While most technology lives inside the house, there are plenty of cool gadgets you can use outdoors. Some of these devices are practical, designed to make it easier to clean your grill or gutters. Others are more leisure-focused, aimed at bringing the comforts of home outside. Whether you have a big backyard or a tiny fire escape, it's not hard to find a gadget that makes it even easier to enjoy the great outdoors.

Kick-Back Cleaning
Before you can fully get in touch with nature, there will undoubtedly be some chores to take care of. Luckily, there are plenty of gadgets out there that can do the work for you.

Hate cleaning gutters? That's where iRobot's Looj 330 comes in. The Looj is a gutter cleaning robot that uses a high-velocity, four-stage auger to blast away leaves, dirt, and clogs while brushing your gutters clean. Better yet, it does so automatically. Once you've placed it in the gutter, the Looj travels down on its own, sensing and adapting to debris to provide the most effective cleaning. It's waterproof in up to 8 inches of water, easily cleanable with a hose, and can travel under gutter straps and over downspout holes, so it should be able to tackle just about any mess.

Want the nicest lawn on the block without lifting a finger? No need to hire a team of gardeners—just pick up the Robomow RS622. It's a robotic lawn mower designed to handle any terrain without a hiccup. It's completely weatherproof, so you can leave it outside year-round, and an automatic rain sensor will tell you if it's too wet to mow the lawn. You can program the unit to schedule how often it should work, and you can even control the action yourself with a companion app for Android and iOS devices—not that you need to, since the robot is designed to take care of your whole lawn automatically, from the perimeter in.

The pool is another space you'll want to keep well maintained. But put down the skimmer. The Polaris 9550 Sport is a well-priced robotic pool cleaner that does an excellent job of removing debris from the bottom and sides of your in-ground pool. It uses a four-wheel drive system to traverse your pool bottom and climb its walls to clean the sides and waterline, while two scrubbers on its front end work to dislodge debris. Dirt, acorns, and other debris are trapped inside the canister, which uses a fine mesh screen to filter the water before sending it back into the pool via the water jet on the back of the robot. And an innovative Lift System makes it easy to remove the robot from the pool when the cleaning cycle is complete.

Bringing the Comforts of Home Outside
If the beauty of nature alone isn't enough to relax you, perhaps a big screen HDTV would help? The SunBriteTV Pro Series Direct-Sun Outdoor TV SB-4217HD is built to withstand rain, wind, sleet, snow, and bugs, making them ideal for backyard use. The 42-inch television can handle temperatures as hot as 122 degrees Fahrenheit and as low as -40. The screen has a semi-gloss coating that does a great job of eliminating glare without too much reflection, and incorporates Enhanced Solar Tolerance (EST) technology to prevent isotropic blackout, a condition which occurs when LCD cells become too hot and remain in the off position, creating black spots on the screen.So if you're looking to bring stunning high-definition TV and video to your deck or patio, it's worth checking out.

If all you need is a little background music, you're still covered. The Divoom Voombox Party is a portable Bluetooth speaker that does an excellent job balancing sound quality with functionality in an outdoor-friendly, rugged design. It features two stereo drivers and an active, dedicated bass driver, which is rare in a portable speaker. The Voombox is one of the more powerful speakers of its size we've tested, and its metallic-and-rubberized contour is built to withstand water splashes, and is shock-resistant, so you can use it out by the pool.

Neighborhood Watch
Indoor security systems are nice, but don't you want to know what's going on outside your front door as well? Installing a home surveillance system outdoors is easier than ever thanks to the proliferation of Wi-Fi cameras, but most of these still require an AC power source, which limits where you can place them. The weatherproof Netgear Arlo Security System, on the other hand, is a completely wire-free home surveillance camera system that uses a pair of palm-sized, battery-powered cameras and a base station. This lets you place cameras pretty much anywhere, from which you can track motion in

If ground surveillance isn't enough, how about your very own drone to monitor your property from above? Okay, I wouldn't actually rely on the DJI Phantom 3 Professional for round-the-clock aerial security, but it's the best drone we've tested, and can deliver some impressive footage of your entire neighborhood. It takes the ease of use of DJI's previous quadcopters, and refines just about every aspect of operation. The video quality in particular is a huge step up—you can record 4K footage to a memory card and stream 720p clips to YouTube.

And if you have dogs that roam outdoors, you probably want to keep track of them, too. That's where the Whistle Activity Monitor comes in. The Whistle is basically a Fitbit for your pet. It's a small, lightweight device that attaches to your dog's collar so you can track its daily activity and long-term health trends through an app on your phone. You can even compare your dog's activity with similar pups, and set daily goals based on your dog's age, breed, and weight.

Work Up an App-etite
And while barbecuing is great, there's nothing fun about cleaning up. Thankfully, you can leave the heavy duty brush behind and pick up a Grillbot. The Grillbot is essentially a Roomba for your barbecue. Simply place it on a dirty grill, turn it on, and it will automatically get down to business. It features three electric motors that power its wire brushes and propel it across your grill. A chip inside controls movement, speed, and direction of the brushes. You don't even need to stick around until the job is done—the Grillbot will sound an alarm to let you know it's finished.

If you're using propane, few things can put a damper on a summertime cookout quite like an empty tank of gas. Many grills come with a built-in gas gauge, but in my experience, those are also the first part to stop working. Quirky is helping make sure you'll never run out of gas again with the Refuel, a connected propane gauge that can send updates on the status of your gas tank straight to your smartphone.

What's a barbecue without the beverages? The IcyBreeze Portable Air Conditioner and Cooler looks like a standard cooler you'd pack full of drinks and sandwiches and wheel onto the beach. And it is, but it's also an air conditioner. That's right, an air conditioner. Using a fan and the chilled air inside the cooler, it can blow a constant breeze of cool air up to 25mph at up to 35 degrees below the outside temperature. And it has a rechargeable battery, so you can stay cool whether you're on the beach, camping, or tailgating. We've come a long way from the misting fan.

It's Raining Gadgets
If the local weather report doesn't quite cut it for you, you might want to take a look at the Ambient Weather WS-1001-WIFI Observer. The Observer gathers an incredible amount of weather data and can hook into the Weather Underground network. Once the device is in place, weather data flows from outdoor and indoor sensors to your base station. At a glance, the system shows you a lot of information, including wind direction, wind speed, wind gust, wind chill, indoor and outdoor temperature and humidity, dew point, heat index, rainfall (current and historic), barometer data, UV index, sunrise, sunset, and phases of the moon. Try getting that from your local news station.

And speaking of weather, you won't need to pay too much attention to the forecast—at least as far as your lawn is concerned—if you're using the Rachio Iro Smart Sprinkler Controller. The Rachio Iro can be controlled from your smartphone and offers manual and scheduled watering sessions. It also provides water usage reports, a history of timed and manual watering, and numerous alerts and notifications. Better yet, it uses your local weather data to automatically adjust your watering schedule to help conserve water. Lawn care doesn't get much easier than that.

So as nice as it is to spend time in the great outdoors, there's no doubt it benefits from an infusion of technology. With all of the gadgets mentioned here, you'll have one of the best backyards on the block, and no one will guess just how easy it was to make it that way. The best part is that, with all the time you save, you can actually sit back and enjoy it.

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