I am noticing that often wind direction decreases the quality of snow clearing.
Sometimes snow must go in direction. Other times it just needs needs to go as far as possible. A sensor that detects torsion on the chute caused by wind could make this doable.
Actually I have a much simpler way of doing this and it saves power.
Motors need micro voltages to stay stationary. If the chute motor had no power it would naturally turn in the direction of the wind.
Simple firmware and mapping changes would be all that’s necessary.
Admittedly, I haven’t tried turning the chute when it has no power. However, it has gears so I don’t think a sensor or the wind would be viable. However, this is a really common request. What seems the most probable is to use a local weather station API.
I think a manual approach to wind direction would be a good initial release.
They could allow you to pre set multiple snowblowing directions for each area. Then when you start a snowblower job, optionally choose which blowing direction to use.
Could be as simple as radio buttons or a drop down list with the direction names.
As an example, for my driveway I would desire to select between North or South.
Also some way of working with the wind would limit snow being blown back onto the blower and blocking cameras.
I understand the appeal of this solution. This is something that would work well for me too. I would like the chute to always turn to blow with the wind.
I live in the country and there is literally nothing in the way on either side of my 1/4 mile drive to be concerned about.
That said, when I go to my mom’s house in the city to clear her driveway, it doesn’t matter which way the wind is blowing, there is only one direction where you can blow the snow without hitting a house or blowing snow into the neighbors property.
That really sucks because if you are walking behind a snowblower blowing snow into the wind, it’s cold and miserable.
At least with Yarbo, I don’t have to be behind it when snow blows back onto it.
I’ll take a whole lot of imperfections like that before I consider walking behind a snowblower again.
Thank you for sharing your idea and taking the time to explain it. We really appreciate your thoughtful and inspiring suggestion. At the moment, we don’t have additional development resources available to explore this direction, but we truly value your input and appreciate you sharing it with us.