I took delivery of my Yarbo core and snowblower in early November. Background – I may be one of the older purchasers, at 75, but am reasonably tech-savvy, being a retired engineer. In the past couple weeks I think I have read all of the forum comments; there is some good content there.
Out of the Box: Parts are labelled exceptionally well.
Assembly/Setup: Overall it went reasonably smooth, although there were several inconsistencies between the 2024 Yarbo Core User Manual (since my unit is 2025, why is it not updated?), videos and what I received. Example – Step 14, pg 05 “Locate the Low RTK Antennas and …”. There were none in my components. Had to call Yarbo support to be told to ignore and install the High RTK Antennas. Simple enough, sure, but why not just update the manual?
RTK Unit flashing red was an issue. My installation was 100% by the book. Yarbo support was helpful but it still took several days to get this resolved. Again, the solution seemed to be simple enough, but it should have been included and explained better in the Manual and videos.
Driveway mapping went well. Good instructions. I set up with three areas on my L-shaped drive. One immediately in front of the garage. Two - adjacent to that in the backup/turnaround area. Three - the main driveway on a 5 to 6 percent downslope to the street.
Snowblower assembly was straightforward.
Initial work: Baptism by fire, as they say. 10 to 12” over about 15 hours. Lighter snow at first and then turned to quite wet. I had taken the studs off because they were pretty tough on the driveway during initial testing.
Sent Yarbo out 5 times. Overlap set to 12”. Tried various variations on Area 3, i.e. slope up, slope down, parallel. First work had about 3” of the light snow and did good clearing. Second work a couple hours later with about 2” of the wet snow was OK, but not quite as clean a job. Third was with about 3 to 4” of wet snow with a result I would call almost acceptable. The main runs were cleaned but the major frustration was that, while Yarbo had no slippage and good power, only about half of the wet snow fed into the auger. The other half was essentially pushed/plowed forward and left a large berm in the turnaround area. See photo attached. So, I sent out Yarbo on a fourth work session to try and clean up results of work three. Not much improvement – I had to shovel it. Fifth was the next morning, again with a couple inches of wet snow, with results similar to the third work, i.e. I had to shovel to remove the berm.
Questions (I apologize if some of these are answered in the various support offerings, but if they are I have not found them):
1. Any advice on how to get wet snow to feed into the auger better? I removed the front cage after the 2nds work and sprayed silicone into the auger and chute. The snow throws just fine. It is the feed that is the issue.
2. The algorithm Yarbo uses to do a turnaround are interesting, and a bit frustrating. At the end of a run Yarbo turns about 90 degrees, goes ahead a foot or so and then turns to make the return pass. This results in snow being moved around at the back of the core unit and left on the driveway. Has anyone else experienced this – or figured out a way to eliminate it?
3. The User Manual says replacement of Track Side Plates is recommended, and I believe I saw someplace that one set of plates are metal and the ones that come on the core are high density plastic. Neither of mine are metal. Is this a packaging error or another one of those “we didn’t update the manual” items?
4. I have the app on my phone. I may need to be out of town for a week or so this winter. I assume we can add the app to my wife’s phone? More important, if so, can we duplicate everything on her phone so that she then control the work areas I have set up, or will we have to delete from my phone and do a totally new setup on hers?
5. I can manually control Yarbo using the controller aspect on my phone, but I prefer to use the physical controller. During the initial product setup getting Yarbo to function using the controller was inconsistent. Sometimes it wakes up and says it is connected, but then does not react to the controller. Other times I will hold the Switch button for several seconds and get nothing. Yarbo support tells me I need to be pretty close to the Core Unit to get it to connect. I have stood 5 feet away and have these inconsistencies. Also, when the Controller does connect it vibrates, which is not described in any of the written or video instructions. And yes, I do have the slide switch on the underside of the Controller set to the right. Any suggestions for: a) getting consistent Controller connection? and b) not having to stand out in the cold next to Yarbo to do so?
6. How much track grease do I need to use? One video seems to look like the person is using a toothbrush or similar to put a relatively small amount on, but when I put the snow tracks on as they came out of the box they had large globs of grease.
7. Is there a way to send Yarbo out to just clear one of my areas, or does it have to do the full work plan?
8. I have seen comments about how people have Yarbo clean out the end of the driveway after the snowplow has gone thru. Even so, I am a bit nervous about sending the unit into the street, even only for a few feet, because of potential vehicle interactions, and also in general the snow density of the berm. For now I have been hand shoveling the berm.
Overall opinion to date on actual performance: 8 on a scale of 1 to 10.
It has saved me a lot of shoveling, and although I expected to still need to shovel in places such as adjacent to the garage door and front door steps, I did not expect to have to shovel berms from the middle of the work area.
The various written materials and videos are good, but in many respects lacking details (for example, the forum discussion on which way to install the snow track tread), and/or are sometimes in conflict. I know printing new manuals is costly, but for the price paid I do think an up-to-date manual should be part of the deal. The Yarbo videos are generally helpful, as are some of the non-Yarbo YouTube videos, but even among these there are a number of instances of conflicting information. I suspect that with enough hunting and pecking many issues are addressed, but it seems like there could be a more organized way to get all of the details assembled into one easy to locate place.
Thanks to any of you experienced owners who have read this far and can provide guidance.
