Allison interviews Kathy Zhang about the smart modular yard robot called Yarbo. It can autonomously handle multiple yard maintenance tasks throughout the year including lawn mowing, leaf blowing, snow blowing, liquid spraying, and granular spreading. It even can tow up to 3,500 lbs.
Yarbo consists of a Core Unit that provides power, propulsion, and sensing of the terrain and obstacles. Additional modules are added to the Core Unit to perform the yard work you need done. Lawn mowing, leaf blowing, snow blowing, snow plowing, and towing modules are currently available while liquid spraying and granular spreading modules are expected for release in the Fall of 2025.
To use the device, you simply define the boundary of your yard or the region to be handled and Yarbo determines the optimal path to accomplish the task. Multiple cameras on the Core unit allow it to work safely and autonomously. You can use a mobile app or a remote control to configure Yarbo for its specific task.
Yarbo is designed to operate in high and cold temperatures and is rated IPX4. It has a cold-resistant, high-capacity battery that can be wirelessly charged in 3 hours.
Learn more at https://yarbo.com/
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Transcript of Interview:
Allison: Now everybody loves yard work. They love to rake leaves, they love to snow blow, of course, but it turns out that the robots are going to take over that job for us too. I’m in the YARBO booth with Kathy Zhang and she’s going to talk to us about some robots that maybe can take over these tasks for us.
Kathy Zhang: Sure, sure. So basically you can see it’s like all season use yard robots, which is fully autonomously. So you can see right there, that’s our snow blower right there and then this is our lawnmower module and then the blower module.
Allison: So wait a minute, I love to do, I have a blower for my leaves, so do I still walk around and get to do it or does that happen autonomously as well?
Kathy Zhang: It’s autonomously as well. Yeah, so but you also have two options. The first option is fully autonomously, you just do the boundary, just draw the boundary and it would do the autonomously working plan for you.
Allison: Does it know where to blow the leaves to?
Kathy Zhang: Yeah, so basically you just set it up, adjust it on the app. Yeah, so you can just control and adjust on the app so you know, you’re just pointing out where you want to blow the leaf and then it will be doing the calculation by itself and then just follow the path.
Allison: So a blower like a snow blower or even a leaf blower isn’t a dangerous thing, but a lawnmower, that’s a little bit scarier. How does it avoid, I don’t know, children, animals, how does that work?
Kathy Zhang: Good question. So actually you can see here, we, every module in the front, we have two cameras and then also the sides on both sides also have the cameras and then back also have the camera. So we have six cameras in total. So definitely 360 degrees all covered by cameras. So if you are standing in front of the module right there when it’s cutting the lawn or a snow blower the driveway for you, it will detect you and detect the person or detect the animals, any object. So it will just stop right there. So snow blower is stopped right there until you say it’s safe enough so I’m continuous to work. If it’s a lawnmower it just saw the obstacle over there, just do the obstacle avoid it. So stop right there and then go around it.
Allison: Okay, so I guess we trust vacuums to go around us. Now it’s a little bit scary going up a level but this is uh this is pretty fun. I love it. So the company is Yarbo, Y-A-R-B-O. And what’s the website?
Kathy Zhang: Oh, Yarbo.com. Y-A-R-B-O.com.
Allison: And are these products available now?
Kathy Zhang: Yes, it’s all on sale right now.
Allison: Oh, very good. Let’s see, Steve is giving me the money symbol. Let’s say the lawnmower, how much does the lawnmower cost?
Kathy Zhang: So the lawnmower is about like $4,000. Yeah, it really depends on what’s the location you are, the shipping cost. But like you can see it’s a four in one unit. So all together it’s about like $6,000.
Allison: Okay, so you can buy the whole suite of products.
Kathy Zhang: Yes, like around like $6,000 to $7,000.
Allison: I see, that’s a lot of kid payments but I think it’s something a lot of people want to do is not do yard work. Thank you.
Kathy Zhang: Yes, yes. Thank you.