5 Gadgets Under $100 To Upgrade Your Garage

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

Like most other garages, yours has likely evolved from an empty place for parking your car to a catch-all space for your home projects and tools. There’s really nothing wrong with this evolution, but when compared to the rest of your home, your garage can feel outdated. Maybe the only light source you have is an old dim bulb in the center of the ceiling. Or perhaps your storage bins are so chaotic that finding a mere screw takes forever.

Well, it doesn’t have to be this way. Just because you now use your garage for everything doesn’t mean it couldn’t be as high-tech and functional as your living room or bedroom. The good news is, you don’t need an expensive renovation to convert your garage to something more comfortable to work in.

You can actually start upgrading it with just $100. Here are five highly-rated Amazon gadgets under $100 that could change your garage for the better. All these products were selected based on their Amazon reviews and their practical benefits in a garage.

Your garage is the place wall outlets are needed most, but they’re either limited or awkwardly placed. To solve this dilemma, you can add a power strip to your garage. The Kasa Smart Plug Power Strip HS300 — sold on Amazon for $50 — is a solid pick, especially if you plan on upgrading your garage to a smarter space. This power strip is built with six outlets, each one can be controlled independently and has its own status light and control/setup button.

In total, the outlets can handle a maximum load of 1,875W at 15A. That means you can plug in small fans, workbench lights, soldering irons, and even speakers at the same time. The power strip might not be able to handle more demanding tools like shop vacs or space heaters when used with other devices, though. Aside from regular AC tools, you can also charge or power any USB device through the power strip’s three built-in USB ports.

For added safety, the Kasa HS300 is designed with ETL-certified surge protection. You’ll know it’s on when the “Protected” LED indicator on the power strip lights up. There’s also a LED indicator when the power strip is grounded normally and while it’s connected to Wi-Fi. Similar to some smart plugs, the Kasa HS300 comes complete with an energy monitoring system. This helps you keep an eye on your garage tools’ power consumption. Each outlet has its own energy monitor, which tells you how much energy the connected device has used today and in the past seven or 30 days and how long it’s been powered on. This data is readily available on the Kasa app.

With how often you go in and out of the garage, it’s only fitting to install a security camera inside. It’s one of the simplest and quickest ways to keep your home secure. One camera option you can consider is the myQ Smart Garage Security Camera, available on Amazon for $50. Featuring a 130-degree wide angle camera and night recording capability, this security camera captures videos at 1080p HD resolution. It’s built with motion detection, and for every movement it senses in the area, you’ll automatically get a notification on your phone. If you subscribe to the Video Monitoring Ultra or Essential plan, the camera can also send you alerts, specifically for the persons, animals, or vehicles it detects.

Like many other smart security cameras, the myQ connects to your phone for remote control and monitoring. You’ll get access to 24/7 live streaming for free. While watching the feed, you can listen and talk through the camera, thanks to its two-way audio. If you need to review previous footage instead, a subscription to a Video Monitoring plan is required. This allows you to check the event history as far back as 7 to 30 days, depending on the plan.

Installation-wise, the myQ security camera is magnetic, so you can simply attach it to your fridge, metal tool cabinet, or your garage’s support beams, all without using any accessory. Just make sure to point the camera properly to your target area using its 360-degree manual swivel. The camera can withstand extreme cold and heat from -4°F up to 122°F too, making it reliable even in cold or hot garages.

Parking in a tight garage isn’t exactly easy, and you’d usually end up bumping into things or scratching your car more times than you’d like. In that case, it might be time to get a parking aid. Available on Amazon for $40, the STKR Garage Parking Sensor is one of the most frequently bought parking aids on the site. It’s made up of two main parts: an ultrasonic sensor and an LED indicator. The ultrasonic sensor should be placed low enough for its signals to bounce off your car’s bumper. The LED light, on the other hand, is installed at the driver’s eye level.

It’s the ultrasonic sensor’s job to detect how far your car is from the designated parking spot — a.k.a. the stop distance. This stop distance can be set anywhere between one and four feet from the sensor. After setting up the device, you simply park your car where you want it to be and hit the Set Distance button on the parking sensor to save that spot. Then, whenever you’re parking, the LED light will indicate how far you are from the stop distance. Green means keep going, yellow means you’re close and should start slowing down, and red means you’re already at the stop distance.

For your convenience, the STKR Garage Parking Sensor runs on four AA batteries. If you don’t want to worry about changing batteries, you can also plug it into your own USB-C wall adapter. The entire device mounts to the wall with velcro and double-sided tape, and is compact at just 3.5″ by 4.7″ by 1.25″ to keep it out of the way.

Of all the essential smart home gadgets you’ll add to your garage, a smart light is easily one of the things you’ll use most. Standard smart bulbs are usually the go-to choice for this. If there are no existing fixtures in your garage, you might be better off with a more standalone light like the $80 LiftMaster MyQ Smart LED Garage Light. This LED light can be used as either a ceiling light or wall lamp. It’s mounted via screws, then plugged directly into a wall outlet to power. This gives you more freedom on where to install the light based on your needs.

Unlike other smart bulbs, the MyQ Garage Light comes in a square and compact form factor, measuring 5.9″ by 5.9″ by 2.2″. It also stands out with its 1,000-lumen output, which is brighter than some bulbs. To make the most of the garage light, you can sync it to your garage door opener. One opener can handle a maximum of 16 lights, so you can create a group that turns on and off at the same time in response to the garage door. For more manual control, the MyQ Garage Light is compatible with a garage remote too. It specifically supports the 893MAX 3-Button Visor Remote Control and 380UT 2-Button Universal Remote Control.

As with typical smart bulbs, the MyQ Garage Light has a companion mobile app. This lets you turn the light on and off from afar and configure it to follow a schedule.

A thermal printer is probably the last thing you’d think to add to your garage. But you’d realize just how important it is once you see how disorganized all your stuff is. Thankfully, you can get a mini thermal printer — the Phomemo M110 Label Maker — on Amazon for just $52, inclusive of three label rolls in the box. This label maker comes in handy when labeling the bins for your bolts, washers, and other parts; the containers for your different fluids; and your tool drawers and storage shelves. If you’re finishing up a project and don’t want to forget what to do next, you can even print reminders to stick to your garage door. The labels are wearproof, waterproof, and oilproof, so they should be good to use in a garage setting.

The Phomemo M110 supports a range of label sizes and shapes, from 20mm to 52mm. You just need to load what label roll you’d like to use with the printer. For the label itself, there are pre-made templates in the Phomemo app available for editing. You can include plain text, images, tables, barcodes, and QR codes in the label. To pair the label maker with your iPhone or Android device, all you have to do is connect it via Bluetooth. If you prefer working on a computer instead, you can plug the label maker into Windows, macOS, or Linux via USB.

The Phomemo M110 won’t take up too much space in your garage. After you’re done, you can toss it inside a drawer. It’s low-maintenance too, since it’s a thermal printer and doesn’t need to be refilled with ink.

All the products we recommended on this list check two major criteria: price and real-world usefulness inside a garage. They all fall under the $100 price range, and can even go lower than their usual price during sales. They also serve a practical purpose inside the garage.

While all the products are under $100, they still offer good value for money. We considered the Amazon reviews for the products, and only went with those with at least a 4 out of 5 star rating.