Went to check on Yarbo to see where it was. It was on its dock. Yarbo mowed all by itself. Well done!
I had the same thing happen just the other day. I got my replacement mower module installed and sent yarbo on his way and he mowed two zones. I only wanted him to mow one zone. Then the following day I went out to check on him, he was gone. He had been mowing all night two and a half acres. Most impressive! I think he’s back on his schedule now so hopefully no more over working.
Love it! Always happy to see Yarbo making life easier.
Jinxed it. Next two mows Yarbo patiently waited for my help again. Yarbo must really like us.
What kind of help did it need?
Our attention-grabber gets stuck or confused. Recently Yarbo started practicing zero-point turns. It’s gotten very good at that. Yarbo started to perform zero-point turns with the mower into the no-go zone all by itself! These areas have tall grass. It’s amazing that Yarbo often succeeds in mowing even that 1m high grass which we don’t want it to mow. It really is quite good when it mows whilst turning! Sadly it sometimes gets stuck on that zero-point turn. One meter is way beyond what can be expected but it’s cut quite cleanly. In some future update it will start doing three-point turns again as we asked it to. Maybe it will stop mowing the no-go zone then or perhaps it becomes even more efficient in mowing these areas.
I think swinging the mower into the no go zone is something support should be looking into. If you haven’t open a ticket please do.
Unreal. Does anyone else see the absurdity of this? For the cost of a bundle its around say a low end Subzero. Do you think anyone is sending them a message saying “Yah, my refrigerator kept my food cold for a full day, way to go". Then for the next three weeks its like an oven and you are told “we understand your frustration, we are trying hard to deliver on our promise of cold food, did you reboot your entire home to see if that fixed things".
I’m sorry to hear about your frustration and greatly value your input. But Mike, I hope I can call you Mike, this is not fair. You have to understand that Yarbo M1 is a first generation product. Think about how the first generation iRobot Roomba worked. They blindly bounced around. I know, I know, you could say Yarbo sold us a capable robot which could mow under trees even without GPS through its radar (or lidar?) and advanced AI vision processing. Bumpers front and back, able to tow a car or boat, and teasing with mowing text patterns in our lawns configured through the app. But Yarbo M1 is a first generation product and you have to look at it like that. Think about all the future possibilities! Besides, Yarbo’s CEO said he takes full responsibility for the communication regarding Yarbo’s capabilities (AMA 13th of April). I truly appreciate your understanding. Yarbo has an amazing future ahead and we are part of its most impressive journey.
This is completely fair and deserved! Your comparison is not even in the same hemisphere, I too had that first irobot but paid a few hundred dollars vs nearly $8K. Now go back out and babysit your bot that is stuck avoiding an obstacle that isn’t there.
And it was advertised as such.
Sincere question. What, if any, is your association with Yarbo?
Excellent question of which I am guessing @mad will not tell. Now the more i thought about the comparison it actually does have some relavence. Not only did I own one of the first irobots but also had one from a few years ago (S9 with mop bundle, paid $1200 for it). It was just about as much of a nightmare as the first and I tossed it out and bought a Dreame X40 that has been flawless for a year now. So @mad since you appear to be an insider, is Yarbo going to be an irobot that is still garbage after a decade or a Dreame that delivers on what is promised.
The moderator has pointed out previously:
— if it’s a Yarbo team member, the title will show “Yarbo Official.”
That wasn’t my question though. I asked about affiliation not if they were a team member. They could be a private investor or married to an employee for example. Do they have a personal stake in the company?
I don’t think they are affiliated with Yarbo based on some of their previous posts but that one response sure seemed like it.
I could, but I think it would be a distraction so I suggest we don’t.
I’ve attached three videos to support that. We have pathways (which I can’t plan as pathway or deadend because they’re wider than Yarbo’s mowing deck and I don’t want it to reverse and frankly Yarbo should just be able to do it’s job without me trying to defend all options I’ve tried or have not tried LoL). The pathways are great for nature and fun to walk through.
