Docking station setup saved, but wireless charging still fails — support missed remote troubleshooting window

Support & Solutions
1

I’m posting here in case anyone from Yarbo or others have seen this before.

I’m having an issue with my docking station where I was eventually able to save the dock position, but I still cannot get Yarbo to charge wirelessly on the dock.

Here’s the timeline:

I originally had trouble even saving the docking station location.

After multiple attempts, moving the docking station, and switching to the high RTK antennas, turning off cell and WiFi I was finally able to save the dock location.

Even after that, Yarbo still will not charge on the docking station.

I called phone support on March 27 at around 11:30 AM Eastern about this exact issue.

During that call, support walked me through some steps to see whether charging could be manually initiated from the docking station. That also failed.

I was then told that the China team / FSE would remotely troubleshoot the unit overnight, and I was specifically told not to move Yarbo so they could inspect it remotely.

So I left it there overnight exactly as instructed.

By the next morning, it appeared that no remote troubleshooting had happened.

That created a few problems:

Battery drain while on the dock
Since Yarbo still cannot charge on the docking station, the battery dropped from around 70% to around 30% while sitting there in sub 32 degree weather. This concerns me about whether this has impact on the battery life.

Manual charging is not a practical workaround
Because I had already been moving Yarbo around incrementally to rule out obstructions, it ended up positioned where I do not have enough cable length to safely charge it there. Also, the mains charger is not rated for outdoor use, and the weather has been bad in Ohio every few days.

This is eating into my evaluation / return period
Manual charging is much slower than using the docking station, and I’m losing the daytime hours I need to finish setup, refine maps, test jobs, and decide whether this machine is actually going to work for my property.

At this point, Yarbo is in a different location where it can safely charge by mains power, but that is obviously not the intended long-term solution.

For reference:

Ticket #181030, App version: 3.17.4, Firmware: 3.12.0

A few other details that may or may not be relevant:

The original docking location seemed to have GPS instability while saving, where the GPS indicator would sometimes go from green to orange shortly after pressing save. To me this seemed to be radio interference caused by Yarbo itself during the dock save process.

Moving the docking station to a more open location did allow me to save the dock (about 7 incremental moves over several days). I’m running out of places to move it and my prep on each successive move has been not as good as the preparation of the area for the previous moves.

Even in the new location, wireless charging on the dock still does not work.

So my questions are:

Has anyone else had a case where the dock position saves successfully, but charging on the docking station still fails?

If so, was this a setup issue, firmware issue, alignment issue, or an actual hardware fault with the dock / charging system?

Has anyone had Yarbo resolve this remotely, or did it end up requiring replacement hardware?

I’d also really like Yarbo support to comment on how I’m supposed to properly evaluate the machine when a core function like dock charging is not working and I’m losing time in the return window. Actual capable support seems to be somewhat slow and interactions are at the very least 1 day apart.

Any useful advice would be appreciated, or at least some level of what to expect next,

Thanks

2

I think this is rare for a new setup. It is possible they can possibly remotely fix it if it is just a software issue. If it’s a hardware issue, then they will have to diagnose which part is the issue and send you the replacement. I think you can request them to stop the clock for the return window for you until you get a fully working unit.

3

Thanks, yeah, 13 hours after I submitted the forum post (not used to having to wait for the post to be approved), things happened.

FSE replied to my ticket saying I need to leave it on the dock, so they could troubleshoot, I replied a few minutes later to let them know I needed about 10 minutes to drive the Yarbo back to the dock as it was in the garage still charging (only was up to 70%). Then once done, replied to FSE to say it was on the dock. They a few minutes later did remotely connect and play with it for about half an hour or so while I went bed and through the bedroom window as I fell asleep I could see the yarbos lights moving around.

Next morning, I awoke to support saying the core has two faults. (1) inability to communicate with the docking station and (2) BMS is also probably faulty.

The upshot is, I have selected to get a refurb core and send back my first core. I guess within my first two weeks of owning Yarbo I’m in the 2nd core club!

Now this only came together because I was able to put the Yarbo on the docking station overnight for them to troubleshoot remotely. I had been putting the Yarbo in the garage to recharge overnight so I could plug it in. This meant their previous troubleshooting steps didn’t help much. As the weather was cold, I wasn’t particularly comfortable leaving a partially charged battery out overnight for it to slowly discharge to 0.

A big part of my frustration comes from being initially shipped a mostly non-functional core and not my ability to follow instructions. It was never going to work no matter how much I tried.

This unfortunately isn’t a great first experience, especially when I so much want this to work out and have an actually useful tool/robot to help with the yard. OTOH, during the days I’ve had it so far, I have been slowly mapping and planning the areas for it to work and learning how to think Yarbo so I can optimize the work plans better. The slow charge time means I haven’t been able to actually have it perform much in the way of work yet, but I do see promising results.

4

Sounds like things are getting sorted out at least. As for leaving it outside not charging, as long as it’s close to full, you shouldn’t worry. It will maintain the battery temperature at safe levels. But it will drain rather quickly, so it would need a top off in the AM.

