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5 of the best pool gadgets

Water won’t mess up this collection of tech gear, so it’s perfect for the poolside

Dan Grabham Dan Grabham

Planning on doing some swimming (and poolside lounging) this summer? Here are five aqua-friendly products you should pack along with your Speedos.

Panasonic Eluga

£369 SIM free, Panasonic

Smartphones are rarely waterproof unless you kit them out with a special case, but Panasonic has built the Android-powered, 7.8mm thin Eluga with H2O in mind: you can submerge it in up to a metre of water for up to 30 minutes. Don’t take it to the bottom of the deep end for a bit of underwater texting, then – but if you want to yak to your mum while doing the doggy paddle, this is the phone for you.

ION Water Rocker

£89.99, ION Audio

The Water Rocker can’t be relied upon to match the B&W Zeppelin Air on the performance front – but you just try dunking your Zep in the pool and then asking it to blast out “Orinoco Flow”. The Water Rocker’s speaker floats on the surface while the docking station and your iPhone sit safe and dry up to 100 feet away. Got a particularly big swimming pool? No probs: you can connect up to 10 speakers to one transmitter.

Panasonic HX-WA20

£299, Panasonic

If you want to make like Jacques Cousteau and film the depths of your pool, Panasonic’s pistol-grip HX-WA20 mini camcorder is your idea diving partner. It captures smooth 1080p footage with faithful colours, even underwater, and you can also snap stills while filming.

OverBoard phone case

£22.49, OverBoard

If you don’t fancy shelling out for a brand new waterproof phone like the Eluga, you can imbue your current touchscreen mobile with aqua-shrugging properties by slipping it into this case. Submersible to 6 metres, it lets you use the touchscreen – and even make calls and send texts – from in the pool (or sea for that matter).

Waterproof playing cards

£7.49, Amazon

Not a gadget, no – but when the batteries on your tech products become depleted these babies will come in useful for a spot of poolside poker, blackjack or whist. Plastic and, for some reason, transparent (don’t worry, you can’t see the actual card type from the back), they’ll last you years.

Profile image of Dan Grabham Dan Grabham Editor-in-Chief

About

Dan is Editor-in-chief of Stuff, working across the magazine and the Stuff.tv website.  Our Editor-in-Chief is a regular at tech shows such as CES in Las Vegas, IFA in Berlin and Mobile World Congress in Barcelona as well as at other launches and events. He has been a CES Innovation Awards judge. Dan is completely platform agnostic and very at home using and writing about Windows, macOS, Android and iOS/iPadOS plus lots and lots of gadgets including audio and smart home gear, laptops and smartphones. He's also been interviewed and quoted in a wide variety of places including The Sun, BBC World Service, BBC News Online, BBC Radio 5Live, BBC Radio 4, Sky News Radio and BBC Local Radio.

Areas of expertise

Computing, mobile, audio, smart home