As most people know, it’s pretty easy to get yarbo stuck with snow under it, or being a little too aggressive trying to blow the mounds.
Often I will need to give yarbo a push with my foot to get it over a hump, but damn if the Emergency stop isn’t right where you want to put your foot to push.
Sometimes when yarbo is just “stuck” the handles are not well designed to pull this heavy unit out. The front also doesn’t have a great place to lift from.
I know this is more a physical challange, but having a “push plate” or extending the handles on the side to include the back area of the unit would make it way easier to pull or get better grip on. At the very least making the handle thinner and more “handle like” would give better grip to tug.
Also consider adding a “tow point” like a car has on the bumper, so we can attach a hook to give us a way to easily pull the unit free. The tow mount is fine, but if it’s not already attached and its stuck in the snow, it would just be easier to clip a chain on to a known mount point to pull yarbo out.
I’ve found just dragging it to one side pulling the handle is enough to usually get it unstuck. Raising the auger all the way up first is key here though. Would love to see some type of arms like the new robot vacuums are coming out with to free themselves or get up over tall thresholds/stairs activate and the unit could move itself off the high center point.
Triple purpose rear mounted sweeper. Helps get unstuck. Clears driveway to zero so scraper bar isn’t on the driveway stubbing itself in ice tire tracks (from cars).It’s is appropriately weighted to solve the need for more rear weight.
My “technique” to get Yarbo unstuck is to stand behind it, hold on to the side handles, and whichever way it’s trying to go, I help it along. I either turn, push, or pull depending on how the treads are spinning. I’d say this works to get it unstuck 90%+ of the time.
I did the same recently when I got it stuck using the controller. Just pulled on one side to slide Yarbo over a couple inches and was able to get traction again.
Thanks for sharing your detailed suggestions and real-world experience. We really appreciate the time you took to explain the challenges you’re facing.
Your feedback has been noted. If more users share the same interest or encounter similar issues, I’ll be happy to pass this feedback along to our product team for further consideration.
Thanks again for helping us improve the product through your input.
Also the collision sensor bar on the S1 needs to be usable for pulling and pushing…it’s in the way of grabbing anything else for the most part, and try explaining to anyone that isn’t intimately familiar with Yarbo that they “shouldn’t” use that as a grab handle. The first time Yarbo was stuck and my buddy rescued it, that’s how he dragged it to the dock…I didn’t think to remind him. It’s been fine so far
Since I’ve removed the studs, I’ve also had luck cramming the toe of my boot under one track and that gives yarbo enough grip to rotate up and out of it’s divot…although that’s probably a frowned upon practice…
Usually like others have stated you can drive the tracks with one hand and just yank on one handle and once Yarbo isn’t beached you can just gently guide him back to a good restart point.
The 23 you could not do this. The 24 it’s built differently so you can, but ideally if lifting any weight like the module itself, you should use the handles on the S1.
Yep. No robotic consumer device is 100% perfect. All of them require the customer to learn the robot and modify their behavior and their environment to accommodate the robot’s capabilities and shortcomings.
It is what it is. For the customer, it boils down to… “Is it worth it for me to adjust my lifestyle so the robot can be successful at its job?”
But, have you seen Yarbo’s marketing? Yarbo does everything perfect all the time. It even has had several features for over a year that still to this date it does not have. That is the problem, over promising and under delivering.
Their marketing is too over optimistic. To be honest, that’s not unusual for tech companies, but I think Yarbo needs to be more realistic and set better expectations.
But Yarbo does surely market is as perfect. I wonder how many people would purchase the unit if they knew they would have to “rescue” it periodically and that it has a learning curve in order to use it and it’s not as “plug and play” as marketed? Nothing is 100%; however, if I was aware of the Yarbo’s limitations prior to purchase, I’m not sure if I would have purchased one. If I have to leave my house one time to “rescue” the unit then that negates the autonomous process and their marketing alluding to the fact that the unit is 100% autonomous. For that, I’ll just get a manual gas or electric snowblower.
I think there needs to be a separation between the responsibility of marketing and the responsibility of the customer being marketed to. Are you going to sue Wegovy because the drug promised fun times and party boats? Are you going to throw away your vacuum and broom because Roborock says it can replace all your cleaning tools?
If leaving your house “one time to rescue the unit” means you would rather do it all manually, then these sorts of products are not for you. Do your laundry by hand. Walk to work. Because no product works 100%, despite all advertising claiming otherwise.
That’s such an over generalization. The topic at hand is the Yarbo, and not Wegovy, robot vacuums, etc. I don’t really care about their advertising practices because I have a Yarbo. So, you’re blaming the consumer for a vendor’s marketing tactics? If a vendor says their product should do x, y, and z then it needs to do x, y, and z. If it doesn’t do those things, I believe it’s something called false advertising. If Yarbo is touting their unit as “autonomous “ then it better be autonomous without any user input once you’ve set up the unit (mapping, RTK, charging dock, etc.) The other issue is reliability. I’m on my second core and second snowblower. All the units were a little over a year old and in my opinion this doesn’t bode well to their reliability. And if you search the forum, apparently I’m not the only one in this boat. I can’t remember when I’ve had to replace my brand new appliances not once but twice in such a short period of time. I think for the company to grow and scale, these issues are important to address. Both positive and negative feedback.
I’d suggest that a hard recovery point like the grab handle on the M1 is what’s needed on the S1, and probably any other module, rated to lift the entire thing.
I’ve had to haul the core+m1 out of a 10 foot ditch with one hand holding and using a cell phone. The only way that happens is having a hard-point to fasten a length of webbing to, that can be thrown across your shoulder and either tied off or held with one hand. Then you can drive-n-drag a stuck core from most bad spots, lol. And if the terrain is too steep to do that, then it becomes a winch point.
