Best Deals on Grills and Outdoor Essentials

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 slight draggy film on testers’ skin.

This CR Recommended sunscreen is more than 30 percent off right now. It’s 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.

The Kamado Joe Classic is on sale for the first time in well over a year, and Amazon and Ace Hardware both dropped their prices by over $100, making this an opportune time to hit that buy button. It’s our top-rated ceramic kamado and 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, helping it earn a rating of Excellent for cooking performance.

At the 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.

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.

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.

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.

It’s hard to contend with the value offered by the Gigalumi Grid Solar Pathway Lights, especially at this new low price. Their cost is lower (on a per-light basis) than just about any other path light we’ve seen, and yet they earn solid marks for both light duration and ease of use. The light cast comes from a single LED in each of the lights—casting a dimmer glow than the other products we tested.

That may not be a dealbreaker if you’ve got supplemental lighting elsewhere or if you’re using these strictly to create ambience. There’s a single setting, an on/off button, and a removable battery, but the lights can’t be charged or angled.

The Lerekam Solar Spot Lights are among the priciest outdoor ones, but you get unrivaled performance. In our tests, they earned top marks for light duration 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 Milwaukee 3016-21ST gets top marks for trimming and edging, and it handles tall grass and weeds impressively. It’s also versatile because it can handle different attachments, meaning you can swap out the string trimmer head for other tools, like a pole saw or hedge trimmer. This model gets midrange scores for ease of use (typical of most battery trimmers in our tests), and our testers found the handle difficult to adjust. At more than 12 pounds, it’s also one of the heaviest battery-operated models in our ratings. But the Milwaukee 3016-21ST gets excellent scores for reliability and owner satisfaction. It’s part of Milwaukee’s M18 battery platform of power tools.

The Makita XUX02SM1X1 has a 13-inch cutting swath and gets excellent marks for trimming, edging, and tackling tall grass and weeds. It gets a very good score for handling, but only a midrange score for battery run time. It’s a bit heavier, weighing just over 10 pounds. The Makita XUX02SM1X1 is also part of Makita’s 18-volt battery platform. For most users, the model above is the better bet, but it’s not always in stock—plus the prices for each model can fluctuate.

The Ego LB7654, now $50 less than it was last week at Amazon, 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.

If you want a battery-powered leaf blower that can handle some tough jobs, the Ego LB6504 is a great choice. Plus, the 56-volt battery that comes with this model can power other Ego power tools, like string trimmers, chainsaws, and lawn mowers. This deal is about 20 percent off the regular price, which is decent.

Your neighbors will thank you for using an Ego LM2135 because it’s very quiet at 25 feet away and at the ear of the user. While this unit is often a bit expensive as far as push mowers go, its performance rates high for mulching, cut evenness, and handling. It also earns nearly as impressive ratings in bagging and side discharging. Run time is as long as 50 minutes, enough to cover about a quarter of an acre in one go. What’s more, the battery can be fully charged in just over an hour.

This Greenworks pressure washer gets solid ratings in CR’s tests, especially when it comes to ease of use, where it got top marks. It also scored above average for cleaning and noise. It gets a middling score for power. Our testers also noted that it has a manual trigger lock, a small spray angle, and a shorter hose than most models, all of which are less than ideal. On the flip side, we found that it’s very effective at removing stains, and it’s easy to move and operate.

The Ego HPW3204-2 does a very good job of cleaning and delivers a satisfying amount of power (a maximum of 3,200 pounds per square inch at 1.2 gallons per minute). The company claims there’s up to 60 minutes of run time on a single charge with two 6.0Ah ARC lithium batteries (included). But online users report much shorter run times. (CR doesn’t currently test that attribute of battery-powered pressure washers.) The handheld pressure control allows you to select the different modes—Eco, High, or Turbo—and you can check the battery charge status using a display built into the wand.

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.

Despite its relatively low price, this 40-volt battery-powered chainsaw from Skil earned high marks for cutting and a top score for safety. It also did well in handling and ease of use.

Despite its relatively low price, this 40-volt battery-powered chainsaw from Skil earned high marks for cutting and a top score for safety. It also did well in handling and ease of use. This model was selling for $149 last week at a few retailers, including Amazon and Lowe’s.

We tested the Ephesus Turkish Beach Towel for sand resistance in four different assessments—two times with dry sand while the towel was dry and two times with dry sand while the towel was wet. This towel impressed us each and every time with its superior ability to repel sand. Our scale detected either 0 ounces of sand left on the towel or 0.1 ounces—and when our testers ran their hand across the towel, they couldn’t feel or see any leftover sand. 

During the water test, two interesting things happened. The first: Its Turkish cotton material seemed desperate to repel water—droplets stayed suspended on the areas of the towel where the evaluator poured ocean water and the towel didn’t readily absorb the water. They made the second discovery after submerging the towel in a tub of water: It was the first of the eight towels we evaluated to dry completely, in about four hours.

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.