Here we go again. So, I’m sure as everyone knows, we’re in the midst of a catastrophic snowstorm in the Northeast. Our past snowstorm, Yarbo was able to take care of it, albeit with a little help from me to rescue it on a few occasions when it got stuck. Today, early this morning, I get ready to send it on its way and I get a chute stuck error message so it wouldn’t start the plan. I figured maybe the chute froze since the temps were below 10 last night. So, I bring it into my garage and even set up a heater next to it for 2 hours. Chute still wouldn’t budge. I’m thinking at this point it’s broken so I thought I’d try manually snow blowing. Well, that didn’t work at all. Yarbo kept getting stuck everywhere. I was frozen everywhere so I give up. It wouldn’t been nice to at least have the plan activate despite a broken or stuck chute. At least some areas of my driveway would’ve been cleared. At this point, I have zero faith in this snowblower. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. Too many issues. Between the mechanical issues and having to continually rescue it from when it gets “stuck” in the snow, I’m done with it. If I can’t rely on it during a major snowstorm, then it’s useless to me. And, this would literally be the third time I’m using it so no one can say it’s wear and tear. I’m also not looking for any suggestions, recommendations, etc. as I’m going to put in a ticket for a replacement module and when I’m able to get a reliable replacement whether it’s an Ego or a gas powered snowblower. I’ll keep the Yarbo snowblower module as a back up, but even then I’m not confident that it’ll work.
Sorry things aren’t working out for you. Certainly not fun screwing around with an inoperative robot in the middle of a snowstorm.
If you’re looking for a manual replacement, I recommend this one. It’s quite a beast, and never let me down. It’s currently in retirement in my barn thanks to Yarbo.
Oddly enough, I would not recommend that snowblower or any ryobi two stage one if you live somewhere actually cold. It seems there’s a design flaw (search for cold in the reviews) which I can attest to. If I warm the unit, it’ll start fine. If it’s cold (below 32 ambient in the insulated garage) it will not start until the unit itself is warmed. The batteries sit in the house, and are room temp when attempting to start. I just don’t think Ryobi has the tech for it, which sucks because I have tons of the other 40v items and they’re fine.
Very frustrating when both the yarbo snow blower module and the ryobi I have aren’t working.
Are you able to rotate the chute angle and throw angle via the app? Any issues with the camera or just the chute blocked notification?
Interesting. I gotta admit, I’ve never experienced that myself. I wonder what the issue was (is).
All I can say is that my experience has been 100% positive. I own a bunch of the huge 40v 12Ah batteries, and I can tell you for a fact that the batteries last forever.
That said, I’m glad I now have Yarbo to do the work for me. 
I honestly wish I knew, I wanted it to work so badly, mainly to keep my trend of Ryobi purchases, but no luck. Real shame.
My Yarbo’s at least able to plow now, which helps until the replacement will get here.
Hopefully your Yarbo will be fully operational soon.
Today has probably been the biggest snow day for my Yarbo so far, and it has been 100% perfect.
The plow works surprisingly well for not articulating if you send it out often and have a good base if operating on gravel.
Thanks. Yeah, it really sucks that the Yarbo is not dependable and one critical issue such as the chute can derail the entire autonomous process. It appears that the chute blocked issue has been prevalent with other units. Perhaps, a redesign is in order to add a heating element to prevent freezing or a beefier motor? Anyway, thanks for the offer but I’ve done some research and it looks like Ego is the way to go.
I agree. I’m getting an Ego as soon as they’re back in stock.
Nope. Chute completely dead. Only thing I hear is clicks when I try to move the chute through the app. And this was after 2 hours of “thawing “ it with a heater in my garage. Total failure.
Maybe poor quality control or a design flaw? Apparently others have had chute issues as well.
They actually have redesigned it and the deflector.
Perhaps I have an older model then. I purchased the core, snowblower, and lawnmower in December 2024. And if I have the redesigned one, they may need to go back to the drawing table.
You do not, I don’t believe they are out yet.
I’m really sorry to hear about the experience you’ve had, especially in the middle of such a severe storm. I completely understand how frustrating this must be. I’ve checked your support ticket in our system and can confirm that it has been escalated to our field service engineering team. They will investigate further to determine the root cause of the issue and work to make things right for you as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience while we look into this.
Thank you.
So, Yarbo support was able to look into the chute issue and apparently it’s the motor for the chute which I had a good suspicion about and there was no blockage and it wasn’t frozen. So, it looks like I’m in line for a replacement snowblower module. Tally to date on a a unit that’s a little over a year old and barely used: Core: on second replacement, Snowblower module: pending second replacement. I’ve lost all confidence with Yarbo being my primary source for snow blowing. I’ll continue to use the lawnmower module but will get an Ego as a replacement to Yarbo snowblower. I don’t want to minimize or diminish others’ success with the snowblower, but for me and my experience, it’s been less than ideal and I wouldn’t recommend the snowblower.
It’s confirmed. A replacement snowblower module is on its way. Hopefully it’ll get here by this coming Sundays storm. And, hopefully I don’t experience the belt issue that others have been experiencing.
Yes if you do have a spare time to snow blow I recommend Ego, with it being self propelled and battery is easily replaced.