Snowblower navigation feedback (probably mostly for the Yarbo folks, but others may get a heads up or find it interesting as well): My property is covered with Areas, both for mowing and snowblowing. The snowblower navigates “mower” Areas to get to where it needs to do its work. When I had Areas just for snowblowing and NONE for any other purpose, the Areas were smaller and isolated, and I could create Pathways and Sidewalks and fully control where the snowblower goes and how it gets there. I added “mower” Areas over the summer. I have 100% overlapped Areas now (small snowblower Areas within huge mower Areas), Pathways here and there, Sidewalks, No-go Zones, and so on. “Not supposed to,” but there’s basically no choice unless I want to delete Areas. It seems to work “well enough” – I suspect there have been navigation changes to at least deal with Area overlaps (thank you if so – I am able to get the snowblower where it needs to go, despite overlaps, by using Sidewalks or Pathways). Unfortunately I no longer have “full control” over what Pathways and navigation the snowblower uses. I have Pathways only the mower can get through because of size. I need to keep the snowblower out, but the snowblower wants to use those Pathways. (There is a bug I found where you can’t use tricks like alternative Sidewalks, additional Pathways, or No-go Zones to get around this – the snowblower INSISTS on using the mower’s Pathways even though there are better alternatives – they’re fixing that bug – case 142849.) I created a Sidewalk in a front corner of my house, and that was the last item in the Work Plan. The navigation decided not to return back out the Sidewalk and instead continued on to navigate over a “mower” Area around the house to get to the Docking Station. The Sidewalk became one-way, and the snowblower went a route I didn’t necessarily want it to so it could recharge. It got bogged down in the older snow there and couldn’t make it through. Despite a Pathway being used last winter for the snowblower to get to my Garages (which I mapped again for this winter), the snowblower cuts it close to the corner of my house, following the border of a “mower” Area. I want it to take the Pathway, as it did last winter, which gets it a few feet away from the house and around a slight incline where it gets stuck. (I can probably work around this by creating a long Pathway, sure.) As with the mower, the snowblower may create its own navigation through a “mower” Area to get from place to place. I’ve had the snowblower cut straight across my lawn, which makes sense given how navigation works. But it’s not what I’d like to happen. Is the mower now going to navigate across snowblower Areas and Pathways in my driveway now? That’d be bad. For the mower this type of “loose” navigation is kinda OK (not the driveway part, though). However with a snowblower, I think there’s a bit more danger here, as you’ve got a spinning and very unforgiving auger out in the open, plus a larger module. In addition, when the snowblower decides to choose its own navigation paths across some Area, it’s not guaranteed clear passage in the snow. Should I decide to change the order of a Work Plan, the snowblower could decide to attempt to cut across a foot of snow that’s been sitting there freezing for a month. It’s not going to get through. We should have a bit more control over what Areas and Pathways are available to the snowblower at any time. Clearing snow is a different beast from mowing. I want to be able to consistently clear snow to keep Areas and paths open all winter. It has been a bit of an adjustment going from a snowblower-only map where I had everything dialed in last winter to a map shared with other modules. I didn’t think about the changes in navigation that would happen when the snowblower gets the freedom of the mower across more Areas/Pathways. This gets back to the topic of map filtering for a particular module, not really a new topic, just some new observations here in my case. There are topics out in the Forum regarding filtering mapped elements for each module type, probably some from “me” last spring when I realized this would be an issue, and I’ve seen some more recent somewhat related posts. Anyway, I shall continue refining my always-under-refinement winter maps. If y’all find the observations valid, useful, and a “heads up,” that’s cool.

Snowblowing on top of "mower" maps gives the snowblower unprecedented freedom, may not always be desired?

rcguymike January 3, 2026, 3:17am 41

Yeah that’s got to be it! @Yarbo-Forum if that helps the FSEs troubleshoot☝️

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