everyone.

    I joined the community and started using the SHC2 gateway to be able to control my Stihl iMow 522C more efficiently.

    Unfortunately, after a few days of intensive testing, I have some comments about the functioning of this connection and a request to add one feature. Maybe more of you are also using Stihl robots and would be interested.


    So: in order to be able to effectively allow the robot to work only under certain conditions - i.e. at a certain daytime, temperature and humidity, we can use SHC2 for this. Of course, to avoid conflicts, we have to turn off the built-in robot automation. I tried both options in iMow App: to turn off the built-in hours of activity, or turn off the main switch of automatic operation.


    I noticed that when one of the automatic work options is turned off in the iMow App robot - it charges almost twice as long.

    Normally it is approximately one hour of charging and one hour of operation.

    When the main automatic switch or the hours of activity are turned off in iMow App, the robot charges for almost 2 hours - it takes 2 hours to change operational status from "Charging" to "In docking station" (this state is used as trigger for executing iMow "start" command). I think that this is probably a built-in function of the robot's firmware - to save the battery when there is no need to mow right away, or when mower is in internal automatic mode it does not charge to fully 100% - to save battery life.


    Another thing are the starting points: when my robot has its automation or activity-hours turned off and is controlled by SHC2, it always starts from the last starting point it has in its configuration. I have the following points:

    Point 1: 35m - start 1/10

    Point 2: 189m - start 1/10

    Point 3: 180m, radius 5m - start 1/10

    This means that every time it starts from point 3 with a radius, the grass rolls over there, and the rest is not mowed.


    Do you have similar behaviors?


    I think it would be good to leave the logic of the "inside lawn behavior" for the robot's internal automation, and with the SHC only determine whether it can mow or not. Then the robot itself will decide on the choice of the starting point, react to rain and watch over the execution of weekly working hours, etc...


    Would it be possible to add an additional action to the Livisi controller Stihl driver, ie "enable and disable automatic operation"? I also uploaded a screen with app.imow with an indication of which switch it is for.

    This value is available in https://api.imow.stihl.com/mowers/your_mower_id_number/ as "automaticModeEnabled: true / false"


    It would be great because with SHC we could only give the command to turn on or off automatic operation when the temperature and humidity are normal, and the entire automation of movements, starting points and other robot options would work inside the robot.


    What do you think about it ?


    Also my mower "start after recharge" rule below.

    Ps: if the topic is in the wrong section, please move it.

  • LIVISI Thank you for your understanding. I will be waiting for your decision, If there is a beta test needed, my iMow will be on the lawn to the end of October.


    As for the battery - I switched to automatic operation and refreshed the iMow application, verifying the JSON data that the web browser received in response. I can see that iMow returns to the station when the battery drops to 25%, and starts working when the battery is at least 80% charged. It looks like built-in automation does something like electric cars - "fast charging up to 80% of capacity".

    Regards.

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