Flymo Robotic Lawnmower 1200R Review: Price, Setup, Maintenance and Tuning Advice

The Flymo 1200R robotic lawnmower is based on the Husqvarna Automower design, also used for the very popular Gardena R40Li. This isn't surprising, since Flymo and Gardena are both part of the Husqvarna group, whose Automower was arguably the first mass market automatic robot lawn mower.

With such an impressive pedigree, you'd expect something special, and you would be right.

Or, half right.

Flymo 1200R Price

Let's start with the price.

Currently (June 2017), the Flymo 1200R is priced at a very, very, competitive £599, via Amazon's UK site.

For those who are still reading, my own Gardena R40Li which is identical (except for the colour) cost over 1200 EUR. The Flymo 1200R went on sale at just under £1000, and although the design might come across as a bit dated (more on that later) it's proven to be very reliable.

Installing the Flymo 1200R

All robotic lawn mowers require the installation of a perimeter wire to stop the mower from cutting anything other than the lawn.

There are exceptions, but these are rare, and generally use training or GPS which are both pretty fiddly to set up.

The 1200R is easy to set up, if a little time-consuming. All you need to do is choose a spot for the base station, a location for the return wire, and lay the wire all around the mowing area. You even get a little ruler in the box to help you gauge the distance from the flower bed or path to the perimeter wire.

Online opinions vary as to whether you should actually physically bury the wire, but I'd caution against it. It grows over really quickly (a matter of weeks), and leaving it exposed lets you troubleshoot the installation if need be.

Once installed, you can then set up the cutting schedule, and other parameters (like the PIN) using the LCD screen and simple menu system. Actually, it's lucky that it is a simple menu, because the screen makes setting up the brain harder than it was to set up the rest!

Flymo 1200R Wheels

Where I also have a bit of beef is in the wheels.

Before taking the Flymo to market, I just wish they'd replaced those rubber band treads with solid plastic wheels. On rugged ground, they tend to wear out and drop off; this isn't as dire as it sounds, because replacing the wheels is incredibly easy.

But, it's one of those small things that niggles. Eventually, you know that you're going to have to replace the wheels, and you get into the habit of checking for wear and tear to try and prolong their life a bit.

Like the blades.

Flymo 1200R Blades

The blades give a great cutting result, but they're wafer thin.

There are three of them, and they spin freely to clip and mulch, so that a fine mist of grass ends floats down onto the lawn to fertilise it.

We've noticed the difference, but I've also started walking around the lawn from time to time and removing anything that might damage the blades, because easy as they are to replace, they can become expensive.

Still, that's the case with all robotic mowers in this price bracket. Luckily, too, since it's a popular design, numerous suppliers have popped up to supply unbranded aftermarket blades for Flymo, Gardena and Husqvarna mowers.

Flymo 1200R Battery

A robotic lawnmower lives and dies on its battery.

The Robin, for example, has a very low battery capacity. It's a very low cost mower, and takes a whopping 18 hours to recharge which means that its use is limited to small gardens.

Not so, the Flymo. It's got a great battery. It cuts for ages, and recharges quickly.

According to the manual it has a 2-3 year life span, but I have to say that we've gone sailing past that and don't see any visible change in performance.

Of course, we do overwinter the mower, and empty the battery frequently by letting it run around in a zone with no charging station, which may have an effect, but the battery shows little sign of needing replacing.

(And, if it ever does need replacing, it's easy to do. I checked!)

So, let's round up the good and bad of the Flymo 1200R:

Pros:

• Value for money
• Cutting quality
• Robust build

Cons:

• Tiny LCD screen
• No phone link, app, or GPS
• Rubber wheels

Features:

• Mulching action
• Audible alarm & PIN code
• Super-silent operation
• Collision detection

The conclusion, however, is the important bit. Would I buy it again? Yes. Not at the original price, because there are better robotic lawnmowers for around £1000. But at the current Flymo 1200R price, I'd snap it up in an instant.

Gardena Robotic Lawn Mower Review

We have owned the Gardena R40Li robotic lawn mower since I started this blog, back in 2013. In fact, one of the reasons I started the blog was to share my experiences and decision process, and as such now feels like the time is right to write a full Gardena robotic lawn mower review, having lived with the beast for three seasons.

For those who don't have time to read the full review, here are the bullet points. First, the good:

• The grass has never looked better;
• I got time back to do railway modelling instead;
• The whole experience has been almost pain-free.

Now, the not-so-good:

• Yes, it was expensive;
• Yes, parts fail (if you don't take care of it);
• Yes, moving the perimeter wire can be a pain.

The conclusion -- I would buy it again, but I'd take better care of it (i.e. clean it properly) and set it up a bit differently, probably getting in an expert to do that with me. After all, they did offer a free consultation!

Gardena Robotic Lawn Mower Installation

Installing the mower looked so easy on the DVD that came with it that I decided to go it alone, despite the kind offer to have someone come and help me install the perimeter wire (for free). One Sunday afternoon, instead of actually mowing with the old petrol-fired behemoth that it was to replace, I got stuck into the installation process.

The R40Li comes with it's own charging station, which sits on a perimeter wire, which stops the robot going off and mowing the tulips and neighbours drive when it should be doing the lawn. There's also a kind of follow-me cable that hooks up the mid-point of the perimeter wire to the charging station.

The idea is that, if the robot runs out of juice, it can find the wire, and subsequently find its way home. This is a system that works very well, but also has a dual use, as the wire can also be followed to a hard-to-reach part of the garden in case the mower is in danger of missing it due to a narrow entrance.

This is, in fact, something I regret not having done. 

