Robot lawnmowers have been around long enough to become somewhat commonplace, essentially acting as the backyard (or front lawn) equivalent of the ubiquitous robot vacuum. But for many, cutting the grass is just one aspect of lawn care that takes place only in the spring and summer. Over the course of the rest of the year, a homeowner's main challenges are to rake leaves in the fall and shovel snow in the winter, rendering even the best robot lawnmower useless for half of the year.
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Yarbo 3-in-1 Smart Yard Robot Read More
But that was before Yarbo came along. Following a run on Kickstarter in 2022 that earned $3,458,240 — well above its initial $50,000 goal — Yarbo finally began rolling out to customers in 2023. Yarbo is a modular smart yard robot that acts not only as a lawn mower but also as a snow blower and a leaf blower when the seasons call for it. The device works by utilizing a smart, mobile base — the “Yarbo Body” — that accepts different modules for lawn mowing, snow blowing and leaf blowing, with the promise of more attachments to come in the future.
What Yarbo Can Do
This marks the first time we’ve seen such an all-in-one smart lawn care device, and it looks to be far more than a gimmick, as Yarbo is packing some pretty impressive specs to go along with its innovative versatility. The robot requires no perimeter cable and stays in your yard thanks to a mix of navigation technologies, including RTK-GPS and magnetic field navigation. It also incorporates 4G LTE connectivity for app-based control and planning, along with real-time tracking of the device through its high-resolution camera.
The lawn mower module has pretty much every feature you’d expect out of a premium robot mower, like intelligent route planning, automatic obstacle avoidance and a dual-cutting deck with adjustable cutting heights and the largest width in the industry. The snow blower attachment combines a powerful auger with an impeller that’s capable of blasting the snow up to 40 feet away — you can set both the distance and direction for your blown snow. Like the mower, the snow blower will also smartly plan routes and automatically avoid obstacles. The smart leaf blower — another industry first — allows you to adjust the wind speed and direction and select your blowing areas.
Regardless of which attachment you’re using, Yarbo will sense when it’s finished working or when its battery is down to 5 percent, at which time it will automatically drive itself to its wireless charging pad to juice up. The brand is also promising future modules that do everything from sprinkle your lawn to collect your packages to even pick up your dog's poop. Some of these admittedly sound pretty far-fetched, but I spoke with Candicee Liu of Yarbo's marketing department, who told me the brand has actually developed working prototypes of all modules it advertises.
"Right now we're focusing on the lawn mower, the snow blower and the leaf blower," Liu says. "But in the coming years, we'll be releasing new modules for sure. We haven't disclosed it, but we have developed these modules already."
Sounds Great, But Can You Actually Buy Yarbo?
The original Kickstarter timeline estimated the snow blower would hit the market in December 2022, with the lawn mower and leaf blower to follow in May 2023 — but that didn't happen. The snow blower finally made its way to its first customers in the U.S. and Canada in October 2023, with the other attachments only available for pre-order on the brand's website. "For the lawn mower and leaf blower, we will start to ship in May of next year (2024)," Liu says.
So why the year-long delay? According to Liu, it's because Yarbo felt the current products weren't quite ready for market yet, so the brand spent time improving all of them before committing to a release date. "We have made a lot of upgrades on both the hardware and software side," Liu says. These upgrades include the addition of a bumper to the snow blower, along with a thicker and more durable auger and higher ground clearance. Additional upgrades can be seen in the chart below, which Liu shared with me.
Yarbo does have a growing network of dealers in the U.S. and Canada, but Liu wasn't able to share a list with me. So the easiest way to purchase a robot is from the brand's website. The Yarbo Snow Blower, which includes the Yarbo universal body, battery and docking station, can be reserved for $99 or purchased outright for $7,499. It also, for a limited time, includes the Lawn Mower module for free. If you only want to pre-order the Lawn Mower (which again includes the universal robot body, battery and dock), that will set you back $6,999, while the Leaf Blower is the cheapest setup, going for $6,799. Purchasing a Yarbo with all three modules costs $9,999.
It ain't cheap, but that's the price you've got to pay if you want a robot to do all your yard work for you.
