Summer Gadgets to Take to the Beach

Some people don’t like using headphones, instead preferring to share their—usually questionable—taste in music with everyone. It’s a life choice, and there’s not much the rest of us can do about it. If subjecting the world to your music sounds reasonable, or you just want a means to retort with your own sounds, make sure your speakers are waterproof. And you don’t have to spend a fortune on that feature anymore. The AmazonBasics Waterproof Wireless Mini Speaker costs less than $20, but won’t work as well as something like the Drifter Action, which floats in the water and will really make you look like the type of person who wants to ruin everyone else’s day at the beach.

The beach is made of sand, and sand gets everywhere. Luckily there’s a way to fight back against nature: with beach furniture. Top of the list is the CGear Sand-Free Mat, a marvel in engineering that repels sand, leaving your food, books, phones, and bodily crevices clean and clear from the beach. For those who enjoy an ice-cold beverage by the sea, there’s also the SandStand, a table that keeps your drinks above sand level.

Coolers have always been reasonably smart, keeping your food and drink cold in the scorching beach weather. But in recent times they got smarter, and can charge your phone, play music, and even transform into a table. If you want to spend $600, the Sovaro Luxury Cooler is an option, but there are cheaper alternatives.

If you go to the beach and don’t take a selfie, did you even really go? The answer in this Instagrammable age is, of course, no. So it’s a good thing there are so many selfie options out there. Holding your phone away from your face and snapping is almost antiquated now we have selfie sticks and even drones helping us get that perfect vanity shot. If you want to take your selfie to the next level while introducing a buzzing noise to the beach that may alarm any bee-fearing beachgoers, try the Hover Camera Passport, a drone that follows you around and takes photos of you using facial recognition technology. If that’s too techy, there’s always the trusty selfie stick.

Anyone going to the beach should seriously consider investing in anything they need to minimize the risk of skin cancer. Besides the obvious of applying sunscreen and wearing a T-shirt, there are a few gadgets that can also help in this respect. One is a UV monitor, which will alert you when you’ve reached the recommended limit of safe UV exposure. The other is Sunscreenr, a tiny UV camera that you can point at your body to reveal which parts of you are not covered with sunscreen.

Sitting on the sand can be very relaxing, but for many people the attraction of a day at the beach is in the water. You can find aqua masks with lights and cameras attached to document your underwater adventures, and if you’re fascinated with the sea but don’t want to get your feet wet, an underwater drone may be ideal. But be warned: they don’t come cheap, and if the batteries die while they’re underwater, they could quickly become the world’s most expensive fish food.

The last thing you want at the beach is a dead phone battery. Many of us need our phones for our downtime and being next to the sea shouldn’t change that. Taking photos and reading e-books can quickly drain your battery, so it’s best to have a backup. There are countless options for portable power banks for your phone, but one of the cheapest and conveniently sized is the Anker PowerCore 5000.