Tip: READ ME FIRST! New Yarbo Owners FAQ / Head-scratchers / Essential Basic Information README!

Yarbo Product Talk
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The Big README has moved:

This copy of the article contains only some of the available information and will no longer receive updates. If you have suggestions for the Wiki article, you may leave them in comments below or on the Wiki page.

Highlights

(Posted originally in Yarbo Users and Community on FB on May 19, 2025. Lots of updates since.)

Especially for those just unpacking their Yarbos, there are answers to your first head-scratchers, gotchas, FAQs, … :

RTK antennas are on top of the tall masts – they are not missing, they unscrew.

The little chain that hangs down under the rover is there by design to help with electrostatic discharge. Do not remove it.

The hand controller is in the battery compartment. You need to pair it to the rover – see the documentation. Turning on the blades (mower) or auger (snowblower) is done by holding the two triggers for five seconds (you may then let one trigger go).

That strange plastic block shaped like an “L” is a mower stand. You tip the mower up onto it when doing maintenance work.

“Core” and “Rover” - same thing. That’s the main unit.

You can drive the rover out of its box and don’t have to lift it up.

The Data Center is packed into the foam tight in one of the boxes.

Line-of-sight is not required for proper communication between the rover and the Data Center, nor the Docking Station and Data Center.

You may have multiple Docking Stations or use the same Docking Station in multiple spots, but only one Docking Station or spot may be enabled at a time in the App. Additional details are in The Big README.

You may have multiple rovers on one Data Center, but there are trade-offs. For the most reliable performance, Yarbo recommends one rover per Data Center. See The Big README for more details.

Contact Yarbo Support if you would add a second Yarbo to your Data Center.

SAM is held on only by the top pins, and it’ll be loose at the bottom.

Do not “hot swap” modules. Power off first.

Hard power cycling: If things aren’t working quite right, pull the PoE power and unplug the rover’s battery. Plug it all back in after five minutes. Power cycling sometimes helps.

Your network must be solid, or your rover may exhibit problems similar to the loss of GPS (hesitation, stopping for a while, etc). Yes, you can use a WiFi Extender with an Ethernet port. Going hardwired is preferred/recommended.

Can Yarbo work without Internet? Yes. See The Big README for the details.

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. Installing the Data Center inside an attic or garage is not recommended. Give HaLow and GPS every chance of success by mounting the Data Center and Docking Station in accordance with Yarbo’s recommendations.

Yarbo is designed to live outside 24/7 within specified temperature ranges.

Yarbo will move the snowblower’s chute and turn the auger periodically while idle to prevent snow/slush from freezing the workings of the machine.

You may have plastic side covers (over the track wheels) and metal ones. Use the metal ones if you have them.

Yarbo is designed to be Charging when not working. Your App should always say “Charging” when the rover is on the Docking Station or wired charger.

Battery Management stops rover operations when the Battery Management System detects high temperatures in the battery, usually when charging on a hot day. Check the Diagnostics page for the Battery Temperature. 50C is the high limit, and normal operations resume at 45C.

The rover has ONE map. The map is shared by ALL modules. You will notice different mapped items and Settings when you swap modules. The basic mapped item is the Area where each module does its work. Pathways provide navigation among Areas. No-go Zones tell the rover to stay away. These three things are shared across all modules.

You can Save Current Map in the app as a backup, but it doesn’t save Settings, Schedules, or Work Plans. If your Data Center moves or you reinstall it, you must re-map. If you replace your core, you will need to re-map, but Support may be able to move your maps to the new rover.

Moving and reinstalling your Docking Station will delete your Pathways from the Docking Station, all Work Plans, and all Schedules. Make notes and re-create. Other mapped items and Settings will remain intact.

Rover in the middle of nowhere on the map, may even be outside the mapped boundary in real life. Message about the rover being “4.x feet” outside the boundary. This usually indicates a weak GPS signal and typically recovers on its own. See The Big README.

The Map Drift error indicates the Data Center and the rover stopped agreeing on where the Docking Station is. Do not try to correct Map Drift without reviewing [2024] Map Drift Correction | Yarbo Wiki

Big specs: One Data Center has a range of 32 acres in ideal conditions. Also in ideal conditions the rover can mow 6.2 acres a week…twice. About 1.7 acres/day.

