In 2020, Flymo launched a brand-new army of robot mowers (if you can call 3 an army). But what is different about the new Easilife mowers compared to their established 1200R model that has been a top seller in the UK over recent years?
To put it simply, the Easilife mowers are smarter. The Easilife app allows you to have better control over your Flymo, whilst the onboard sensors allow it to account for weather, frost, and grass condition when scheduling its mowing.
But there are also lots of subtle upgrades, below is a comparison chart detailing these, followed by an in-depth review of the key similarities and differences.
• Onboard sensors account for weather, frost and grass condition when scheduling. • Control from an app via Bluetooth connection. • Better value for small and medium sized lawns.
• Similar cutting blades and overall mowing performance. • Better value for larger lawns (up to 400sqm). • Only controlled from on-board control panel.
Note: For the most-part, the Easilife 200, 350, and 500 are similar in features but designed for different lawn sizes, I’ll briefly run through the differences between them at the very end.
Key Specs Comparison Chart
This chart will give you a quick overview of the key specs that make each model different:
Now that you’ve had a quick glance through the comparison chart, here is an explanation of what these specs mean for day-to-day operation of the mowers.
Key Similarities
As for the basic features that you’d expect from a robot mower, the 1200R and Easilife range have a number of things in common:
Three spinning blades that mulch the grass. Cutting height of 20-50mm.
Both the Flymo Easilife and 1200R mowers are quite similar under the hood. They each have three rotating blades that use a process called mulching that cuts the grass in to tiny pieces that fall into the soil. All the mowers have a cutting height between 20-50mm which can be adjusted with the dial under the lid.
Set cutting schedules to suit your needs using the onboard keypad. Both the 1200R and the new Easilife models have the ability to set cutting schedules. This can be done under the hood using the onboard screen and keypad. The keypad has had a slight update in terms of layout (with less buttons on the newer Easilife) but the screen is an almost identical monochrome LCD display.
We were quite surprised that the screen and control panel didn’t get an upgrade considering the new range was launched over half a decade later than the 1200R, but it seems like the old saying ‘why fix what’s not broken’ was at play.
PIN code to prevent theft. Robot mowers could easily be lifted and stolen if you don’t have a fenced garden. Luckily, Flymo have included a PIN code o both the older 1200R and the newer Easilife models to prevent any unauthorised use. The PIN code needs to be entered if the mower is lifted before it can be used again.
Boundary wire is required around your lawns perimeter. All of the Flymo robot mowers require a boundary cable to be laid around the edge of the lawn, this must be in a complete circuit and connected to the base until which provides the power. The cable can be laid on top of the lawn where the grass will eventually cover it, or you can bury it just below the surface.
The mowers use this to detect the edges and find their way back to the base unit. At the time of writing, there are no decent robot lawn mowers that don’t have a boundary cable.
Key Differences
Now that we’ve covered the similarities, it’s time to take a look at the changes that Flymo made to the Easilife that make them better than the 1200R:
More choice and larger lawn coverage with the Easilife, although a narrower cutting width.
The first thing you’ll notice about the Easilife range is that there are 3 products to choose from, Easilife 200, 350 and 500, compared to just the 1200R in the old range. The benefit of this is that you don’t have to splash out the higher price point if you only have a tiny lawn as the Easilife 200 is much cheaper.
The highest spec model, the Easilife 500 can cover up to 500sqm which is an increase on the maximum of 400sqm in the Flymo 1200R.
One downside of the Easilife range is that they have a slightly narrower cutting width at 160mm compared to the 1200R’s 170mm width. This just means it takes slightly longer to cut the same lawn, but the difference is negligible.
The Easilife mowers are better at slopped gardens than the 1200R.
Initially the Easilife and 1200R mowers look quite similar. But if you place them side by side, you’ll see a few slight changes which are aimed at improving performance.
