Best Deals on Grills and Outdoor Essentials

This CR Recommended sunscreen is above average for UVA protection and SPF, and it’s water-resistant for up to 80 minutes. Just note that with spray sunscreens, it can be harder to know if you’re getting even coverage, so CR suggests spraying the sunscreen into your hands and then applying it to your body to help ensure better coverage.

This Neutrogena spray is very good in overall performance across the board, with excellent UVA protection and very good protection from sunburn-producing rays. It does not meet its labeled SPF 50 in CR’s tests, but the protection is still adequate. It has a moderately strong tropical, fruity aroma and leaves a slightly greasy film and a notable sheen on the skin.

This Eucerin Advanced Hydration SPF 50 spray is a solid performer with broad-spectrum protection. Its tested SPF comes close to its labeled SPF 50. Like the sunscreen above, it also has that plastic fragrance-free aroma, and it left a slightly draggy film on testers’ skin.

The Kamado Joe Classic is $100 more than its best price. This is our top-rated ceramic kamado, and it comes packed with features, including a few that make it a stellar smoker. It has an elevated rack and comes with a heat deflector for smoking meats, both of which allow you to easily slow-cook, say, a brisket, without drying it out. It also has adjustable dampers and a locking lid, which help control the flow of air so that you can maintain a low and slow smoke for hours on end. It excelled at slow-cooking a pork shoulder in our tests, as well as at cooking a thin-crust pizza over high heat.

This high-end midsized Fuego F27S grill hits almost every mark, and the price has dropped $125 since the start of the month. It rates very good at producing even heat, preheating quickly, offering a wide range of high and low temperatures, and creating indirect heat. It’s less likely than many other models to flare up. Notable features include recessed folding shelves and burners with a long warranty. (They’re the parts that are replaced the most.) An unimpressive rating for convenience is one of its few blemishes.

ThermoPro’s SmartBT Meat Thermometer TP920 is one of the lower-priced leave-in two-probe wireless thermometers. It sends instant temperature readings to your smartphone via Bluetooth, offering excellent response time and accuracy. The easy-to-use app estimates the remaining cooking time for nearly all cuts and varieties of meat based on guidelines from the Department of Agriculture.

The Meater+ meat thermometer is one of the most reliable digital thermometers. It’s easy to use, and given its top-notch accuracy, you won’t need guesswork to determine the doneness of brisket and other fleshy delights. It’s shaped like a thick ink pen with dual sensors—one for internal temperature and one for ambient temperature—and its size makes it better suited to girthier cuts. The Meater+ transmits temperature readings wirelessly to the companion smartphone app.

NYC Plant Doctor Christopher Satch, who’s a professor of plant biology and pathology at The New York Botanical Garden, always starts with insecticidal soap when faced with unwelcome visitors in his garden. “It’s superior to neem [oil] in that it not only has a greater efficacy at killing insects due to its mode of action but also doesn’t hurt the plant like neem oil can,” Satch says. “Neem oil suffocates the plant over time by the oil clogging the plant pores.”

Satch recommends this insecticidal soap from Bonide, which can be used on shrubs, trees, flowers, ornamental greens, and garden vegetables.

The Lerekam Solar Spot Lights are among the priciest outdoor ones, but you get unrivaled performance. Our testers were impressed by the duration of their light and ease of use. They can be angled, installed with ground spikes (included), or screwed to other surfaces. They have an on/off button and can be recharged with a USB cable (also included). Each of the lights in the six-pack has 40 LEDs, resulting in intense white light that shines wide over an area, not unlike a flashlight. That makes them ideal as spotlights. They’d be great for drawing attention to a water feature or an ornamental tree, but they can also be pointed down to illuminate a path or walkway.

The Makita XRU23SM1 aces nearly all of our performance tests with the exception of ease of use, though it still earns average marks there. This model gets excellent scores for battery run time, too. It weighs just over 7 pounds, making it exceptionally light and easy to carry, and it has a cutting width of 13 inches. Makita electric string trimmers achieved first-rate scores for predicted reliability and owner satisfaction in CR’s member surveys. The tool is part of Makita’s 18-volt battery platform, which means it can share batteries with Makita’s highly rated cordless drill and impact driver.

The Ego LB7654 delivers all-star performance across the board, adept at loosening and sweeping, all in an easy-to-handle package despite weighing 9.9 pounds. In addition, this electric blower comes with a generous five-year warranty. As a brand, Ego battery handheld leaf blowers are very reliable and earn a top mark for owner satisfaction in our latest member surveys.

