Lawns are soul-crushing to the suburban homeowners who are are coerced to slash their natural meadows to conform to demands for artificially maintained turf.
Your comment clearly shows that you didn't read the article, while makes a clear exemption for the few people who enjoy maintaining their lawns or are wealthy enough to pay laborers to maintain it for then.
The article is specifically motivated by one of many municipies that confiscated fines from people who chose to have a natural backyard.
This is just a hype article. The invention is a cost saving redesign of an existing device. The wholesale wholesale price ($400) is lower than the retail price of existing devices ($200), which is nice -- more competition, but not particularly technically amazing.
OTOH, it is a groundswell in the engineering community to notice the medical application. Interdisciplinarians are the hugely valuable applied scientists who unlock the power of ideas.
Are your confusing nutritional calories with physics calories? When people talk about diet, of course they are talking about calories obtained from digestion, not combustion engines.