Regular readers of our blog or watchers of our YouTube channel know that we love to talk about robot lawn care. Normally, that takes the form of robotic mowers. We test them, review them, and generally get all crazy excited about them. Well, friends, the Yarbo may be the machine we’ve been the most excited about.
That’s a bold statement. But we do think it’s true. Why? Because Yarbo isn’t just a robotic mower. It’s a robotic snow blower as well. And a robotic leaf blower. And the manufacturer has plans for Yarbo to be able to perform even more tasks.
Eventually, Yarbo will become a complete robotic property maintenance system. Indeed, it will be like having your own robot gardener. And it’s already off to an incredible start, as the manufacturer is almost ready to release the first 3 parts of the Yarbo system.
Below, you can watch a video of Yarbo in action. After that, you can read more of our Yarbo review. We will relay everything we know about this extremely innovative robotic lawn care system.
The Yarbo Robot Snow Blower
The first product that Yarbo prioritized for launch was a robotic snow blower. (Indeed, the company’s first name was Snowbot.) At first, Yarbo shipped robotic snow blower prototypes to Kickstarter supporters for testing and feedback. Now, Yarbo expects to be fulfilling orders for their first robotic snowblower market model, Yarbo Snow Blower S1, within a few weeks.
The Yarbo robotic snow blower operates very similarly to a robotic mower in many ways. Yarbo uses RTK technology so that the snow blower doesn’t need any wires. In fact, it knows its location within just a few centimeters. You can control the snow blower through the app, or you can map out the areas you want cleared and just let the machine run on its own. If the job is finished, or the battery runs low, Yarbo will return to the charging station automatically. And Yarbo comes equipped with an object avoidance system. Thus, even if something gets in its way, both the object and the robotic snow blower are safe. (This is why we argue that robotic lawn care is safest for your family.)
In other words, you can turn on the Yarbo robot snow blower before you go to bed the night of a snowstorm. Yarbo will run all night if it needs to. And you will wake up to a cleared driveway so you can still get your vehicle out. Amazing! Gone are the days of you having to wake up two hours early and go out in frigid wind to clear snow so you can get to work.
How Well Does the Yarbo Robot Snow Blower Clear Snow?
Of course, the natural question is how well Yarbo does at clearing snow. The answer is that it’s quite powerful. After feedback from the prototype, this model is now ready to handle pretty much any snowfall. It has a 21” cleaning width, 12” clearing height, and powerful two-stage augurs to rip through any type of snow, even in monster drifts.
According to the manufacturer, Yarbo Snow Blower S1 will be able to clear 6,000 ft2 of 1” deep snow per charge. For 5” of snow, Yarbo will be able to clear 2,152 ft2. Yarbo’s typical operating time will be 1½ hours per charge.
You can even control how the Yarbo snow blower shoots snow. The chute can rotate 180° and go up as high as 45°. Combine that with the powerful motor, and Yarbo can send snow off as far as 40 feet.
One other great feature of the Yarbo robotic snow blower is how it is designed to move. The Yarbo main body utilizes a rubber-tracked drive system, which helps it move over any surface, including icy ones. The snowblower part is also an attachment upon the main robotic body. The advantage of this is that if the Yarbo snow blower hits an obstacle, or is moving downhill, the augur attachment shifts easily. As a result, Yarbo is incredibly agile. It will avoid clogging up its chute with sticks. It will also clear snow all the way down to the pavement, even on an incline.
The Yarbo Robotic Mower
Of course, even if you have chosen to live in a place that is literally frozen almost half of the year (seriously, why do we do that to ourselves?), you still have one half of the year where the ground is thawed. Your property needs a completely different kind of maintenance at those times. With traditional technology, you need two separate machines for those two separate seasons.
But not with Yarbo.
With Yarbo, you can just detach the snowblower from the universal body and then attach the lawnmower. (And the manufacturer is working on a system where the machine will automatically detach and attach the different modules. How cool is that?!?!?!) You get all the great benefits that you get with the snowblower: precise location, no wires, obstacle avoidance, agility, and self-charging.
