Flymo 1200R vs Honda Miimo 3000: Are High Tech Robot Mowers Better?

It's fair to say that the Honda Miimo series is pretty fully specified. In fact, a lot of buzz about the Miimo online makes quite a big deal of the smartphone app control, electronic height adjustment, amongst other leading features.

Of course, regular readers will know to ignore anything that talks about the blades, mulching effect, low noise and ability to mow in the rain; unless they're missing! Every mower worth buying can do all of these things, but it's the little details that set the leaders apart.

Flymo, part of the Husqvarna group, appear to lead on price.

More specifically, the Flymo 1200R, while not the latest iteration of mower technology, has a top line price of around £900 but can be had for under £500 online. The Miimo comes in at three times that; albeit with some additional bells and whistles.

It also lacks a few things -- like instructions. However, this has improved with recent models, but certainly in the early days, the advice was to get the local Honda dealer to install the Miimo rather than try to do it yourself.

Not that it's difficult; but there are apparently a few limitations (revealed in this online article) such as not being able to run over paving stones, which would make the installation a bit more challenging.

Flymo 1200R vs Miimo Feature Comparison

The core similarities between the Flymo 1200R and Miimo are:

• Perimeter wire;
• Docking station with smart charging;
• 360 degree bump and tilt sensors;
• Random mowing movement;
• PIN code protection;
• Height adjustment from 20-50/60mm.

The core differences are some additional Miimo features:

• The Bluetooth app;
• Electronic height adjustment;
• Seasonal timers & day/night modes.

Both models, it has to be said, lack the more advanced features that are becoming more common such as rain detection, GPS aided mowing, and neat little docking stations with rain hoods. However, it is debatable whether the high end mowers with these features actually do a better job of cutting the lawn.

On that front, both the Flymo and Miimo have very similar mechanics. Spinning blades, double edged, for longer blade life and a good mulching action that doesn't leave any residue. They both mow randomly, so don't leave worn tracks (a problem for some mowers that take the same route 10 times a day!), and are nice and quiet.

Is the Honda Miimo Better?

Where the Miimo might have the edge is in two areas not yet touched on in any detail: it's turning action, and place anywhere docking station.

When the Miimo gets to the edge, rather than stopping, reversing, and turning, like most other mowers, it will gently curve away from the perimeter wire. I think there are two advantages in this: the smoother action will likely prolong part life (motor, wheels, etc.), and it may produce  a better cut to the edge.

The drawback might be that gaps could appear where the curve's apex is, but these will, over time, be covered by repeated mowing sessions.

Finally, the place anywhere docking station means that you don't need to worry about the orientation of the docking station when you design the perimeter wire path. This is a neat differentiator, especially for awkward shaped gardens, or ones where you could  hide the docking station away.

The only question is: is the price difference worth it? Check out the Miimo here, and the Flymo here, and decide for yourself!

Robomow RX12U The Affordable Robotic Lawn Mower

Unusually for me, I'm going to lead with the price: £499 on Amazon.

I'll just let that sink in.

At that price -- which I'll admit is still a lot of money -- the Robomow RX12U begins to compare pretty favourably with a regular lawnmower.

It looks pretty good, the charging station is low profile, and you even get a natty app so you can talk to it from your mobile rather than having to bend down over a badly lit LCD screen.

Okay, so it won't mow the largest of lawns. In fact, it's limited to something between 150 and 250 square meters of grass.

Part of the reason for this limitation is that it can only mow for an hour and a half before needing a full 16 hours to recharge itself.

And, obviously, with these limitations, it also prefers a squareish lawn without too many complicated turns. Otherwise, it's going to miss areas repeatedly, and result in an uneven cut. The grass, in the growing season, can get quite unruly after only a few days.

Still, the result on a regularly shaped lawn of about 200 square metres is likely to be pretty good. The novel design means that it will go over the edges, too, so you'll get a crisp finish. Just make sure that you follow our Perimeter Wire Tips and Tricks, to get the best results.

Specifications and Installation

For the technically minded, the cut is provided by a single blade, and replacing it doesn't look to be a cheap: going purely on the price of blades for other models (the RM, for example) they seem to cost between £35 and £60. They do, however, look pretty solid, unlike the Indego and Automow (Flymo) variants.

