Grillbot Grill Cleaning Robot

A little robot roaming the grill is a funny thing to give your dad or husband, but the job behind it is practical. The Grillbot Grill Cleaning Robot puts three rotating brushes to work on the grates, scrubbing grease and char while the person who cooked gets to step away. Set it on a gas or charcoal grill and press start. For the household grill owner who dreads the cleanup, that’s a more useful gift idea than another barbecue apron.

Its reach stops at the grates. The lid, grease tray, and rest of the grill still need hand-cleaning, and you’ll want a manual brush available for residue it leaves behind. Think of it as taking over a specific scrubbing job, not cleaning the entire barbecue. That narrower role makes the most sense if you grill regularly enough to resent doing that job again.

The rechargeable battery keeps a cord out of the setup, and an LCD timer and finishing beep let you keep track without standing over it. The brush heads can go in the dishwasher, which is a sensible touch for a machine that collects grease. There’s also a protective storage case, so this small, oddly specialized appliance has somewhere to live between cookouts.