5 Handy Costco Finds To Upgrade Your Outdoor Space

There's something special about outdoor spaces. The smell of food cooking on the grill, the sound of laughter carrying across the yard, kids burning off what's left of their energy while adults finally get a chance to unwind. Time spent outdoors is good for us. The benefits of fresh air, natural light, and good company should never be underestimated. And for families especially, the outdoor space can be the beating heart of the home. The problem is, many outdoor spaces are underused. You might live somewhere where the weather is too unpredictable, or the growing pull of streaming services, gaming, and social media means that getting the family outside increasingly requires something worth coming out for.

Enter Costco, the go-to for many homeowners looking to upgrade their homes, including outdoor spaces. The wholesale retailer has built a solid reputation among value-seekers, and its product range includes things like portable entertainment gadgets and a surprising range of power tools. Of course, it also supplies high-quality outdoor goods, and we've put together this short list by prioritizing high customer ratings where possible. Where new or premium items have few ratings, we've cross-referenced them with professional reviews to ensure the products on the list will, in fact, provide a good upgrade to your outdoor space.

Every year, it's the same old ritual. Drag the lights out of storage, untangle them, put them up, take them down, pack them away ... The Enbrighten Vibe Eternity Eave Lights put an end to that age-old process. They go up and they stay up. And the good thing is, they're not just for the holiday season. You can adapt them to any occasion or just match them to your existing exterior. Installation takes a couple of hours, and you can control them with Alexa, Google Home, or the Enbrighten app, which comes loaded with presets that allow you to dress them for the occasion.

There are reds for Valentine's Day, greens for St. Patrick's Day, and full seasonal palettes for Halloween, Christmas, and many others. You can also create custom modes for things like your team's colors on game night or a child's favorite color on their birthday. "The results are pretty cool! I get a kick out of seeing how good they look and how easy [they are] to use," was how one satisfied reviewer summed up why they're such a worthwhile Costco gadget.

The Enbrighten Vibe Eternity Eave Lights cost $170 for six strands, with a total of 72 LEDs spread across 100 feet. They are secured in place with both screws and high-quality 3M VHB tape and have an IP67 weather rating. The strands link together and can be trimmed to fit without affecting the rest of the lights, and they're flexible enough to follow the contours of a roofline or structure. Finally, they aren't just for the eaves. They look just as striking on a pergola, a balcony, or along a garden border, and they can help transform ordinary outdoor spaces into something really worth showing off after dark.

For the yard enthusiast, there aren't many sights as frustrating as coming home to find the sprinklers running in the middle of a downpour. Add in seasonal schedule juggling and the nagging uncertainty that every corner of your outdoor space might not be getting the right amount of water, and lawn maintenance starts to feel like a drag. The Rachio 3 Smart Sprinkler Controller is one of the best smart sprinkler controllers you can buy. It's available for $200 at Costco (sometimes discounted) and can lighten your workload considerably. It's a 12-zone, weather-intelligent gadget that connects to your home Wi-Fi, then taps into a vast network of weather stations, satellites, and radar to build a watering schedule tailored to your exact location. Rachio claims it can even cut your water bill in half, and you can control it from anywhere using the Rachio app on your phone.

You have three scheduling options at your disposal. One responds to local weather stations and forecasts, another shifts automatically as the seasons change, and a final one lets you build a fixed routine according to your personal needs. When the system detects rain, high winds, or a cold snap, the sprinkling is automatically skipped, while the Cycle and Soak feature will delay the process temporarily when the ground needs time to drain. You can dial in the settings for every zone in your yard individually, depending on metrics like soil type, sun exposure, and ground gradient, and the Yard Map feature helps ensure every corner is covered and each area is managed with precision. It works with a wide range of smart home platforms, including Alexa and Google Assistant, and installation doesn't require special tools or any lengthy setup time.