The first video shows how Yarbo currently mows here which I’ve learned to appreciate as a good mow. This is near the end of the mow, it’s mostly mowing areas it already mowed for perfect detailing! It includes a few turns into no go zones (2:20 6:50, 7:10, 8:20) and it didn’t get stuck, did not mow a newly planted tree or plant, and it kept most of the thick grass in one piece. Nice. Notice how well that tall patches are mowed on zero-turn, that should be an advertisement! Yarbo Robot Mower
The second video shows Yarbo’s impressive ability to ignore three-point turns. Here too it’s taking extra care to minutely trim everything. Yarbo spends extra effort to stretch the grass with its turns like you’d stretch your own muscles after good workout. This stretching must be to naturally select the best grass and an amazing looking lawn for years to come. Yarbo Robot Mower plows
The third video is just a dumb tractor drive so you can compare the amount of time one could save with Yarbo. What I spent 1m30s on, Yarbo stretches into a 10 minute drive for complete perfection. From memory Yarbo estimated 2 hours for the area, garden tractor was about 10 or 15? Yarbo’s track marks are more shallow than those of the tractor and it’s better for the planet when charged through solar panels. Old tractor over pathways
I believe Yarbo’s team is going out of their way to fix current issues and I do not want to distract them whilst they are fixing the most basic mowing and planning tasks. I feel for them. They must be under extreme stress whilst coping with customers hoping for the promised solutions. Looking at the updates we got so far it surely feels like they can need a good motivating push. The best we could have is that Yarbo goes Open Source so we may be able to help out. Until that day I selfishly wish them all the luck they can have for as long as my Yarbo takes me on this incredible journey.
I’m truly sorry for your frustration and assure you I greatly value your thoughtful reactions on this positive write-up on Yarbo’s achievements.
I’m glad you pointed out the absurdity of these messages. They’re just a rehash of the sentiment and statements I’ve read here and a repetition of certain sentence constructions repeated on the forum. I am sorry about the agitation this may have caused.
I too often wonder who to believe here. Some comment so frequently and with such authority that I’m not sure if the words will carry value when Yarbo eventually fails. However, these commenters do an amazing job at keeping this forum positive with Yarbo’s challenges so let’s celebrate their efforts!
It looks like Yarbo could be a viable product with the right team backing it in the future. Like you, I signed up for a solution, not for taking part in such a journey. Like you, I signed up for a product with certain features as they were promised. I hoped they’d succeed in all (or at least some) of the extra features but I did not count on them (letters in the yard is one of those).
I don’t have insights in the current team. If I were an investor and a customer, I’d take leadership up on their promise to take full responsibility for what they communicated to customers. Because taking responsibility means fixing it, even if it costs you. Those are not empty words. IANAL, yet selling a product with certain features means delivering it too and failing to do so is a fraud.
If I were to run Yarbo with the current state of software, I’d patent hardware connections and I’d start to Open Source all of the software to create a community around it. I would invite others to hack the machine and build extensions in the hopes I could create a sort of Ferguson System for small yard robots. I’d focus on the delivery of the hardware because that seems to be the strongest point today.
I wouldn’t say “[Roomba] was advertised as [blindly bouncing around]” when it wasn’t.
A Roomba today can hardly navigate chairs with such ease.
Yes it was. I remember watching the commercials when they first came out on television, not YouTube. I lived through it. Even the video you linked to shows it going off at an angle.
Agreed, Roomba sucks. They failed to innovate and lost most of their market share. I never said Roomba was a good machine but my Roborock is awesome.
Roomba’s Original Cleaning Pattern
According to the manual (and shown in commercials at the time):
- Roomba uses randomized algorithms to navigate.
- It combines spiral motions, wall-following, and bounce-style redirection when encountering obstacles.
- The goal is coverage through repetition, not precision mapping.
I had the original Roomba, and at the time, it was a nifty invention. It drove my wife absolutely crazy, but it was fun for me.
And yes, my Roborock is awesome!
I think it is easy to forget what we now take for granted. 25 years ago I visited New York city in the middle of summer and saw many hydro brown-outs mid day because of the heat and the strain caused by air-conditioning. Heat pumps and LED lights and enhanced grids have solved that. Imagine years earlier when hydro and refrigeration were just a few years old. Your comparison is apt. Your conclusion is wrong. In 5 more years lawn robots and other robotics will be as commonplace as washers, dishwashers and yes, a fridge. And the earlier users will be the reason they work so well. You’re welcome