🌨️ Understanding Yarbo’s Anti-Freeze Mode

[Yarbo-Forum]

Have you noticed your Yarbo snow blower moving on its own intermittently when stored in a cold garage or left outside during a chilly night? Don’t worry, this is completely normal and part of our Anti-Freeze Mode! Let’s break down how and why this happens:

Why does this happen? When your Yarbo rover is exposed to cold temperatures for long periods, there’s a risk it could freeze, affecting its performance. To prevent this, Anti-Freeze Mode is activated to move key motor components at regular intervals—keeping everything running smoothly while protecting the motor’s longevity.

How does it work? Here’s how the Anti-Freeze Mode keeps things moving:

The snow chute rotates between 45° and 135° every 30 minutes.

The linear actuator adjusts between 15° and 30° every 30 minutes.

The deflector moves back and forth between 16 and 48 every 30 minutes.

The Auger Blades rotate for 2 seconds every 30 minutes when the Anti-Freeze Mode is enabled in the app. (Coming soon: Updates to this feature!)

When does it happen? Anti-Freeze Mode activates when:

The Yarbo rover is in standby mode.

The NTC temperature of the body is ≤ 0°C.

This feature helps ensure that your Yarbo snow blower is always ready to go, even after long periods of cold storage! Stay warm and keep your yard in top shape, no matter the weather. Let us know if you have any questions!

[Ken]

Hi Yarbo Team!

A Q and possible small enhancement requests for the anti-freeze feature:

Issue: My auger locked up with ice yesterday during a very cold overnight. As far as I know “Auger Anti-freeze Mode” was ON, but I believe “Auger in Work Plan” was OFF.

1. Does anti-freeze mode work when “Auger in Work Plan” is OFF? If NO, then this would have been the cause of my auger freezing up. If that’s the case, can we note that in the app UI somehow to let folks know that one setting depends on the other? (If anti-freeze should have worked, then I may have unintentionally had it turned off – my bad.)

2. Anti-freeze mode activates at 0C/32F. Early last evening it was a little above freezing (1C or so) but very calm, and water droplets were freezing on the chute, probably due to radiative cooling. The auger anti-freeze was not activating at that time, but maybe it should given that under some conditions water will start to freeze above 0C. Would it be possible to enable anti-freeze mode at a slightly higher temperature, maybe 2C or so, instead of waiting for the temperature sensor to get to the freezing point? What do folks think? Needed? Yes? No?

I appreciate the feature. I bet it has saved a lot of headaches. The auger did spin overnight and was free this morning.

[bryan.wheeler]

Interesting question. I bet you’re right, if auger is disabled it may disable the auger antifreeze. I think it certainly would not hurt to do antifreeze procedures (even heaters) at 34F and below.

[Yarbo-Forum]

Hi Ken, thanks for your question!

There’s no dependency between the “Auger in Work Plan” setting and Anti-freeze Mode. The anti-freeze function applies when the machine is in standby status, so it will operate independently of whether the auger is included in the work plan.

As for your suggestion about enabling anti-freeze mode at a slightly higher temperature — that’s a great point. I’ll continue to monitor feedback from the community on this. If more users feel this would be beneficial, I’ll be happy to pass the suggestion along to our product team for consideration.

Thanks again for sharing your thoughts!