I’d be interested if a route optimization mode could be added to “Minimize Turns”.
Instead of checkerboard or parallel or spiral, it would be “back and forth” or “forward and backwards”. Where the Yarbo wouldn’t turn around at the end of each line, it would simply drive backwards at a slight angle allowing it to come forward on a new line. Like pong, but the yarbo travels backwards on every other path. If mowing can be performed backwards, it would provide overlap, if the blade would need to be turned off for safety or cut quality, that would be ok too.
Currently there are no bumpers on the rear and the rear camera doesn’t have obstacle avoidance as far as I know. So backwards mowing may currently be dangerous.
23 has rear sonics and a bumper, but the 24 does not. Rear obstacle avoidance is enabled in the newest firmware except when the tow hitch is attached as per the recent release notes.
Thank you for sharing your idea—we appreciate your thoughtful suggestion.
At this time, we may not be able to consider this feature in the short term, as we’re continuing to optimize rear obstacle avoidance. Efficiency is also an important factor for many users.
However, if more users express interest in this feature, I’ll be glad to pass it along to our product team for further consideration.
This should be considered for the multiple dead ends concept. I could see it used for mowing straight up steep hills. It mimics what I would do on a riding mower for steeps.
I mowed by remote control using this bouncing method and it absolutely fixed the problems I’ve been having with tread wear from frequent turn areas. I tried to reproduce the remote control mowing with multiple dead-ends and end up with the attached screenshot (where each adjacent dead end becomes longer allowing for the Yarbo to begin the next dead end without massive turns. It occurred to me that dead-ends could be improved with a simple settings option to “extend reverse by X” where X is the number of feet (maybe 0 to 5) Yarbo would drive backwards past the end of the dead end to put itself in a good position to begin an adjacent dead end. I’ll post it as a separate feature request, because what I’d really like is a bouncing route path in this feature request, but with TONS of work, I can replicate some of that if I had “extend reverse by” option. The blades also turn off for about 10 seconds between each dead end, so I’d also like to see a “keep blades on for 20 seconds after completing dead-end” option in the dead end. But… baby steps.
Start them all from the same spot. The Dead-End creation should include a “test” button that is part of the settings (where speed and mower height is selected). When pressed, the core would traverse to the start of the DeadEnd, execute it, and return to the start of the DeadEnd.
If the user accepts the behavior, they’d save it as is normal, and the core would be at the location where the next DeadEnd could be started without moving.
I tried replicating this idea the hard way, but no luck. Half the time it spun around and ran them backwards.
If the rear of the core is closest to the entrance of the dead end when it executes that dead end per plan, it will just back down the dead end instead. I think this is a poor design choice but Yarbo confirmed it was intentional to minimize the turns and wear on the lawn.
The “back and forth” cutting path type requested here would also be solved by Ken’s good idea about creating a deadend area (Deadend Area: Automatically create and mow a series of parallel Deadends). One solves it with an new area type and the other solves it with a new route pattern (in addition to parallel, spiral, checkerboard, and diamond).
