5 Unexpected Items That Home Depot Sells
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If asked to describe the Home Depot chain of superstores, you'd probably refer to it as a home improvement store or a giant hardware store where you go for hand tools, power tools, plumbing supplies, lumber, paint, and so on. It's also a robust source for anything that could even remotely be related to the field of home improvement, but that also has other uses, such as microfiber towels, toilet paper, and paper towels. It's even a convenient spot to pick up a case of bottled water.
All of the above only scratches the surface, though. There are plenty of products sold by Home Depot, including tech products, that you probably wouldn't expect to be there until you saw them with your own eyes. This selection gets significantly bigger when you expand it to include items that Home Depot only sells online, but even if you were to limit the options to those stocked at the chain's retail stores, there are still plenty of surprises to be found. Read on to learn about some that piqued our interest, and keep in mind that HomeDepot.com does not have third-party sellers, so even online-only items are all being sold directly by Home Depot.
Cheap surround sound speaker systems
During the DVD boom of the 2000s, consumer interest in multichannel 5.1 surround sound speaker systems went up. To take advantage of this, inexpensive "home theater in a box" (HTIB for short) systems hit the market from various major companies, offering a full surround sound experience to consumers on a budget. Over time, soundbars with virtual surround sound features supplanted HTIBs as the inexpensive option. Aside from a few options from LG and Vizio, if you want real, discrete surround sound from a name brand, you generally need to assemble a system using passive speakers and a separate AV receiver to power them.
If you're willing to try out lesser-known brands, though, there are more options, and Home Depot's website, oddly enough, has several from beFree Sound, a company based out of the Los Angeles area. These options are priced in the $90 to $200 range. Curiously, though, the photos on Home Depot's website make it look like feeding these with surround sound content is easier said than done, with the only visible multichannel input being a set of six analog RCA connectors labeled "DVD AUDIO INPUT." Compatible players were never super common, even during the DVD boom, and have long since been off the market. Customer support for beFree told us that since roughly 2023, all current models have HDMI and TOSLINK inputs, but since the listings at Home Depot and other resellers don't reflect this, know that you may need to return these if you take a flyer on them.
Halloween digital decoration DVDs
HomeDepot.com carries DVDs for Halloween junkies with high aspirations, like projecting ghosts and monsters onto walls. This one makes sense on some level, but you'd probably never expect to see DVDs at Home Depot. Someone who's into making their own haunted house-esque attractions and decorations for Halloween might buy supplies at a Home Depot, so you can see why something related to that would be a relatively logical fit, at least in the fall leading into Halloween.
All of the DVDs are from a company named AtmosFX, which has nothing to do with the Dolby Atmos surround sound format. (AtmosFX was formerly known as AtomosfearFX, which is arguably a much better fit.) Though AtmosFX says you can use their DVDs with TVs and monitors, it seems pretty clear they're supposed to be used with projectors for the best results. Spooky images on a TV are just spooky images on a TV; seeing them on a wall is a different matter. And if you don't already have a projector, AtmosFX makes one that Home Depot sells for $249.
Going by the user reviews for AtmosFX's "Macabre Manor" on Amazon, most customers liked the DVD, as it averages 4½ stars out of 5 with 408 user reviews. That doesn't make it any less of an odd fit for a hardware store, though.
Pop culture-themed kitchen appliances
The idea that Home Depot sells kitchen appliances like waffle irons, panini presses, slow cookers, and pressure cookers isn't particularly surprising. After all, kitchen items fall into a small overlap between home improvement and home goods stores. What's more of a surprise is that Home Depot's website carries a wide array of kitchen appliances from Uncanny Brands, featuring a ridiculous selection of licensed intellectual property from across the entire pop culture landscape.
Maybe a Mandalorian waffle iron featuring Grogu doesn't jump out at you, but what about a Bob Ross slow cooker, waffle iron, or pop-up toaster that imprints the face of the ASMR predecessor who taught us all how to paint fluffy clouds on "The Joy of Painting"?
Are you a Pokémon fan? You might enjoy Uncanny Brands' Pokéball-shaped toaster or popcorn maker. They're joined by several waffle irons featuring images of the most well-known characters from the franchise, such as Pikachu, Charizard, Squirtle, and Bulbasaur.
What about Star Wars? There's the Death Star-shaped waffle iron that makes Death Star-themed waffles, an R2-D2-shaped popcorn maker, a Darth Vader toaster that makes lightsaber noises (for some reason), a Millennium Falcon-shaped waffle iron that makes Millennium Falcon-shaped waffles, and even more Grogu-themed items, including a toaster that makes toast with Grogu's face on it, a grilled cheese sandwich maker, and a cake pop maker.
There's more, but you get the idea. Uncanny Brands makes a lot of products like these, and HomeDepot.com stocks them.
Google, Amazon, and Roku streaming devices
Though the aforementioned surround sound speakers are only available on Home Depot's website, there are other consumer electronics products available in the chain's brick-and-mortar stores. Not just the expected accessories either, like speaker wire, HDMI cables ranging from 3 to 50 feet, universal remotes, TV antennae, TV wall mounts, and Ethernet cables. One surprising class of item that Home Depot sells in its retail stores is HDMI streaming sticks and dongles from the three big players in that space: Google's Chromecast with Google TV (HD and 4K), Amazon Fire TV Stick (Lite, regular 3rd generation, and 4K), and Roku (Streaming Stick 4K and the Express that affixes to your TV with Velcro).
Which device is best for you depends on various factors. If you want to add actual apps to the device, like a VPN for streaming region-locked content, a web browser, or a robust media player such as Kodi, then Roku won't be your first choice. It's the only one that isn't based on Android, and its "channels" from content providers aren't apps in the way we generally think of the term; however, it's an excellent choice that offers an incredibly deep roster of content providers.
With the other two, consider which ecosystem you're already invested in. If you're using one or the other's smart home protocol, then you could choose the corresponding streaming stick/remote to control your smart devices. Otherwise, Chromecast having a bigger app store gives it an edge.
Arcade1Up arcade game cabinets and pinball machines
We go back to online-only for these unexpected items: Arcade1Up's replicas of classic arcade games and pinball machines. If you're unfamiliar with Arcade1Up, the company makes replica cabinets — scaled down to 3/4 size with LCD monitors instead of CRTs — with fully licensed arcade video games running in emulation. The pinball titles, meanwhile, also run in emulation on LCD screens instead of traditional pinball hardware. However, they include an analog plunger and accelerometer to simulate a traditional machine better.
As scaled-down, emulation-based devices, these aren't supposed to be collectibles or serve as one-to-one substitutions for original cabinets. They're certainly supposed to be more than display pieces, though, and for pinball emulation, it beats what most people could put together themselves.
PCMag reviewed Arcade1Up's generic, multi-game cabinets in 2019 and a deluxe edition of the original "Mortal Kombat" in 2023, with both getting 4 out of 5 stars and the former receiving an Editors' Choice recommendation. Though Will Greenwald's main complaint in the 2019 piece was the discomfort of playing the standard model without the optional riser, he didn't have that problem with the bigger deluxe cabinet in 2023. (Home Depot doesn't stock any of the deluxe models, but some of the listed regular cabinets include a riser and/or a stool for more comfortable play.) As for pinball, How-To Geek gave the same 4-out-of-5 star rating and its own Editor's Choice endorsement, praising Arcade1Ups's pinball cabinets as a much more affordable alternative to an original machine.