A sensor that reports how wet the grass is before mowing. If there’s a user-specified amount of moisture on the grass, the mower Work Plans are not run until the moisture falls below that threshold.
Currently Yarbo has a rain sensor on the mower module and an option for “Mowing in the rain,” which is OFF by default. The sensor tells only part of the story. Often the rain sensor is bone dry but the grass is soaked. Overnight lawns often get a ton of moisture and aren’t dry enough to mow until several hours after sunrise.
Two ways I thought to do this:
- A sensor in a fixed spot on the lawn, integrated with the App. Yarbo could integrate with a 3rd party sensor through APIs (if such an item even exists - I haven’t looked).
- Folks are looking at how to use the extra ports on the mower head, yes? Tack a grass moisture sensor on there (somehow), start the Work Plan, get the rover to the Area, and take the reading using that on-board instrument. Continue the Work Plan if the moisture level is below a user-specified threshold. Maybe it’s enough to drag a mower head sensor through the grass, then rotate it out of the way.
If the user is running a Work Plan manually and the lawn is too wet, give the user a warning and Cancel / Continue Anyway options.
If the Work Plan is scheduled but the grass exceeds the dampness threshold, delay the schedule, check conditions periodically, run when appropriate.