Installation looks easier than most, too, since there's no return wire, and the docking station just sits on the perimeter wire. Now, when it comes to fault finding, I'm a big believer in using the return wire to test for breaks in specific sections (see The Perimeter Wire Revisited), but there's no reason that you can't use the perimeter wire loop instead, for small lawn areas.

One key drawback is that there's no anti-theft device fitted on the RX12 series, which will concern some people: especially as it doesn't seem to be locked to the base unit either, like some of the other brands, and doesn't need to be unlocked with a PIN, either.

Robotic Mower Alternatives

So, aside from building an Arduino based robotic lawn mower yourself (by the way, that's not a cheap option, which I'll explain in a future article), what are your alternatives?

It turns out that if you're willing to go with an older generation, admittedly bigger, bulkier (and uglier) than the little Robomow, for £100 more, you can get the Flymo 1200R.

Here's some advantages: the blades are cheaper to replace, there's a full anti-theft device (beeping, PIN codes and coded base station), it has a guide wire, so you can tell the mower to start at a specific place, and it can always find its way home, and it doesn't need 16 hours to charge.

In fact, our Gardena R40Li, which is the same machine, doesn't seem to need much time at all to recharge, and is almost constantly buzzing quietly around the lawn. Okay, so it's based on the Husqvarna Automower 105 style technology, but there's on big advantage that comes with it: Husqvarna invented the mass market robotic mower, and is still probably the market leader in Europe by some margin.

So, if you have a small, enclosed, secure lawn, go for the Robomow. Otherwise, that big orange robot represents a very good alternative, and at almost half price on Amazon may just be an opportunity that's too good to miss!

Robotic Lawn Mower Trends to 2020

Based on a recently commissioned report by Technavio (via Market Research Reports), the future for robotic lawn mowers looks bright.

Here are some headlines:

• Impressive double digit growth for the worldwide market;
• Market will pick up in the US, where sales have been sluggish;
• Next generation of mowers driven by improved safety and technological advances;
• As more enter the market, and challenge the incumbents prices will fall.

Read on to discover the movers and shakers of this exciting market, based on our own keyword based research commissioned from The Keyword Coach.

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Robotic Lawn Mower Brands

According to our research, the leading brands worldwide are:

• Husqvarna
• Worx / Landroid
• John Deere
• Bosh
• Honda
• Flymo
• Viking

Together these brands account for about 59% of all search traffic, with Husqvarna and Landroid leading the pack.

It's worth pointing out that Husqvarna is something of a pioneer in the marketplace, and has previously sued Worx for patent infringement (source: GreenIndustryPros.com) Meanwhile, they also manufactured for Flymo and Gardena -- or at least there is more than a passing resemblance between Husqvarna's mowers and the Flymo 1200R and Gardena R40Li models.

While Flymo has about 6% of the market, Gardena has less than 2%, based on the research conducted around search terms for robotic lawn mowers in the 12 months up to March 2017.

Robotic Lawn Mower Features

When it comes to features, most search users seem to be looking for the 'best' robotic mower.

This is backed up by the countless references to reviews, versus comparisons, and other phrases that indicate some kind of pitching brands against each other.

However, it's also worth noting that 12% of searchers were looking for mowers that don't rely on a perimeter wire to delimit the mowing area.

At the same time, there is interest in using solar power for robotic mowers, as well as those that are fitted with GPS. The latter interest might have been sparked by reports in the media of robot mower thefts.

While most results across UK/US/World followed a general trend, it is interesting that the UK seems more interested than the US in kit built mowers, and the US market seems more interested in GPS equipped mowers than any other specific feature (excluding 'best').

The Rise of DIY Robotic Lawn Mowers

An interesting result of the search analysis that wasn't expected was the number of searches using words associated with building your own robotic lawn mower:

• Arduino had the same popularity as Honda;
• Raspberry Pi has the same popularity as Gardena...
• ...as does "Open Source Robot Lawn Mowers"!

It seems that this sector has some interesting times ahead; for retail, kit, and DIY mowers that use advances in modern technology to make cutting your lawn easier, and greener, than every before.