The Post

Smokin’ hot outdoor gadgets for summer

Tests new hi-tech outdoor devices as summer nears.

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After the dark, cold and wet slog that is winter, evenings are warming up and getting lighter, my thoughts turn back to the great outdoors.

There are piles of gadgets designed for indoor use, but what about gear for the outside? I went in search of outdoors gear to make the most of the coming summer.

Green Mountain Grill

There’s nothing quite like scorching some meat on a warm summer evening.

At my place, barbecue cooking has a hi-tech twist in the form of the Daniel Boone Green Mountain Grill BBQ. It comes with an inbuilt wi-fi router. That’s right, the Daniel Boone is smartphone­controlled barbecue.

It will deliver exact temperatur­es and timings to cook meat to perfection. It’s made of steel plating and is on wheels but needs to be near a power outlet. Being steel, rust is an issue. If you intend on leaving it outdoors, buy a cover and wheel it out of the weather when not in use. While Kiwi barbecues use a flame and hotplate, the Daniel Boone uses indirect heat from burning wood pellets.

This is the preferred method of barbecue cooking in the southern states of the US where grilling is an art form. Burning wood pellets generate smoke. Different wood pellets impart different smoky accents onto whatever you’re cooking.

The effect is mouth-watering. Just make sure you have enough pellets before you start. The alarm to alert you that you’re running low is loud enough to raise the dead.

UE Megaboom

Logitech launched the weatherpro­of UE Boom a few years back. It’s a tough and reliable way of streaming audio from a phone over Bluetooth. They’re not cheap but they deliver a hell of a lot of audio bang for your buck. The UE Megaboom is an XXL-sized version of the original UE Boom. Logitech has decked it out with the All Blacks silver fern and a black finish. It has a rubber strip running its length which houses volume controls. Its rubber top has power and Bluetooth pairing buttons. On its underside is a D-Ring. This allows you to hang it from a nail next to the barbecue. It is shockproof and IPX7 rated, so the odd soaking won’t hurt it. Powering it up causes me to jump every time. Logitech has set the All Blacks haka as the start-up sound. Aside from large rubberised + and – buttons, the Megaboom doesn’t sport lots of controls.

Audio tweaks get carried out with the UE boom app (free for both iOS and Android) and you can pair two units for more sound. It won’t deafen you, but it handles the volume at full tilt well. Given its small form-factor, I was well surprised at the warm sound it produced. The Megaboom dishes out a surprising amount of bass, even at lower volumes.

Dog and Bone LockSmart Padlock

Keeping any gadgets outside is tempting fate. You could go oldschool and use a padlock, but the folks at Dog and Bone have an even better idea. They’ve done away with keys, replacing them with encrypted electronic keys sent over Bluetooth.

When I say the LockSmart is solid, I’m not kidding. It feels like it would survive a thermonucl­ear war.

It resembles an old-school padlock. About the only noticeable difference is the lack of a keyhole. On its underside is a silicon flap covering a charging port and a reset button. Installing the LockSmart app saw my phone scanning for locks. Once it found the LockSmart, it worked as advertised.

I could ping it with an unlock command and it sprung open. Magic! The LockSmart comes into its own when you need to share access to it. You could leave a key with a housesitte­r but they’d probably lose it. The LockSmart app lets you text a key to them and the LockSmart can record who unlocks it.

D-Link outdoor camera

Locking gadgets away is one thing but keeping an eye on them is another thing altogether. It just got that much easier thanks to D-Link’s DCS-2330L outdoor wi-fi camera.

It has a white plastic splash and dust-proof case.

That and its extra-long power supply cable means that it’s usable outdoors. It just needs to be within reach of wi-fi.

The DCS-2330L features 1MP sensor that can stream video at 1280 by 720. It will keep working after the sun goes down thanks to a 5 metre night vision range. A small antenna sits on its left.

There’s also a weatherpro­of power jack, plus an ethernet port and microSD slot on its rear.

Other features include email alerts if it detects motion. It can also be set up for scheduled recordings. You can also view the live video as well as record video onto to its SD card (not included).

False alarms can be a problem with some motion detectors. Not so with the DCS-2330L. With the web app, you can mark where you want it to look for movement.

There’s also a slider to adjust motion detection sensitivit­y.

During my testing, the DCS2330L delivered a crisp daytime video in full colour. Night vision is greyscaled.

Video footage captured within the 5m infrared range was also good and tweaking the motion detection settings also makes a big difference.

 ??  ?? The UE Megaboom is an XXL-sized version of the original UE Boom.
The UE Megaboom is an XXL-sized version of the original UE Boom.

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