The FCC this week released a public notice stating that the U.S. Department of War (DoW, formerly the Department of Defense) has “granted Conditional Aprovals for certain routers and advanced robotics devices.” That includes four robotics platforms from Swedish robot mower company Husqvarna. Asus was also granted approval to sell many of its Wi-Fi routers in the U.S.
The exemption comes just over a month after the FCC announced a broad ban on new robotic devices not made in the U.S., including robot vacuums and robot mowers. That followed the agency’s similarly broad Wi-Fi router ban in March.
Both bans effectively choked off the flow of new products for their respective industries, as virtually no routers nor robots satisfied the bans’ strict requirements. While the companies on the FCC’s “covered list” could continue to import and sell existing devices that had already been approved for sale in the U.S., they would not be able to bring new ones over without a special exemption from the DoW.
Asus has only been granted a temporary reprieve; the notice states that its exemption, which covers Asus’ “RT Router Series, ROG GT Series, ROG Strix GS Series, TUF Gaming Series, ExpertWiFi Series, ZenWiFi Mesh Series, 5G MiFi Series, repeaters, and wireless access points,” will terminate on March 6, 2028. The same goes for several wireless routers from Comtrend, another Taiwanese firm given conditional approval in the FCC’s notice.
Husqvarna, which produces both residential and commercial automowers, will be able to sell products that use its “305v IQ, 310v IQ, 420v IQ, and 440v IQ robotic platforms” indefinitely. In a statement on its website, Husqvarna says the approval means those platforms, “which are expected to be launched in the U.S. in 2027, as well as the already approved models currently available on the market, are exempt from the FCC Covered List.”
“This validates that Husqvarna Group is setting the standard for trusted robotic mowing,” Husqvarna Group CEO Glen Instone says, “and reflects our rigorous standards for quality, security, and how we manage customer data following strict EU consumer privacy rules.”
Husqvarna has not made much of a dent in the residential market so far. Instone acknowledges that “limited residential penetration” and says the company sees “significant growth potential in the years ahead.”
This is the first exemption that’s been granted to a robotics company since the ban went into place. Last week, I wrote that the U.S. robotics ban was screwing us out of good new robomower features shown off at IFA in Berlin, such as devices with dedicated edge-trimming arms. None of Husqvarna’s mowers have such features, but perhaps they will soon. That alone isn’t incredibly encouraging, given the company’s current stable of automowers all cost well into the thousands of dollars, but perhaps it’s a sign we’ll get to see some of the others, like the intriguing Eufy Lawn Mower S2 Max, relatively sooner than later.
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