How are your Yarbos handling the snow storm today??
Hopefully we have some good news to share!
As for me? My Yarbo has been out on two fully successful runs so far today. Zero issues. And 100% better than going out and manually clearing the snow!
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Mine’s been running pretty much nonstop since about 6AM. Just pausing for charges.
This is amazing! I am curious to know how many inches of snow was already on the ground when you started your job? We already have around 2” of snow on the ground now, and are expecting another 18” of snow before the day ends. I am planning to send my Yarbo for every 5” of snow on the ground and charging it in between.
The weather forecast said it was about 4 inches when I sent mine out the first time. You can judge for yourself, here is the first run video: Winter Storm Fern - Many Successful Runs
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Yes, it looks about 4”. Nice video!
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Mine has lots of issues but I’ve been working around it. It’s been working since this morning and charging in between.
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We haven’t had as much snow today as I had expected (hoped for), but it’s been snowing all day long.
About to start another Yarbo job now. We’re on the other side of town, so I’ll check on it remotely.
Gotta love technology!
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My wife and I were out running errands all day, which means I was periodically checking up on Yarbo via the cameras. Fun watching it work. 
We just got home, and I gotta say it’s super convenient coming home to a cleared driveway!
100% success for the day. No issues and no drama. This is the most snow we’ve got all season, and I’m impressed.
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I don’t think these numbers are quite accurate, we don’t have 2 feet of snow out there, we have a lot, but not 2 ft. That said, I think. we got a lot of freezing rain vs snow so I think that explains its calculations. Regardless, Yarbo has been a champ been out half a dozen times so far and chugging through it like butter. Some slippage here or there causing a few missed spots, but usually get it on the second round. By far, the most snow I’ve ever snow blown, especially with Yarbo. I definitely have plowed more with my tractor when I first got that. Was perfect timing then and when I got my Yarbo. Big snow last year and this year.
Was kicking butt on three driveways all weekend, but there was a bit of grindy noise coming from the auger’s gear train yesterday.
The run I just started an hour ago, the auger had an occasional scrape sound when it wasn’t under load (if no snow). Ran fine, otherwise. Paused it, checked for ice or debris, wasn’t any. Resumed the job, went back to my coffee.
Pretty soon after that, I could hear the auger sounding horrible. I looked, and the belt was slipping any time the auger encountered any snow (it’d just plow and throw very little, if any). I presume there’s a ring and pinion in there, and one or both are chowdered. Any shaft bearings would be suspect as well, probably as a root cause.
Shut it down, parked it. It worked great until then, though.
I’ll probably take a look at it for specifics to start a ticket when it isn’t five degrees, pitch black and a blizzard.
/sigh. It was going so well!
That really sucks. Sorry to hear that. Keep us posted on what you figure out. Hope it’s something simple.
I heard similar noise from auger during today’s storm. Haven’t had a chance to check it yet. Hope it’s not something serious.
Sorry to hear of the auger issues.
Please post the results of your evaluation so we can track and spot trends.
And no matter what, I hope Yarbo gets your issues resolved ASAP so you’re back in business soon.
Terrible. The chute broke, froze, or whatever so the unit won’t start its autonomous plan. Heated it up with an heater in my garage for 2 hours to no avail. And using it manually is of no use if I’m unable to manipulate the chute direction manually. So, after the 3rd snowstorm this year, it was only successful during the last one. Not a great ratio for a very expensive unit. Yes, I have a ticket in place, but I’ve totally lost confidence in the snowblower module.
Really sorry to hear about this—it’s frustrating when things take a turn after working so well. When you’re able, please submit a support ticket with the details you observed, and our support team will help investigate and determine the root cause as quickly as possible.
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I tend to see my Yarbo as a teammate rather than an autonomous solution, and in that regard it did great with the storm, with a few complications.
During the storm itself, and even after, it seemed to have a harder time getting on the charger than usual, and 4 of 5 charging sessions required user intervention. I’m not sure if that’s because it couldn’t find the dock under the snow (it was coming down fast enough that the dock disappeared between the time the Yarbo snowblew it and when it turned around to back in) or if it was just sliding around too much, even with the snowtracks.
I did have one curious issue, that seems to be persisting. Occasionally the auger, chute, and deflector would simply stop responding. I could set them on the control app manually, and the automatic plans acted as though they were operating, but nothing happened. I had to reboot the Yarbo system to get it to act properly again. No error was associated with that behavior.
And finally, the Yarbo kept up with the snow until the plows came. Once they showed up, it was all over; Yarbo can’t deal with a four-foot snowbank.
At the end of the day (or the beginning of the next) in this case, it still came down to men with shovels.
Well, man with shovel.
Me, I had shovel.
And a new No-Go zone for Yarbo so it could do the rest of the driveway while I cleared out the barrier banks.
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Look at making that apron into a separate area, and cut the main driveway back away from it.
Have some overlap between them, so that the driveway goes up to where that plow bank starts, but doesn’t get into it, or any slush. Then you can run the apron as a separate task, when possible.
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I do have an apron, the banks were just so titanic (~4.5 feet tall) that they completely covered the apron and encroached on the normal driveway.
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It sounds like you did the right things. Running a separate apron area is best.
Unfortunately, in some cases the historic amounts of snow some of us experienced might be too much for Yarbo to fully handle.
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Add a skirt to the apron!
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