5

Hi there, glad to see that the root cause has been identified.

Wishing you a smooth experience once you receive the replacement core, and hope everything works as expected from there.

6

Ok, so interestingly, My Yarbo seems to have shipped with a 2.2amp (92w) mains charger.. This means I’ve got a recharge time of approximately 15 hours… Seems the official charger in the Yarbo store is a little bit more than what I got, supposedly 15amp…

7

I don’t believe that description is accurate in the store. I was always told it was around 7A for the wired charger and closer to 15A for the wireless charger.

8

I wish 7amps was what I got, as I said. 2.2amp is what I received so less than half of 7amps.

I doubt that wireless is going to charge using all 15 amps, there’s going to be transmission losses which are usually substantial for wireless charging.

The store wired charger (https://www.yarbo.com/products/wired-charger) says;

Input: 100V-240V AC | Output: 42V DC, 15A Max

Full charge in ~5 hours (0% to 100%), ~2h 20m (30% to 80%)

There’s a huge discrepancy there seeing as I put mine on charge at 10am this morning at 34% and I’m only at 62% now at almost 5pm, 7 hours of charge time to gain 28%. It literally did 30 minutes of blowing taking it from 100% to 34%. Without being able to dock currently, I’m trying to do what I can to make sure it can work out, but I’m being crippled at every turn it feels.

From what I’ve seen in product images and reviews, the wired charger I received is a featherweight compared to others, much smaller in comparison. It just seems that what I got isn’t what I expected or was led to believe. Then again, receiving a broken core to start with is really beginning to worry me that every interaction is going to be this difficult and time consuming. How many times have I now read in this forum that Yarbo is trying to do better? I really want to give them a chance to prove it, but it doesn’t seem to be going in a positive direction. I’m not even mentioning the small things that have affected the whole experience so far.

9

I’m wondering if there’s two versions of the wired charger. I’ll check mine when I get home.

10

Mine is 7A

IMG_6192
IMG_61921920×2560 1.77 MB

11

Yeah, mine is 2.2A

PXL_20260330_230855480
PXL_20260330_2308554801920×1440 752 KB

12

Wonder when that changed and also if the one on the website is truly the 7A charger?

13

I opened up a ticket, they asked for a picture of the charger I got. Given supports initial question, I guess they might also be unaware, or the charger was a mistake? Don’t know yet, I’ll have to wait for them to check.

As for the website charger, I don’t know as I haven’t gotten my hands on it, but usually when the specs say something like “15A Max”, you’d expect something a little closer to 15 than 2.

I thought things seemed not quite right when unpacking the yarbo initially. Tiny charger, the tracks had no grease (so I thought for the first 15 minutes it was supposed to sound like a bunch of ferrets in a washing machine until I read about track noise and greased the tracks myself), one fewer data center pole screws than holes…

I’ve learnt having a pet Yarbo doesn’t appear to be a light undertaking, just like any pet, it isn’t fully perfect and so far it takes a lot of patience to learn it and what to expect and potentially have to work around expectations and reality. I guess I’m not just talking about the unit itself, but also the company and support too.

14

Thanks for bringing this up. The wired charger currently provided is the 2.2A version.

For Yarbo, charging is primarily designed to be handled through the docking station, which enables efficient charging and supports automatic operation. Once the docking station is set up, it will provide the intended charging performance for normal use.

Please don’t worry—this is expected behavior, but feel free to let me know if you have any other questions!

15

@Yarbo-Forum I’m not worried at all. This smaller charger has contributed to having a bad support experience. The docking station was not working, the only place I can charge with the wired charger is nowhere near the docking station so I couldn’t leave the Yarbo on the docking station due to self discharge. Not knowing when FSE would remotely login means there were missed opportunities because I knew leaving the Yarbo unable to charge overnight on the dock in cold weather would not be good for the battery.

It’s definitely not a viable fallback for when dock does not work, it’s more of a battery tender. For anyone who needs a fallback for charging, they’re going to have to buy the extra charger from the store.

16

One thing you could check is make sure all the plugs on your board inside the core are pushed in all the way. Last fall when I got a replacement core it wouldn’t do to charge on the pad so started following wires and figured out that the wire coming from the charger thingy on the bottom of the unit wasn’t plugged in so plugged it in and has been charging as it should ever since

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17

Sometimes it’s the simple things…. :slight_smile:

18

Yeah, I haven’t been instructed to open up the Yarbo, I have noticed on mine, there are warranty void stickers. While I could and am fully capable of doing so, unless they give the go-ahead, I ain’t voiding the warranty.

19

Well that’s new too. Very interesting. Yeah, I don’t blame you. Wait for guidance.

20

Actually I was wrong about the warranty void stickers. I remembered seeing them, but after double checking the core, they are on the battery and not the core unit. Just my brain had seen them and gone into don’t disassemble anything mode.

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