While I am waiting on my RTK antenna replacement I have been trying to utilize the “follow me” feature. I think it is a great concept, but definitely could use some improvement. In my testing I found the following, which include some things that others have already mentioned (I haven’t made it through all of the topics, so I apologize if this is all repetitive):
- Speed: I definitely have to walk at a much slower pace than my normal pace. I don’t expect the speed to keep up with me at a running pace, but it needs to be able to be quicker.
- Camera Tracking:
- It only uses the front camera for tracking which makes sense, but if you a sharp turn it will lose you almost immediately (even in an open field). I think it should utilize the side cameras also to help with that tracking.
- I also noticed that the cameras would “freeze” which cause a bunch of issues. If I was not in view and then stepped into view it would not see me until I restarted the “follow me” feature. I also had it freeze while it was following me and when I came to a stop it proceeded to run into me and did not stop until I reached down and hit the stop button on top (which took me longer than expected because I was holding a toddler and it was trying to drive up the back of my legs). Luckly I was wearing thick and tall rubber boots so it didn’t do any damage, but based on what I felt it would have hurt quite a bit. I’m not mad as I know this is a beta feature and I’m always happy to be a tester, but the Core module needs some sort of bumper stop like the mower (all of the modules should have something similar). I’m not sure why the camera was freezing up, but maybe it is part of the issue with all of the broken antennas? Could this be looked at and fixed with a software patch?
- I’ve also tried this out at night and the camera would lose sight of me much faster. The lights are not bright enough to see me at a distance. I had to walk extra slow and flap my arms a bit to help see me. If there is a patrol mode, it definitely would struggle seeing anyone unless it was within 5ft, and at that point the person or animal trespassing are going to stay very clear of it. I was wearing dark clothing, so I plan on doing some testing with reflective bands on my legs and other ways to help me be more visible.
- Feature Requests/Ideas:
- Instead of relying on the cameras solely it might be beneficial for it to track a device of some type, like your phone via Bluetooth or maybe via an RFID tag or something similar. The Yarbo would determine the relative position of the person it is tracking via the tracking device and the cameras would be used to dial in exactly where it needs to be relative to the tracker. This would help in instances where the Yarbo doesn’t quite keep up or loses the person if they make a sharp turn. It could also be used in the future for a “come to me” feature, where you could press a button in the app and the yarbo would drive to your phones location (via GPS for general location, Bluetooth or RFID when it gets in range, and camera to find you exactly).
- Another idea is to include some sort of hand gesture interface in this mode. I want to be able to give visual commands, similar to a dog, to tell it to do something. For example show palm up for stop on the spot, thumbs up for it to continue following and thumbs down to go back to charging station. I had a garden cart attached to it in some of my testing and I wanted it to stay in a place while I unloaded stuff. If I didn’t turn off the follow me function and I walked in front of it while unloading stuff it would move again and I would have to reposition it manually to get the cart back to the spot that I wanted it. It would also help as an additional safety feature.
Those are my thoughts for now. I’ll try to check back in after I get around to more testing. Also I’m not entirely fluent with the post tagging structure, but I was not able to create a “follow-me” tag.