As a separate but related topic of EVs and EV charging equipment testing, State Of Charge recently reviewed the Yarbo Snow Blower — an autonomous, robotic solution that frees users from manual work and might be especially handy during snowstorms.

The results are pretty encouraging, as the Yarbo Snow Blower has huge potential despite its compact size. After adjusting the settings for the work area, our very own Tom Moloughney was able to clear a large driveway while sipping coffee inside.

The robot works in cycles. In Tom’s case, it usually managed up to 1.5 hours of clearing before returning to the wireless charging base for more than an hour of charging. Even so, everything can be done automatically, day and night, assuming the settings are correct (it usually takes at least a few tries to resolve small issues in edge cases).

During the winter storm test, the robot clocked about seven clearing cycles within 20 hours. That’s not bad for a small robot.

The Yarbo Autonomous Snow Blower

Charging

The Yarbo Snow Blower has a wireless charging base, connected to an ordinary outlet (up to 8A at full load). According to specs, it can recharge the robot’s 1.38-kWh NMC battery from 20% to 80% state of charge (SOC) in 1.5 hours. To make the most of the robot, Tom changed the minimum SOC value to 15% SOC and reports that on average, a 15-80% SOC charging session took 1 hour and 15 minutes (slower at 0°F / -18°C).

That’s not a bad charging spec for a robot, especially given the temperatures and the number of cycles, which can easily reach 6-10 over 24 hours. However, we wonder whether even faster charging would be possible in future generations.

There was only one instance of a charging issue so far, when the wireless charging pad accumulated some ice on top. This prevented a charging session from starting until it was manually cleared.

Final Thoughts

The Yarbo Snow Blower performs better than Tom Moloughney initially thought it would. It takes some time to assemble the machine from several modules and even more time to program the area to clear, but once it’s completed and reviewed, the robot works just fine. The app is one of its strongest points.

There might still be some minor issues, such as ice on the charging pad or a GPS connectivity issue near the wall, but overall, the robot operates autonomously with minimal monitoring from the owner. Tom is pleased enough to plan to use it in the future.

The current main drawback of the robot appears to be its price of roughly $5,000. If you are interested in buying the Yarbo, follow this link to Yarbo’s website and save $600 on a limited-time offer.

Video timestamps:

02:15 The snow falls, and the action begins
07:22 Yarbo clearing the landing in time-lapse
08:28 Walking the driveway after Yarbo’s first complete pass
10:59 Tweeking the Yarbo settings during the storm & the live camera view
12:54 The Storm’s over, and Yarbo’s done – how’d it do?
17:44 The three main Issues the Yarbo had
22:22 Final thoughts
27:05 Tom’s teaser videos went viral!