I bought the Yarbo as we were having our new house built. The decision was between a riding lawnmower and Yarbo. Since I travel for work, it seemed like Yarbo was the way to go. Let me start off by saying that when it runs, it runs great for the most part.
I started using my Yarbo in November and ran it a few times before putting it away for the winter. I then brought it back out and was able to run it for a little over a month before I got a “Power Board” failure message. Yarbo customer service was pretty quick to respond and sent me out a refurbished core, but I was a little disappointed to see it had roughly a 6 in crack along the back shell that terminated at the light and had obvious damage at the other end where it looked like something had hit it. On top of that, it looses GPS reception repeatedly in areas where the prior one did not.
The refurbished Yarbo ran well for about a week and a half before it started spinning in circles and would show that it was trying to navigate around obstacles that were not there, then would display a message saying it “limit reached”. It no longer works in autonomous mode without this result, but does work in manual control with my phone. Only problem is I have over 3 acres and to manually mow it myself would require me standing out there on my phone for over 20+ hrs to cover it all. Also, there is a glitch where when I drive with my phone, it randomly just closes out of the app. This happens roughly 4 or 5 times every 10 minutes.
The customer service. They always seem to be polite, but the more interactions I have, the more canned it seems. On top of that, I get told it is being taken care of and I will receive a response via email or the Yarbo Support Center on the app. The problem, no matter how quickly I respond to their requested information, such as pictures, I will only receive one email a day at best and I am told they are in China so work different hours than the states. I say at best, because my current problem with the driving in circles started on May 28th and it is now June 10th. I always respond to them immediately, but so far over 13 days, they have only sent me 3 messages requesting information. The last requests was for pictures of the trimmer module, I have no idea why anything with the trimmer module would cause the core to constantly detect obstacles in front of it and make it spin in circles. But I sent the picture, and now I wait for work hours in China.
With my lawn now not having been mowed in two weeks, with exception of the portions I mowed manually with my phone, I now have the decision to pay $200+ dollars to have someone come mow my 3+ acres, or get my old lawn mower out of storage, buy a new battery, oil and gas and mow it myself. These problems with the lawnmower and delayed reactions by customer service is now costing me time, money, and quality issues with my lawn since it is not being mowed as it should be (Bermuda Grass). Not sure if it will help, but my ticket number is 198896.
I feel for you. When these things work it is cool as hell, but when things go wrong, it sucks bad. I am a planner and always have backups to my backups. I currently have a yarbo, and 2 lymows. For manual backup I have a ryobi 54" electric zero turn, and a large diesel 72" mower. So far since having robotic mowers I have not had to mow myself at all.
I hope support gets to you asap, but it is a bad time right now and support is very slow at getting back to people.
Just some ideas you could try turning off all vision and if that doesn’t work you could disconnect the front bumper sensors or maybe you tried all that already
Did you document your issues with the refurbished unit with Yarbo when you received it? That isn’t right and they would most likely acknowledge that. Could also be a factor in some of your issues.
Thank you for taking the time to share your experience, and I’m very sorry for the delays you’ve encountered recently.
The reason our team requested photos of the trimmer module is related to the “Limit Reached” error you’re seeing. I can confirm that we have received your latest update in ticket #198896. Your case is currently with our Field Service Engineer team, and they will review the information and continue the investigation as soon as possible.
We understand how frustrating it is to have your mower unavailable during the growing season, especially with a property of your size. We sincerely appreciate your patience while our team works to identify the root cause and provide a solution.
Thank you again for your continued patience and cooperation.
Another day has passed with no response to the issue. I did try turning off the visual system to see if that prevented it from seeing fake obstacles and spinning. I also toggled through all the sensitivity setting for obstacle detection. Disconnected the battery, all of their trouble shooting steps.
My question is that if the trimmer module could have something to do with the problem, why didn’t they ask for those pictures in one of the first couple emails instead of drawing this out. The first email said that it was being escalated to a FSE. The second email said that they were going to do a remote diagnosis, why not ask for the pics at this time. The third email said that to do the diagnostic check my Yarbo needed to be connected to WIFI, which it already was, and fully charged. It was fully charged but due to another Yarbo issue, it was only showing 83% charged. It has been sitting on the charger for a week and a half doing nothing, pretty sure it was fully charged. Did the trouble shooting procedure to get the BMS to indicate the battery was 100% charged only then to be asked to provide pictures of the trimmer. This is getting ridiculous due to the fact this has now taken 14 days to occur. Mind you each time I responded to Yarbos request within a couple hours. Their response time is multiple days. Why not send me another refurbished core and troubleshoot on their own time, not waste mine?
I have been thinking about this for awhile. With the many issues experienced with the merchandise, Yarbo should consider selling rentals rather than buying the equipment. Any issues, immediately send out a replacement and the prior gets shipped back with the new packaging.
The benefits to the consumer would be lower cost and updated machines with every cycle. The benefits to Yarbo is continued income, lower consumer complaints and dedicated personnel troubleshooting of returned items.
Long term this would amount to better consumer satisfaction. There would be a way to save the maps on the app so it could be downloaded to the new core immediately. It would be easier to rent two machines with an inherent back-up if one get screwed up if the consumer desires.
Once the kinks get worked out, the consumers can then be invited to purchase at a discount - the reward of being the beta testers. I don’t have the time nor patience to be constantly troubleshooting this device; would rather send it back with a new replacement so this is not invading my whole life.
As discussed during your meeting with our FSE, we currently suspect that the issue is related to the trimmer module. The FSE handling your case will follow up with you soon regarding the replacement process.
Thank you for your patience and cooperation throughout the troubleshooting process.