Yarbo’s maintenance is pretty much applying track grease, changing mower blades, and replacing Trimmer string.

  • How long track grease lasts “depends” on your rover activity, of course. Listen for the “thumps” as the rover drives along to know when to apply track grease. For me it’s roughly monthly.
  • How long blades last “depends” on your mowing activity, of course. You’ll get maybe a month or just a tiny bit more from one edge of a blade. Maybe. Hint: To use the other edge of the blade, swap the discs, as the discs rotate in opposite directions.

You may use a ceramic coating under the mower deck and inside the snowblower bucket and chute on pretty much everything to keep things less sticky and more slippy. Product Pioneer Scott G. recommends Adam’s Polishes. You can also ceramic coat your rover to help keep it spiffy. Yarbo recommends avoiding coating cameras, sensors, and antennas.

Mapping strategy: Up to you! You likely already mentally break up your property into separate smaller mowing (or snowblowing) sections that “make sense” in your mind. These smaller sections can translated into Areas in Yarbo’s map.

Can I map with one module and use another? Yes, but there are things you need to know in The Big README. Map with the module you will most commonly use in that location.

Edit Area allows you to change the boundary of an Area by removing slices or adding chunks. It is not possible to split an Area and keep all slices, however (an enhancement that has been requested).

What point on the rover determines the map line? The center of the core between the two RTK antennas is the mapping reference point.

Navigation strategy: The rover will calculate its navigation based on Areas, Pathways, and Sidewalks (snowblower). Most people chain Areas together with Pathways, sometimes using long Pathways, which are also OK.

Pathway endpoints must not be in the overlap of multiple Areas: Create a Pathway by starting it in the “meat” of an Area a few feet in and ending it in the “meat” of another Area a few feet in.

Deleting Areas unhooks Deadends, Sidewalks, Pathways. If you delete an Area where Deadends, Sidewalks, or Pathways start, those items will need to be deleted and re-mapped.

Deleting a single mapped item deletes the Work Plan.

Running Work Plans without GPS at your Docking Station: 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. SmartVision is great for driving your rover around manually.

Work Plan won’t run, error about needing to create the map per the documentation: Generally this happens because you are missing a Pathway from where the rover is to where you want it to go. Review your mapped items, especially Pathways.

Network issues can show up as GPS problems. 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.

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 and 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 rover moves out of HaLow range.

If you lose GPS during a Work Plan, have the rover wait a few minutes for satellites to move around. If still no GPS, you can Pause the Work Plan and use Smart Vision to move the rover into the open (try to keep it within the Area it’s in or in another mapped Area). Resume the Work Plan when GPS is green.

Yarbo is Adjusting Module means the rover is adjusting the module lift actuator to keep the module’s clearance level consistent in changes in terrain.

The round “Network” icon shows Bluetooth, WiFi, Cell, or HaLow. What it shows is “ovlerloaded” (means different things depending on what is shown):

  • When you’re connected to the rover via Bluetooth, the icon will indicate the Bluetooth connection.
  • In other cases, it shows how the rover is accessing the network, whether through HaLow, Wi-Fi, or 4G.

Press and hold the round Network icon briefly to display shortcuts for modifying or deleting your rover’s WiFi connection and enable/disable Cell.

App, firmware updates: You update the App and the Data Center firmware manually. Yarbo updates the rover firmware automatically for you.

See The Big README for many more items, much more detail, and lots more info.

Resources, social media: There are YouTube videos, Facebook 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.

Yarbo Support’s KB Articles on the Yarbo web site are easily searched and useful. They’re also on the Wiki. Check out the recommendations for maintaining track grease and how to understand the diagnostics page.

Map, TEST, tweak, TEST, observe, dial it in.

(Posted originally in Yarbo Users and Community on FB on May 19, 2025 by Ken Leonard. See The Big README for additional contributors.)

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Awesome stuff as always! Some suggested edits since this was written:

(taking the core inside), phrase this how you like -

  • If you’ve not got room to bring Yarbo into your living room, or cannot make a path to get Yarbo inside, it is the BATTERY that you are actually concerned about.

