In the past few weeks, I have noticed a decline in the iPhone app’s performance. It was last updated in my Apple Store (Canada) 3 weeks ago). Here’s what I’m experiencing:
- Can’t connect to the Yarbo (even if he’s sitting on the charging pad and I’m in the house). In fact, I seem to need a line of site to get a connection (I’m more than 80’ away through a window, and I have a mesh network with coverage of the house and the charging pad). Perhaps it is just taking that much time to do the link (me trying to connect, waiting, waiting, standing up and walking to the back room and looking out the window, waiting and then getting a connection)? I’m not sure how data is sent to the phone, but I thought it was piggybacking through the HaLow data stream since he reports all sorts of data far outside my wi-fi coverage on my lot. Question: If I’m out on the cell network in Timbuktu, should I be able to remote into the Yarbo? I thought “Yes”. I’m getting a status of “offline” and can wait minutes without resolution. I’m on a medium quality LTE network but I thought the app could reach through the tangled web and see my Yarbo.
- I used to be able to watch my phone and have a reliable interface to monitor the progress of the Yarbo. Now app is frequently reporting an “offline” or simply “stalled” detail with no update unless I can move nearby the device. It’s a bit like an old web page that stops loading when you were on a 56K modem. It may or may not eventually re-connect but I often don’t wait and watch for over a couple of minute.
- On two occasions in the past two weeks, I have had to re-load my map from the cloud. I can open the app and see my hardware as an iconic list item, but then when I touch it and the screen shows my device details, there is no map of my yard. I have “forced quit” the app and relaunched it with the same results. The cloud is probably always the “truth” and the app probably pulls from it each time it opens (since you could have more than one device editing the map and operating the device). It’s weird that the link to the map gets dropped but I’ve heard that reliable “sync” is suprisingly difficult to achieve.
- I have tried to “end” activities on more than one occasion and often have to repeat the command (slide) since the first, second and third times don’t seem to do anything. I get the “please wait Y” animation each time, but the Yarbo continues chugging along, oblivious to my request. I’m not sure there is a magic number of repeats.
- I have had track slippage issues lately (coming to the forum soon). That can generate an in-app notification. After giving Yarbo a better footing, I will dismiss the note and choose to resume. Then a track slippage notification will re-appear. I will dismiss it again and choose resume. For an unspecified number of repeats, I will eventually get “are you ready to resume” type of dialogue and I will say OK. Then when I hit resume, it will re-engage the Yarbo to the task.
I’ve attached a screen cap of the “offline” display that can take several minutes (if I don’t look at the screen — but if I watch the screen, it will never come back on line 
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It will also, periodically, go back offline after coming back to app. I can touch the broken chain link and sometimes get “network” issues dialog (with no OK or cancel button).
Is this saying my cell phone is having network issues? The Yarbo? The HaLow device? I’m on Starlink and I’ve had only one 0.3sec event in the last 24 hours. My Eero mesh has been fairly reliable and I’ve not had any notifications in their app of technical issues.
So. Is this a me issue? Or is there some code that got buggy? I guess you’ll chime in and maybe a ticket will need to be created. Let me know if any of these are familiar to you.
