Hi all, I’m a French Yarbo rookie since yesterday. Just a quick question : what is the purpose of the little stainless chain under the rover ?
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That is for static discharge. It’s made to dangle and discharge static buildup into the ground.
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I find it’s also useful for letting Yarbo drag the neighbor’s dog around the lot.
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that was my guess, thx
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(Posted in Yarbo Users and Community on FB on May 19.)
For those just unpacking their Yarbos, here are answers to your first head-scratchers:
RTK antennas are on top of the tall masts – they are not missing, they unscrew.
The hand controller is in the battery compartment.
You can drive the rover out of its box and don’t have to lift it up.
The little chain that hangs down under the rover is there by design to help with electrostatic discharge.
The Data Center is packed into the foam tight in one of the boxes. Don’t rip out the foam and watch it fly across the room like really dumb people do (thankfully it’s a tank and didn’t break on me).
If things aren’t working, pull the PoE power and unplug the rover’s battery. Plug it all back in after half a minute or more. Power cycling sometimes helps. If a no-go, look at and maybe power cycle your network equipment as well.
Yes, you can use a WiFi Extender. If it gives you trouble, set it to 2.4GHz only and turn off the WiFi radio so nothing can connect to it (that worked my old piece of junk Extender). Going hardwired is preferred/recommended.
You can mount your Data Center on a fence post, a shed, or way high up on your house, always ensuring 120 degrees of view to the sky. Mount it as high up and open as you can, especially if you have uneven ground the rover can duck behind, as the rover can lose HaLow if the signal to/from the rover can be blocked by metal (like a metal roof) or a small hill. The rover will try WiFi and Cell if HaLow drops, but aim for great HaLow coverage by installing the Data Center in the best location.
Yarbo is designed to live outside 24/7 within specified temperature ranges. This has been confirmed with Yarbo Engineers. People do move Yarbo inside temporarily in extreme weather/hail/heat/cold. I sometimes move mine into the garage in bad winter weather and put it on the wired charger, then drive it out manually into the driveway to start the snowblowing Work Plan. Up to you - Yarbo is designed to hang outside on its Docking Station sun, rain, or snow.
There are plastic side covers (over the track wheels), and you may get some metal ones I think with the snowblower. I don’t know if we really know why. Possibilities: In addition to saving a little on shipping weight with the rover, it is believed the thinking is the plastic ones are for summer use and the metal is more durable for the winter and adds a little weight. But…yeah, pick a reason you like or make up your own, I guess. Yarbo may discontinue sending both plastic and metal side covers.
Some folks put the Docking Station under a “large tarp doghouse” (it’s an open tent, basically) which is fine, but make sure it won’t block GPS. Careful with the snowblower, which has the tall chute and (now optionally) clears the Docking Station when it returns to charge.
Yarbo is designed to be charging when not working. The battery management handles it, so don’t worry. Your App should always say “Charging” when the rover is on the Docking Station or wired charger.
You can put your Docking Station inside a structure, like your garage, and have your rover live inside. If no GPS, you don’t need to install the Docking Station in the App. Manually drive your rover to a mapped Area and start your Work Plan. As long as the rover can get to where the work is through your map, it’ll go on its own. When the Work Plan is done, it will stop. Manually drive the rover back to the Docking Station (or wired charger) for it to charge.
Issues in your network can cause the rover to pause with GPS errors for over a minute, move a few feet, then pause again – and have similar issues. You must ensure your network is working properly, especially if you go against the recommendation and use a WiFi Extender device.
Most folks turn off WiFi in the rover. It doesn’t have to be on and in some cases can cause instability as the rover goes in an out of WiFi range. Cell also doesn’t have to be on.
Your cell service is free for 2 years, from what we understand. Generally it’s used for tracking if the unit is stolen, but it can also come in to play if the unit moves out of HaLow range, in which case it appears (from my experience) to be turned on automatically as needed by the rover.
If you don’t get GPS, have the rover wait a few minutes, best to be in an open area.
You update the App and the Data Center firmware manually. Yarbo updates the rover firmware. Get your entire configuration set up and updated (including the rover powered up and network-enabled) and let the rover sit idle on the Docking Station with your App closed, and after a while Yarbo should send the firmware update. If you don’t see an update after sitting overnight or so, contact Yarbo Support. The rover will reboot and announce “Ready to work!” after a firmware update, so be prepared for a spooky voice in the night.
Start small when mapping, create experimental areas. Get to know Areas, No-go Zones, and Pathways especially. Create a Work Plan and run it. Everything else starts from there. You WILL re-map your “official” Areas and Deadends several times. And that’s OK.
Catch the YT videos, FB posts, and Yarbo Forum posts (Yarbo Forum also has a summary of feature requests and status). Join the Yarbo Community on Discord for LIVE sessions with our fine Product Pioneers and Yarbo Tech Support and Development.
Map, TEST, tweak, TEST, observe, dial it in.
(This came from a comment I wrote a short time ago, and I threw in some updates here. Please comment with corrections (be nice!). Stuff like this should be better formatted and in a FAQ for new folks and pinned along with other frequently asked questions and frequently encountered issues. Forum users have been in discussion with the Yarbo folks about this to see how the valuable feedback from new users and the experience from active users can be documented to help others. Hope this helped someone and actually proves to be factual. Cheers!)
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Nice writeup @Ken. I think I checked all those boxes. Except throwing the data center. I missed that one. 
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