Partytime Gadgets to Turn Heads

Hosting a party is not only about enjoying yourself (and running round cleaning up spillages) it is also about making a lasting impression – and if you can make an impression for as little work as possible that’s all the better.

In this post Thoughts from the Sidelines takes a look at three gadgets that will not only considerably lighten your workload – hence leaving you to sip a few drinks yourself and concentrate on impressing the person of your dreams who has, surprisingly, actually turned up – but which are bound to ensure that your party’s one to remember.

Ice Shot Glasses

If your parties are anything like ours then you’ll know that you’ll still be finding stay glasses about your home and garden months after the party has finished – and that regardless of the fact that the day after the party you seemed to collect twice as many glasses as you ever thought you owned. What could be better, then, than having glasses that not only make an impression but that also clean themselves up merely by melting? Enter stage left the Ice Shot Glasses.

Apart from cleaning themselves up, the Ice Shot Glasses have a number of further advantages in that breakages are no longer a problem, you can create as many as you like and as well as freezing water in the moulds you can also use alternatives only limited by whether it freezes or not. Your Ice Shot Glasses could therefore be made of a drink in themselves or you could add a little colour with a splash of food dye.

What a great idea – though perhaps best suited to warmer climes.

A tray mould for creating 12 glasses costs £8.95 (USD $16.80 / €13.20) and can be purchased here.

Ice Gem Stones

If serving your drinks in glasses made of ice is not cool enough for you then how about adding that little extra bling appeal by serving your drinks laden with gem stones. Again, made from ice, you could be creative with a little food dye and produce a treasure trove of gems with which to cool your guest’s drinks whilst conveniently topping up their daily allocation of E-numbers. Or, for that extra sparkle, you could create gem stones that truly intoxicate by using a little vodka.

A mould for six ice gem stones will set you back £4.95 (USD $9.30 / €7.30) from this site.

The Space Age Q-Grill BBQ

Barbeques are, at best, messy affairs and invariably the charcoal is barley lit before the guests arrive or, alternatively, has been reduced to a few glowing cinders. Not only that, but wouldn’t it be nice to actually see your guests rather than navigate your way haphazardly through a cloud. Of course there is smoke reduced charcoal and there are gas fired barbeques but perhaps it’s time to bring your al fresco cooking up to date and cook with style with the Q-Grill.

Made from steel and weighing in at a mere 14lbs, the collapsible Q-Grill is completely portable and will allow you to time your food preparation to perfection using its high powered gas jets complete with dual temperature control.

One slight downside is that if you burn the food using one of these devices then you’ll have to take the rap.

Widely available at most outdoor stores and online gadget shops, such as this one, you can expect to pay around £120 ( USD $227/ €178).

The PartyBot

Your party’s in full swing and you are just starting to get a little fed up of running around filling up people’s drinks and keeping them entertained. Besides, you want to party too. Help is at hand, however, as it’s time to bring out the PartyBot.

Not only will the PartyBot ensure that your guests never run out of drinks – he’s able to carry a couple of cold ones to where they’re needed most, but he will also try to entertain your guests by blinking his eyes and moving his ears – which, let’s face it, you’re probably way past being capable of yourself.

Not only that, but between keeping your guests supplied with drinks and interacting with them the PartyBot will also sweep up any rubbish it sees whilst its keeping the party swinging.

The PartyBot costs £39.95 (USD $74.80 / €59.00) and can be obtained here.

Karcher RC3000 RoboCleaner

The party’s over, most of your guests have trundled off into the night in all manner of directions and the few hangers-on are either snoring on the sofa or having a philosophical conversation with themselves in the toilet and your house looks as though it ought to feature on a television programmed “Does Anyone Seriously Live in This?”.

You have a number of choices. You could, of course, tidy up now in one of those post-party cursory fashions where things are simply piled up or thrown into the kitchen or you could go to bed. Or you could have your robot vacuum cleaner pop around the house.

The RoboCleaner, which is one of many robot vacuum cleaners now available, will vacuum your floors with no intervention from yourself whilst avoiding all obstacles with its in-built infrared navigation sensors. And, if it happens to run low on charge it will automatically pop back to its base station for a little juice of its own.

The RC300 Robot Vacuum Cleaner featured costs £699 (USD $1319 / €1036 ) from this site, though they are widely available, and is considered to be a mid-range model.