One such change is that the wheels on the Easilife are bulkier and have a better thread. The resulting benefit of this is that the Easilife mowers can sustain a gradient up to 35% compared to the 1200R which was limited to 25%. This makes them much better for steeper lawns.
Easilife mowers have an app for simpler setup and management.
One of our favourite features of the Easilife mowers (and probably the main reason why Flymo opted for a new range) is the app control. It’s a direction we’re seeing many of the main robot mower brands taking so Flymo’s hand was perhaps forced.
The app gives you the ability to set your lawn size, create schedules and start/stop/send home the mower. All these functions are also available via the onboard control panel if needed.
One downside of the app is that it will only connect to the mower via Bluetooth. This means you must be in range of the mower in order to use it. Some other brands such as WORX have opted for a WiFi connection and Bosch has a cellular connection which allow them to be controlled from anywhere.
The Easilife range has introduced LawnSense, FrostSense and PassageSense. What are these I hear you asking? Here’s a brief description of each:
LawnSense: This allows the Easilife mowers to create cutting schedules that take the weather and growing conditions into account. For example, it may reduce the frequency of cutting when the grass isn’t growing particularly fast in order to prevent overuse. The Easilife range is suitable for cutting in the rain, however it doesn’t give the best finish so the scheduling will try to avoid this.
FrostSense: This uses an onboard temperature sensor to detect when the lawn might be frosted over and again it will influence the cutting schedule.
PassageSense: This is technology that allows the mower to better navigate through narrow passages. It’s helpful if you have two large areas of grass that are connected via a grass passage, but you will still need boundary wire around the whole lawn, including the passage.
The Easilife mowers are better at multiple lawns than the 1200R
The 1200R was able to cut multiple lawns, however it needed to have boundary wire around the second lawn. This isn’t so bad until you factor in that the boundary wire on lawn one and two had to be connected.
The Easilife range makes advances on this with the ‘second area’ feature. This allows you to place the mower on another patch of grass and set it to cut without the need to set up any boundary cables. It will keep mowing until the charge is low and will sound an alarm when it’s ready to be moved back to the main area.
You will of course need to be cautious of any flower beds or ledges that the mower might not detect with the onboard sensors.
Easier to clean With the Easilife range, Flymo have added an IPX5 certification for the mower itself. This means it can sustain water from a low-pressure jet spray and means you can use a hose when cleaning the product. Note that the charger is IPX4 so avoid using the hose on this.
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Summary
Top Pick: Flymo Easilife
• Onboard sensors account for weather, frost and grass condition when scheduling. • Control from an app via Bluetooth connection. • Better value for small and medium sized lawns.
• Similar cutting blades and overall mowing performance. • Better value for larger lawns (up to 400sqm). • Only controlled from on-board control panel.
Now we’ve established that the Easilife is clearly the best robot mower, you’ll need to choose which model would be most suitable for you. The difference between these is much simpler to understand with lawn area being the key factor. Here is a brief summary of each:
Easilife 200
The lowest spec mower in the range is the Easilife 200, which is also the cheapest. It’s capable of mowing lawns up to 200sqm (equivalent to 0.05 acres) and comes with 100m of boundary cable and 150 pegs to keep it in place. It has a 160mm cutting width and a cutting height of 20-50mm.
The mid-tier mower is the Easilife 350. This can cover lawns up to 350sqm which is 75% more than the Easilife 200. It comes with 150mm of boundary cable and 200 pegs. Cutting width and height are the same as the other two Easilife models.
The final product in the range is the Easilife 500, this has a greater lawn area than the Easilife 350, managing up to 500sqm which is enough for most small to medium sized gardens. Again the cutting width and height are identical to the other models.
I have been building up my smart home since 2016 so I'm a bit of a smart home expert by now. On this blog, I share my favourite smart home devices that I've tested along with tips and tricks I learn by watching countless YouTube videos, scrolling through forums, and tinkering around with my own smart devices. I've always been a Google Home user but I'm starting to think Alexa might have the edge, what do you think?
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