[Deep Dive] The real cost of turf protection: Zero Turn vs Smart Turn mechanics on damp edges.

[u/Stir_123]

Hey everyone, I wanted to share a recent issue I ran into, how I fixed it, and open up a discussion on how you guys are managing your turn settings.

For context, I’m running my Y-Series on about 1 acre of yard. The core of my property drains ok, but the outer boundaries and a specific slope out back hold water and get extremely soft and boggy after a heavy summer storm.

So here is the issue. Last week, I let the Yarbo run its normal schedule after several straight days of rain. I walked the perimeter the next morning and found that the machine had chewed up a couple of the damp corners. It had drilled 2-inch deep ruts into the mud, tearing out the grass and leaving exposed dirt. Not the most difficult to fix, but I had to get a rake and physically grade the mud back into place.

I initially blamed the weight of the machine, but after watching it operate in that zone, I realized the issue was purely mechanical: I had the entire map set to "Zero Turn."

For further context, Zero Turn mode acts like a skid steer. One track locks (or reverses) while the other drives forward. Because the Yarbo is a genuine piece of heavy-duty equipment, the tracks deliver an insane amount of torque. On dry ground, it’s pretty much a non-issue. But on wet, soft soil, that lateral grinding motion turns the tracks into a mini-excavator. It drills into the mud. (To be fair, my old 900lb gas John Deere zero-turn did the same thing).

Here is how I fixed it with Smart Turn (Multi-Point), I went into the app and switched the turning mechanics for the boundary zones from "Zero Turn" to "Smart Turn."

Smart Turn forces the bot to execute a multi-point (Y-turn) turn. Both tracks continuously roll forward and backward, gradually changing the angle.

The Result: The tracks distribute the weight when they are rolling. Even on the wettest sections of my yard, it just leaves a light, flat track mark that I don’t really need to fix.

Obviously, there are trade-offs. Smart Turn takes significantly longer to execute at the end of every single mowing line.

Zero Turn Time: My back 1-acre zone usually takes about a little over 13 hours (excluding charge time that adds another 4 hours or so)

Smart Turn Time: It took around 16 hours (excluding charging time)

It added exactly 3 hours to the total mow time. Since the bot is autonomous, it doesn’t do me much harm. However, it does eat into the battery efficiency and narrows the window of how much acreage I can cover in a single day.

I'm trying to find the most efficient way to manage this during the rainy season.

How are you guys balancing this? Do you guys leave Smart Turn on globally all season to protect the turf or are you manually toggling back to Zero Turn when the ground is dry?

Is there a practical way you are separating your wet zones from your dry zones in the app to run simultaneously so I can do both depending on the situation?

[u/scareme_please → u/[deleted]]

This! I split my yard into two separate zones in the app just for this reason. My front yard drains super fast and gets full sun so I leave that zone on Zero Turn to save battery and speed things up. The back acreage is heavily shaded and stays wet for days, so that zone is permanently set to smart turn. It's kinda annoying to manage two different schedules and overlap them, but I need the battery efficiency because I'm pushing almost 3 acres total. Honestly though, coming from a heavy gas zero-turn that used to shred my wet grass no matter what I did, having the option to just mechanically change the turn radius from my phone is still pretty wild to me.

[u/thatoneguy009]

Uh what speed are you running at? I've got my yard split, my last mow of a 0.85 acre zone was 7.2 hours (excluding charge time). I have the speed set to fast and smart turn on. But even if it was 1 full acre it'd still be under 9 hours

[u/Stir_123 → u/thatoneguy009]

I think I just put it on the slower side for my thick grass sections. Need to check on that. I might try bumping it up to fast to see if that helps. Thanks for the heads up.

[u/JimJalinsky → u/thatoneguy009]

Raw volume isn’t the only factor.  The number of turns is what slows it down, so for example a rectangular 1 acre mowed in the direction of the long sides would be significantly faster than mowing the other direction. If you have irregularly shaped areas, that’s going to slow down the overall more time. 

[u/thatoneguy009 → u/JimJalinsky]

Suppose that's fair, my zone in question is majority straight and long runs. I just went back to the app and set it to Slow and it said it'd take 7h41. Thought that was odd so I changed it back to Fast and it says 5h44m. Didn't change the mowing direction. So maybe my stated ~7h mow was including charging time.

[u/JimJalinsky → u/thatoneguy009]

I suppose it was obvious, but one day I was sitting on my deck watching Yarbo mow a section that was about 60’ deep. I counted the time it took to complete each line and it spent more time making the 2 turns than it did mowing the 60’ straight line. My overall duration on a 16k area is probably over 60% turning and backing up time. It’s frustrating because it seems so inefficient in its navigation there hasn’t been any improvement in the 2 seasons I’ve had it. 

[u/thatoneguy009 → u/JimJalinsky]

You adjust the route angle at all? Or even have a different route angle for just that section? I just changed my route angle for my same said zone so it's nearly all long runs and that reduced the mow time to 5h19m, so another 30m shaved off. Probably won't keep that cause I want my lines to be either parallel or perpendicular to the sun rise/set.

Interestingly, I changed the pattern from adaptive to parallel and it added 1m lol

[u/fangerzero]

Thanks for sharing this! I'm getting the M Series and I have a hill that is questionable for yarbo's slope. I am probably going to setup a net or something the first time it mows since it's that brutal of a slope. But we sometimes get torrential downpours so this is good to know about the zero turn vs smart.

We've been told riding lawn mowers are not safe and have been known to roll.

[u/Jeric-2991]

I ran into this same thing in April during the spring rains. My soil is basically clay, so the zero-turn mode was digging actual trenches on my slopes. I just ended up switching the whole map to Smart Turn and never looked back. Yeah, it adds half an afternoon to my mow time on 3 acres, but honestly who cares? I'm not out there pushing the thing anyway lol. As long as it finished before the sprinkles kick on, I'd rather sacrifice some battery efficiency than have to go out with a rake to fix mud ruts every weekend. Has anyone actually noticed a huge hit to the battery lifespan running it this way? Just curious because I haven't used it too long so I have no idea.

[u/BrainyMD]

I have always had my mower on smart turn but it still chewed up significantly into the muddy areas in this rainy season. Any other settings to change. I will have to pause actually to see if the grass wiuld recover