The Ecovacs Goat O1000 RTK got top marks in all grass-cutting tasks. This model included safety features similar to those of other models, including a security code, a lift sensor, and blades that stop immediately. But testers found the mower’s outer shell to be less durable than those of other mowers. The mower can handle lawns under a quarter-acre, according to the manufacturer.

The 42-inch Toro eTimeCutter 75841 turns in top-notch ratings for side discharging, mulching, cutting evenness, and handling, which is what you’d expect from the most expensive battery riding mower in our ratings. It also achieves above-average run time and is one of the quieter mowers in our ratings, so it’s less likely to disturb distant neighbors. The four 60V Max batteries from Toro’s Flex-Force platform that it runs on are interchangeable with dozens of other power tools from the brand, with a run time that allows you to cut up to 1.6 acres per charge on average. You can engage cruise control for a ride that should be decently comfortable, thanks to its high-back seat and neat integrations, like a cup holder.

The DeWalt DWPW2600 is a lightweight pressure washer (23 pounds) with a rectangular shape and low profile, which helps prevent it from toppling over when in use. It offers excellent cleaning, though it’s a bit noisier and has less power (2,600 pounds per square inch) than some other models on this list. It has five replaceable nozzle tips, a soap dispenser bottle, a 25-foot hose, and a 35-foot power cord. The pressure washer can be stored horizontally or vertically on its durable frame.

Despite generating a relatively low 1,800 pounds per square inch of pressure, the lower-priced Greenworks PW18HYB does a very good job of cleaning. It’s relatively light and easy to use and transport, and is quiet. It comes with four replaceable nozzle tips and an onboard soap tank. Two other Greenworks pressure washers, the GPW2301 and GPW3001, are also worth considering. Both perform similarly for cleaning, have five replaceable nozzle tips, and come with onboard soap tanks. The GPW2301 model has a bit less power, while the GPW3001 has a relatively low, flat design and more power. All three models have a 35-foot power cord and a 25-foot hose.

This battery-powered chainsaw is among the best in our ratings. It effortlessly cuts through hardwood and is comfortable to operate during extended tasks. Thanks to a kickback guard and chain brake, it scored well for safety. It was also easy to use and very easy to maneuver, and it did a bit better for noise than most models.

The leaner Troy-Bilt TB4214 has a relatively short 14-inch cutting bar and weighs in at a mere 12 pounds. It’s a well-rounded tool that’s perfectly suited to the kind of lighter-duty clearing you might need to perform if a limb fell in your yard. It’s not the tool you want for a big downed tree—the cutting bar is just too short. It earns strong marks in all of our key performance tests and top marks for safety. Like several other brands, Troy-Bilt gas saws have middling scores for predicted reliability. This model comes with a two-year warranty.

The 13-pound Cat DG630 earns top marks for cutting speed, handling, and safety, and it is relatively easy to use. It features a 16-inch bar, a chain brake, a tool-free chain adjuster, and a translucent oil tank that allows for easy visual confirmation of when it needs to be refilled. This model comes with a single 2.5Ah battery and a charger, and a five-year warranty.

This bag fits five beach towels, one water bottle, two bottles of sunscreen, a hardcover book, four small packs of pretzels, and sunglasses. The Simple Modern beach bag is made of soft EVA material and has the thickest hand straps of all the bags we tested. The handles folded backward and forward easily and never got twisted.

The Sun Ninja Beach Canopy is back down to its best price. Of the canopies we tested, it offered the most consistent shade and held its own in the wind. The poles didn’t tilt, and the canopy simply swayed with the breeze, but this didn’t affect shade coverage.

The Grand Patio umbrella usually costs $350, but the on-page coupon puts it just about $20 above its lowest price. This umbrella got above-average scores in CR’s tests for ease of use and assembly, but it’s a little less rigid than higher-scoring models.

Who says you have to drop hundreds on a trendy freestanding pizza oven to make a perfect pie? If you own a grill, all you need is an attachment like this one from BakerStone. Throw it right onto the grates of your grill. The grill provides the heat, and while we didn’t try this grill-compatible model, we did try the BakerStone with a dedicated gas burner and found we got great results.

At the very top of our ratings, the stainless steel Cuisinart Cleanburn Fire Pit burned beautifully regardless of how large a fire we built in it. It’s also fast to light and burns wood more thoroughly than any other model, resulting in less smoke and less waste. Cleaning is simple, too—the ash collects at the center, in part because of its rounded shape, and falls into a dedicated tray that you can remove easily. Its especially deep design holds more wood than some other options, making this model a great pick for larger fires fit for a crowd.