You also get a powerful robotic mower. To be fair, the Yarbo Lawn Mower M1 has not been released to the public yet. (This module should be shipped in May or June of 2024, though Yarbo really hasn’t set firm dates for any of its attachments to ship.) The S1 is the priority, and the M1 is estimated this summer. The B1 is still TBD.) However, the specs are impressive. Yarbo claims that its robotic lawn mower will have the industry’s largest cutting width and will be able to tackle up to 3.3 acres every day. The Yarbo Lawn Mower M1 also will have an adjustable height range from 1.2-4 inches and the ability to handle slopes of up to 68%. If these claims turn out to be true, that will make the Yarbo robotic mower one of the most versatile on the market.
The Yarbo Leaf Blower
So, Yarbo has you covered when it’s snowing and when the grass is growing. But what about those in-between seasons? You know, the fall and the spring, when your grass looks like a quilt of orange, red, and yellow thanks to all the leaves.
Well, Yarbo wouldn’t be a complete property maintenance machine if it didn’t cover you in all seasons. Meet the Yarbo Blower B1.
With the blower attachment, Yarbo goes around your yard and/or pavement and blasts leaves/debris away with a powerful gust. Those gusts can go up to 119 MPH, but the blower is designed to adjust wind speed and direction to blow in a fan-shaped pattern, just like humans tend to do. (And of course, you can adjust the settings as you see fit.)
And, just like we said the other two modules, the Yarbo leaf blower knows its precise location at all times and can handle virtually any terrain or slope.
Potential Future Products
This Yarbo 3-in-1 robotic system is only the beginning. According to the manufacturer, the Yarbo line will eventually include pretty much any kind of attachment you could possibly need to maintain your property. These include a sweeper, a plow, a vacuum, an extending arm, and a sprinkler. All of these will attach to the same universal robotic engine, complete with that RTK technology and machine learning.
All of the attachments will be securely stored in a docking station that can also automatically switch modules for you.
If the vision comes to fruition, you will be able to use Yarbo to complete pretty much all yard tasks. And they can be done automatically, while you enjoy free time doing…well…anything but these tasks.
That’s why we say that eventually, having a Yarbo will be like hiring someone who can handle pretty much all property maintenance tasks for you.
Who Should Consider These Products?
As we always say, our job when you contact Autmow is to try to help you find the perfect solution for your needs. Is the Yarbo system for everyone? No. It is pretty ambitious technology, but it’s not the right fit for all.
If you fall into one or more of the categories below, we suggest you take a look at the Yarbo 3-in-1 once it becomes available in your area.
- People who live in regions where you have a true 4-season experience: leaf drop in spring/autumn, snow in winter, and grass cutting in the summer
- People who don’t want to or aren’t able to manually clear snow
- People with large properties (especially as Yarbo continues to expand its attachment line, the machine can ultimately serve as your personal Buildings and Grounds crew or farmhand)
- People who are willing to pay a little more for the most cutting-edge technology (because of its versatility and its newness, the Yarbo robot cost is higher than that of other robotic lawn care products: just under $10,000 for the 3-in-1 package)
But even if you do fall into one or more of these categories, we understand that you might not choose Yarbo for your robotic property maintenance. And that’s okay. Everyone has unique needs.
Final Thoughts
For some people, such as this writer, Yarbo feels like the stuff of science-fiction movies. And while he makes a tongue-in-cheek allusion to Terminator, we think a reference to The Jetsons would be more appropriate. Because for us, moving to autonomous machines to help us do household chores is a great thing.
Consider this: A recent survey found that families spend far less time together than they want to. When asked why, one of the top reasons that adults gave was “weekend chores.” So if technology can help us spend less time working on chores and more time doing the things we enjoy with the people we enjoy, we think that is a wonderful use of machine learning.
Yarbo is the closest we have come so far to meeting that idealistic vision.