Instead, my return loop is just a straight line. Having connected everything up and left it there for three years, I'm wary of upsetting the apple cart by relocating it, and probably the professional installer would have spotted my error straight away!

Other than that, once everything was in place, pinned down with the black plastic pegs and connected with waterproof 3M connectors (all supplied in the box), and plugged into my outside plug socket -- note, this is indispensible -- the mower charged up and was put to work.

It does take an afternoon of hammering little pegs in, testing electric circuits, and crossing fingers on occasion, but you can do it on your own. Just try to think it through a little bit more than I did!

Operation of the Gardena Robotic Lawn Mower

The mower runs on a daily programme, which can be varied through the slightly confusing on-board menu system. Be prepared to keep the instructions to hand for the first few weeks, as you'll be fine-tuning things like the time of day the mower should operate, and the number of times it follows the cable to the end before starting a run rather than just setting off in a random direction from the base.

And, the mower is governed by randomness.

It sets off when its charged, but pretty randomly, in a random direction, and changes that direction by a random amount whenever it hits an obstacle, or reaches the boundary perimeter wire.

Repairing the perimeter wire is also part of the ongoing operation and maintenance of these kinds of robotic mower, and it is a bit of hassle. Here's a tip: make sure you keep a long piece of single-core wire handy for troubleshooting, and don't bury the wire intentionally; just let the grass grow over it, or cover it with thin paving stones that are absolutely level with respect to the lawn.

The reason for this is that fault finding requires connecting one end of the cable to the base unit, and then hooking the other end to various points on the perimeter until you get a green light.

After the first few times, it gets a lot easier; but for that first time -- make sure you have wire handy, as well as a knife to scrape a little plastic off the perimeter wire, a crocodile clip to connect the wire to the perimeter cable, and some electrical tape to fix it up after...

Parts that Failed on the Lawn Mower

The first item in this category -- blades -- isn't really failure. You need to change the blades every so often.

Tell tail signs that the blades need replacing are:

• Wobbling mower caused by uneven weight distribution (one might be broken);
• Unusual noise;
• Grass tips going brown (unevenly cut; more torn than cleanly cropped).

Luckily, removing them is child's play; but don't let a child near them because they're sharp! They just unscrew from the underside, and the packs of replacement blades come with new screws and full instructions.

Then, the wheels came off. Actually, that's not true. What happened was the rubber came off, and the wheels stopped gripping (this was after 3 seasons use, with no over-wintering). The replacements have a solid, moulded tread, so they'll last for the rest of the product's lifetime.

Also this year, the dampers broke. The rubber perished, and they stopped preventing the outer bumper from bashing against the collision detection system, as discussed here.

Other than these few points, which encourage me to take much better care of the mower (i.e. cleaning it and overwintering it properly), the last three seasons have been trouble-free.

Summary - Should You Buy a Gardena R40Li Robotic Lawn Mower?

Here's the thing -- I can't answer that, because I have no idea whether your lawn qualifies. However, if you hate following your mechanical mower around a pretty standard lawn, then I'd certainly consider it.

The Gardena R40Li Bumps Up Against A Problem...

So, having swapped out the rubber-tread wheels for nice, new shiny plastic ones (see: And Then, The Wheels Came Off!) the next bits that have failed are the two rear rubber dampers. These are going to need replacing, but first, let's take a moment to look at the symptoms and probable cause.

Before we do that, I'd encourage anyone that has the Gardena r40Li, Flymo 1200R or Husqvarna 305 to download the following exploded parts diagram from the Gardena web site:

• http://www.gardena.com/ddoc/GARI/GARI2012_AAaa/GARI2012_AAaa__R40Li.pdf

And, whilst you're perusing it, and probably going "Ah, that's what that bit is!" at the same time, remember that we've had the r40Li since 2013, and this is only the second repair that we've had to do. Yes, I've changed the blades a couple of times per season -- thanks to the kids, the grass is littered with twigs -- but this is only the second major bit of work I've had to do.

This is despite the fact that I'm not the best at cleaning, or winterising the robot mower, which is where I suspect the cause of the current problems lie.

The Odd Symptoms of Bumper Failure

On the face of it, I should have realised straight away that something was amiss.

The mower would stop, mid-mow, for no reason, and then reverse. Then, it would turn and head off  in a direction, before stopping again, reversing, turning and trying to get going in a number of different directions before giving up.

Having turned itself off, a restart listed a "collision detection failure" a few times, before I twigged that maybe this wasn't simply a question of the mower getting stuck in a corner.

So, I picked it up.

When I did so, grasping the cover, including bumpers -- look at the diagram, p.13 -- and the chassis listed alarmingly. Normally it bobs around, suspended, as I now know, on four rubber dampers, that give it flexibility and allow for the bumper to detect collisions.

Now, with one broken, it registers a permanent list to one side, and the inevitable bumper failure with it.

What Caused the Rubber to Perish?

Both the rear dampers have perished. Possible causes that spring to mind are:

• snails (and I'm not kidding: they eat the post!);
• cold (changes in temperature attacks rubber like nothing else);
• bumping into objects.

That last one is pertinent, as although the perimeter wire went in three years ago, we're still moving it around to get the best edge cutting possible. Thus, the mower spends a lot of time bumping into stone edges because the perimeter wire is just a little too close to the coping stones...

On the other hand, the amount of dead grass that I pulled out also hints that maybe that also had something to do with it.

Either way, my advice would be to:

• clean,
• winterise,
• avoid snails,
• place the perimeter wire a good distance away from any coping stones...

For readers with the same issue, the parts are numbers 574 46 91-02, and they cost around 7.50 EUR each plus delivery. Much less than the wheels; and I'll let you know how I get on swapping them out with the damaged ones.

The verdict? Still recommended!