Best Swimming Pool Accessories to Upgrade Summer (205)

Pools are difficult. This isn't news to anyone who owns one, but an inordinate amount of work and daily chores lie behind that clear, sparkling, perfectly chlorinated (or salty) water.

Luckily, pool technology has come a long way in the last decade: gone are the hours spent scooping leaves and dead bugs from the water with a long-handled net, working on pH strips, and trying to relax on floats too small for your adult-sized behind. We now have robots that clean your pool, apps that monitor water quality from your phone, and even a slushy machine for good margins at a pool party.

With gas and plane ticket prices reaching astronomical levels, there's never been a better time to vacation in your own pool. (If you don't have a pool, you can always rent one nearby on Swimply.) My colleague Chris Null has a 12-by-36-foot in-ground L-shaped pool lined with PebbleTec, and I have a 20-by-12-foot above-ground pool lined with vinyl. Between the two of us, we've tried just about everything, so whether you have a custom in-ground complex or an Intex pop-up from Walmart, these time- and life-tested favorites are sure to up your backyard pool game.

For more garden tech, check out our guides to the best pool cleaning robots, the best smart sprinklers and irrigation systems, the best robotic lawn mowers, and the best smart bird feeders.

For people tired of skimming leaves

As someone who has manually fished leaves and dead bees from their pool with a net for years, I can attest to the usefulness of an automatic skimmer. It's not cheap, but if you have a large pool that doesn't have a wall-mounted skimmer system, a robotic skimmer is a must, and it's the one that pool cleaning robot reviewer Chris Null prefers. It's solar-powered, so you never need to take it out to recharge, and it has sensors that help it avoid damage from hitting your pool walls. Read the full rundown in our guide to the best pool cleaning robots.

For outsourcing water quality tasks

Cleaning up debris is only part of regular pool maintenance. It is equally, if not more, important to maintain the balance of chemicals. If things go bad for even a few days, you can end up with an algae-infested green mess that can be a major challenge to resolve. Test strips and kits have long been standard, but they are difficult to use and only give you a snapshot of your pool chemistry at a specific time. Smart technology offers a much more elegant solution, allowing you to keep an eye on chemistry in real time and alert you if anything is wrong. Of the handful of smart pool chemistry monitors I've tested, I like Iopool's EcO Start the best.

This floating gadget monitors temperature, pH and ORP (a substitute for free chlorine), giving you an accurate picture of your pool's sanitizing capabilities, automatically updated every 15 minutes. While many chemistry monitors require (fairly expensive) replaceable supplies and regular battery replacements to operate, Iopool's solution is solid-state and requires no maintenance except for storing it out of the pool during the winter months. I used mine for two full swimming seasons until it died (at which point it needs to be replaced) - and I love it so much that I just dropped its successor in the water for the summer. —Chris Null

To float with a drink

When our first 90 degree Fahrenheit day showed up in the forecast last month, I immediately started looking for a floating beverage cooler that had a canopy to block the sun and wouldn't cost a fortune, and ended up purchasing this Funboy on Amazon. It can easily handle a six-pack of cans on an ice raft, the canopy is removable, and there's a cup holder on each side so you and your friend can push it back and forth between your floats. The striped pattern with the fringe is very Saint-Tropez (or '80s pool umbrella, depending on your age and resort), and I ended up loving the vibe so much that I've since added its companion, matching pool rings, available in 16 colors on Funboy's site or six on Amazon. I've had the rings in my pool for a few weeks now, in direct sunlight, and although I wish they had handles for easier putting on and taking off, they have held up very well. The 48-inch size is large enough for most adult butts and also comes with the required cup holder. However, note that the cup holder design is shallow, so if you're using thin cans like hard seltzer or Celsius, you may want to stick with the more forgiving cabana bar holders.

For Cannonball soundtracks

No pool party is complete without a few tunes, and this is our favorite Bluetooth speaker, billed by JBL as "life-proof." As an owner myself, I can confirm that they mean it. Our family's long-suffering Flip 7 has been rained out, splashed with water, strapped to the back of my son's mountain bike while he did jumps, and survived all sorts of falls and other mishaps. It's fully waterproof and IP68 rated, so you don't even have to worry if it falls into the pool. I haven't tested this, but JBL says it can survive submerged in about 5 feet of water for 30 minutes.

To never vacuum again

WIRED reviewer Chris Null has been testing pool cleaning robots for four years, and this one from Beatbot, he says, is the best he's tried. Not only does it excel at prescribed cleaning tasks, but it also has a phenomenal battery charge in six hours, and it has AI-powered debris detection and a great app. It can also skim the surface of your pool if necessary and, best of all, it floats when finished, so you don't need to retrieve it from the bottom of the pool. (Which is good, he says, because it's quite heavy.)

To win water fights

If your household or neighborhood engages in real water fights, you need a top-of-the-line water weapon, and nothing hits like a Spyra. Literally, this thing is strong enough to damage cans. My son received the SpyraTwo ($200) as a gift a few years ago, and he found it fun for target practice, even when there wasn't a water fight going on. I like that it draws water automatically, so you don't have to worry about a difficult refill. The SpyraFour is the latest version of Spyra, which offers a more detailed screen and special game modes like Ultra Rapid Fire and Scattershot. In fact, Martin Cizmar, WIRED's chief business officer, called it the new best water gun ever made.

For Peak Margarita Szn

You haven't really celebrated poolside until you've languished in your floatie on a hot day with an ice-cold margarita. Or a cup of frosé, frozen lemonade, or just about anything you can think of – it'll probably turn into one of our favorite slushy makers. Drinks high in sugar work best, but you can even make diet drinks by adding allulose. If you want to keep two glasses at a time, Ninja just released a dual tank version, which WIRED reviewer Matthew Korfhage is currently testing. It can automatically adjust temperatures to ensure that even drinks of different consistencies are ready at the same time.

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