What if you could run a mini-fridge, a projector, string lights, and a speaker system in your outdoor space all at once with no extension cords, generator fumes, or trips back and forth inside? EcoFlow is one of SlashGear's favorite power station brands, and the EcoFlow Delta 3 Plus can help with this — and then some. It's a portable power station with a 1,024Wh capacity and 1,800W continuous AC output across six outlets, with a 3,600W surge. X-Boost tech pushes that even further. It allows you to continuously power high-wattage appliances like electric barbecues, heaters, and even pizza ovens, while additional Delta Series battery packs can push the total capacity all the way up to 5kWh.

The power station fully charges in just under an hour via AC or up to 80% in just 40 minutes, meaning there is little downtime between uses. Costco even sells it bundled with a pair of 60W solar panels for $700, meaning you can pull power from the sun to stretch your battery life during extended use. The 13 outputs cover everything from those juice-hungry appliances, where it can power an electric grill for around 40 minutes or an outdoor projector for eight hours, while the USB and DC ports cover phones, laptops, and small electronics. It isn't noisy, either. In fact, it runs in virtual silence when operating below 600W. The EcoFlow app is the control center. It helps you keep tabs on everything from battery status to how long the charge will last, and the power station comes backed by a five-year warranty.

Outdoor family movie nights, big game barbecues, summer evening music videos, and even video games in the yard on a lazy Sunday — a projector like the Hisense C2 Pro makes all of this possible in your outdoor space. It's one of those handy mini gadgets you can find at Costco, and the wholesale retailer sells it with a 120-inch portable projector screen. Alternatively, the image can stretch all the way up to 300 inches if you're thinking bigger. It delivers 2,600 lumens, though you'll still want to wait until after dusk for the best picture. Once the sun goes down, the RGB laser engine takes care of the color range; it pushes things beyond what many other projectors can and ensures everything looks lifelike. And if it's lower-resolution content you're watching, the AI upscaling pulls it up to near-4K sharpness. Add in IMAX Enhanced and Dolby Vision, and the image quality is hard to fault.

The sound is decent, too. The 20W JBL audio system has a built-in woofer to handle low frequencies, while Dolby Atmos and DTS:X create a three-dimensional sound experience. That said, you'll likely still want to pair it with a good speaker to get the most out of it in an outdoor space. For those Sunday gaming sessions, the 240Hz refresh rate delivers smooth, fluid motion, and the 12ms input lag means controller inputs are almost instantaneous. The Costco bundle even throws in a one-year Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. There's no messing about with the setup, either. The gimbal gives it a full range of motion in every direction, and the auto keystone correction straightens the image without the need for any manual adjustment.

A pergola like the Mirador Adjustable Louvered Aluminum Pergola can transform an exposed patio into a proper outdoor room. It gives you a space you can actually make use of in most weather conditions. At 10 x 13 feet, it will shelter a full seating area during a family get-together or protect a hot tub area when you're soaking in steaming hot water in winter. It's made entirely from powder-coated aluminum, which means it won't rust and requires minimal maintenance.

The louvers are adjustable to any angle, which gives you complete control over how much sun and air get through, and you can close them when the rain arrives. This not only keeps you dry but also directs the water straight into the built-in guttering system that channels it away. The double-layer construction also keeps rain noise at a minimum, while on sunny days, it reflects the heat to keep everyone a little cooler. It has been engineered to cope with heavy snow and winds as strong as force 12 storms, too.

You can operate everything with the removable crank handle, and no bolts or screws are visible anywhere on the frame, keeping the overall look clean, uncluttered, and stylish. The design earned it a Red Dot Award in 2020, which is one of the most recognized design prizes in the world, and it can be yours for around $2,200 from Costco. If you're quick, however, it is currently available with a significant discount.

We prioritized highly rated outdoor space products at Costco. All of our choices score higher than 4.5 among Costco reviewers, and we also focused on those with hundreds of customer ratings. This wasn't always possible, especially for the more premium products that naturally have fewer buyers. In these instances, we ensured the products were highly rated among a range of professional reviewers, such as those at TechRadar and PCMag.