The Hoselink 82ft Retractable Hose Reel offers a simple way to manage a lot of hose with minimal effort. We have a test unit that has been doing fine after two years of intermittent use and daily Southern California sun exposure. Its two-year warranty is reassuring, too though we’ve heard of some HoseCoils lasting longer, hitting the two-year mark is about what we’d expect. As with our heavier-duty picks, the HoseCoil’s nozzle end has flat facets for a wrench to grab. Although the HoseCoil’s total length is 25 feet, in practice it’s really good for only about 17 feet before it starts to strain. Compared with our bigger picks, this ⅜-inch-diameter hose loses a quarter-inch of capacity, which translated to slightly lower water pressure in our side-by-side trials. The HoseCoil’s main selling point is its retractable corkscrew design, which works as advertised in making the hose easy to extend, recoil, and store. The HoseCoil ⅜-inch Self Coiling Garden Hose (25 feet) is neither as tough nor as long as our other picks, but for a small patio, balcony, or yard-where dragging around a big 50-footer feels like overkill-it’s a fine alternative.

It’s available in a variety of sizes, and Eley can even make custom lengths. But if you have trouble hefting a heavier hose or if you just want to simplify and eliminate as many of the daily micro-frustrations of a garden hose, this Eley hose is very much worth considering. With all of these high points, this Eley hose doesn’t come cheap-costing roughly $110 for a 50-foot length, it’s certainly an investment. The brass fittings at the ends are large and easy to tighten by hand or wrench, and it comes with a 10-year warranty (twice as long as the coverage that Eley offered on its discontinued rubber hose). Compared with quality rubber hoses like the Continental and the Dramm, the Eley is lighter (much lighter), easier to loop, and more durable, and it seems immune to any kind of folding or kinking. It’s the best hose we’ve ever handled, and after using it for a while, we came to see all other hoses, including our other picks, as cumbersome, primitive, and dysfunctional. The Eley 5/8-inch Polyurethane Garden Hose was a revelation to us.

Rubber hose connector