The behavior indicated here, has changed (and will probably change in the upcoming firmware). I’ve had stub pathways that start/end completely within overlap with success. I also had a pathway start in Area 1, traverse Area 2, to end in Area 3 - and the core used it to get from/to Area 2. Endpoints were NOT in an overlap. Did this when 1/2/3 were all overlapped, did it when 1/2 and 2/3 were overlapped.
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I think @bryan.wheeler mentioned that the firmware update will not occur unless the core is idle, and the core will never be idle if you’re connected with the App. A watched pot, and all.

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Fantastic!

I put in a mention about the battery stuff, good point - thanks, @steve.

I added some more words around the overlap stuff. AFAIK the behavior hasn’t changed, it’s still inconsistent. Sometimes it will work, yep, and I try it as needed and hope. I have examples where the rover just doesn’t do as expected with Pathways starting/ending in overlaps, sadly. Just tried some stuff yesterday – nope. I keep watching the firmware release notes saying that they’ve updated Pathways to handle any Area they touch at the start or end – that was the plan, it hasn’t been done that I’ve seen. Co-founder Ken K. says that there’s something real bomber coming for navigation that’ll do away with a lot of these gyrations, but I have zero clue what’s planned or when it’s coming. I want to be a fly on the wall in those meetings, although I don’t know the language. :frowning:

The rover firmware update thing about being idle and closing the App was there – yep, I got the reminder about that from a FB comment Bryan did a few days ago.

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Wow this was an awesome read with tons of have to discover on your own info. Much of this should be covered in the instructions video or included with quick start.

It is apparent that satisfaction with this product will be a community effort. We were sold a lie.

I’m up at 4am to hopefully get real support on a teams meeting for a product that promised to save me time…

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I am glad you found the document useful. Some of us are working with Yarbo to improve the customer experience through informative articles. This article is a bit dense and crazy, BUT if you’re new, about 90% of what you “need to know” or “will ask right away” or “will puzzle you” is there, and I’ll add to it over time and maybe create a “clean” version. Eventually there will be a tidy, searchable spot for this kind of thing. Well, that’s the plan anyway. :slight_smile:

I sincerely hope that you and other customers who are experiencing issues with the product are able to get things sorted. My own machine is certainly rough around the edges, and it can use improvements (teabagging my Arborvitae is definitely bad form, Yarbo!), but it goes out almost every day and mows whatever is shaggy. That should be everyone’s experience, which I’m certain Yarbo wants to achieve. I just work with the tool how it is, let it do what it does, come up with some tricks to use it better, and let improvements come.

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That’s what I was trying to do, but found bad edge cases on firmware update day I guess. Some fault conditions of a mow must present as idle and it tried to update firmware and failed hard. I was happy to map conservatively, let it hadle the easy areas and let that boundary grow as I learned behavior.
Now I need them to execute on a new machine. I’m not holding my breath based on the falsehoods Ive lived out on the blade mount disc replacement delivery.

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Probably the most productive distillate would be mapping tips and how to get best map results if you are going to update something first. That would save the most user frustration hours.

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Man, you are a tough task master, @Ryan. That’s a book! But you’re not the first one to ask about that. A lot of what’s needed in Yarbo’s documentation is the answer to “What next?” Getting started on Mapping is probably The Big One. I have may comments on Facebook helping people out in that regard that need to be distilled into KB articles of some sort.

I’m in touch with Yarbo about this type of thing, and they’re formulating a plan to capture information – maybe a Wiki, that type of thing.

I’ll continue with the Tips for now and see how I can put some “basic” mapping stuff in those, too, as I think of it. Scott Grams is also putting Tips every Tuesday on the Yarbo Owners USA Facebook Group.

“Basic” – what a laugh. This product is VERY complex. Folks like it, want to use it, but it’s easy to see the struggles. Yarbo’s videos help, and other contributors help, too. Thank goodness for the social media discussions and information there. Behind the scenes Yarbo is putting together a plan to be more organized about info gathering and presenting.

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Can’t wait to pitch in when they get me a working unit. I remember the early days of DJI back in 2014 when you could still email with an engineer. I needed a feature I called “dynamic home” point to poll GPS of phone/ controller. They got it turned around and pushed before the end of the week. I was flying off a moving boat and it wanted to return to take off location before it ran out battery because it thought it had to go all the way back even though it was never more than 500 feet from me and the controller and a landing site.

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