The only Father's Day gift I can recall my own dad receiving was a plate of fried sardines. It was prepared by my mother, his ex-wife, who knew how grateful he’d be for a dish he grew up eating in the Italian neighborhood of a steel town that was dying with such theatrical flair that Bruce Springsteen named
a song after it. (An acoustic Springsteen song, at that.) We lived in a nearby city that had plenty of red-sauce restaurants, but they weren't serving tinned fish in those days. As my father had only the most limited of food-preparation skills and didn't date the kind of women who could cook, this was the only way he'd ever taste that flavor again.
As Father's Day gifts go, being united with a long-lost recipe from childhood is pretty good. If you can pull it off, that's what you should give your dad this year. Otherwise, I have here a few ideas that I've spent the last few months gathering for various types of dads and across many different budgets. With the exception of a few items picked by other dads on the team, I've personally tested and approved all of the gifts on this list. I hope they make your dad as happy as those sardines made mine.
Updated June 18: I've added 14 new picks, including pork chops that eat like a steak, rum that drinks like brandy, the toughest grilling gloves ever made, and a pocket knife.
For the Dad Who Plays With His Kids
Last week, I left my Apple Watch Ultra in the Denver Airport. While I hope to retrieve it someday (please call me back, DIA customer service and/or Frontier Airlines), I haven't truly missed wearing it, thanks to the rugged Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra, which I’ve been using in its place. The Samsung is more comfortable and has a much more stylish always-on face, better battery life, and a more responsive touchscreen. I've been wearing it to the pool with my daughter and to the driving range, and I've been shocked by how much I prefer it. It's the best product in the Android ecosystem that I've personally used. Samsung has some very good Father's Day promos, including $100 off on the watch and $250 off its top-model phone, the
Galaxy S26 Ultra ( 8/10 WIRED Recommends). I'd give this to most dads, but especially to an Android user who's active outdoors with his kids or frequently does yard work and other handy jobs that can be rough on a watch.
For the Dad Who Watches Other People Play (Sports)
Last year I had my friends Lexi and Britaney over to watch the second week of the NFL season. The only problem was that I wanted to see my beloved Cleveland Browns begin their brave and honorable march to 5-12, whereas they wanted to watch the universally reviled Kansas City Chiefs early in their humiliating 6-11 season. To make this work, I had to go dust off a ratchet old 480p TV in the basement to air the Chiefs game. It was not ideal, but this extremely versatile device from Apolosign—the ultimate utility device for your dad—will solve that problem and many others besides.
If you're going to have a second medium-sized screen around the house, this is the one. It’s a rolling 32-inch touch-screen TV that can flip horizontally and has a built-in camera. It reminds me of something you'd see at a booth on a convention floor, but in the good way. It can function as a mega-size Android tablet, a top-flight streaming setup for Zoom meetings, and a rollable screen. Roll it into the kitchen, and you can watch YouTube tutorials on how to cook. Then roll it into the garage and use it to watch a how-to on changing your oil. Then roll it back into the living room to watch Justin Fields play quarterback for a Chiefs team that will finish toward the bottom of their division.
For the Grill Dad
Live-fire cooking has been the hottest trend in grilling for half a decade now, possibly as a reaction to the rise of super-automated pellet grills and
high-tech smart grilling. The latest up-and-coming device is the charcoal oven, which Spanish brand Mibrasa is best known for (the smallest model, the Nano, runs just under $12,000). That would be an amazing gift for your dad if the budget allows. However, those of more modest means can confidently gift this super-premium hibachi grill from Mibrasa, which is made of heavy-gauge steel.
The MH 300 Plus is roughly one square foot and weighs about 18 pounds empty—you can carry it around, but it's a little on the hefty side. It gets scorching hot (almost 500 degrees Fahrenheit) and holds the meat very near to the charcoal so that the drippings are vaporized and turned into flavorful smoke. I've made steak tacos and chicken skewers, and they've turned out perfectly with a kiss of char.
Heady Topper is my all-time favorite beer. It's the first and best hazy IPA ever made and is now the only one I'd choose to drink. If your dad is a man of taste, maybe it's his favorite beer, too. If you can drive to Vermont and buy him a flat of it, you should do that. If not, you can get him this mustard and hot sauce gift set from Butterfly Bakery of Vermont, which comes with a Heady-infused hot sauce and mustard. The big ol' box of condiments is a popular Father's Day gift for a reason, and this one is done at the highest level.
For the Dad Who Needs to Take the Edge Off
Maybe your dad just needs to chill a bit. In past iterations of this guide, I've recommended hammocks for that, but we're far beyond hammocks these days. Why not turn to the best loose leaf vaporizer on the market? I think I've used every Pax product ever made, starting with the revolutionary original Pax, widely considered the first loose leaf vaporizer. The Pax 4 is the best yet. Following last year's disappointing
Pax Flow, which was a letdown due to its extremely thin and unsatisfying draw for anyone who is sipping instead of chugging, the Four is a return to form that finds the company adding a convenient USB-C instead of a proprietary charging attachment, adjusting the door to the herb chamber to make it easier to open, and adding more power for a more consistent cook of whatever herbal substance your dad chooses to load in. It retains the classic Pax one-button system (four heat settings, one per click) but has a new oven design inside while retaining that sleek and durable brushed aluminum exterior.
For the Single Dad
Have circumstances placed your dad on the dating market? If so, maybe hair can help. When my very fine hair grew too wispy around the age of 30, I started shaving my head, and I have been pretty happy with that for about 15 years. Many women also profess to prefer the bald look! Those women are liars, says my friend Liz: All women want a man with hair. (I suggested to her that the exception might be the Big Three of Michael Jordan, Vin Diesel, and me. Liz says both Vin Diesel and I would do better with hair.)
I'm not someone who is going to take a pill, put a chemical on my scalp, or
fly to Turkey to have hair, but I am happy to wear a hat with lights in it for 25 minutes every other day. After reading my colleague's work on how effective LED lights can be for hair regrowth, I decided to grow my hair out for the first time in a long time. It's gone pretty well so far, honestly. If your dad is entering or languishing on the dating market, perhaps more hair can help. And if he has dormant follicles, an LED cap like this one from GroWell can help.
For the Beach Dad/Pool Dad
This is one of the few products on this list that I have not personally tested, but for a dad with a pool, it's such a good gift idea that I had to include it. Our reviewer gave
the Sora, which sits in the middle of the Beatbot lineup, a stellar 8/10 review, saying it'll clean up the debris from pretty much any mess short of a hurricane. This 20-pound robot crawls the walls of your pool, suctioning up grime and saving dad the hassle of skimming for an hour every week.
What's better than reading in a beach chair in the shade? Reading on a beach chair in the shade using the
Kobo Libra Colour (8/10 WIRED Reccomends), which is waterproof, has color e-ink, and has a mode for doodling down ideas with a stylus. Compared to Kindles, this device feels more like a productivity tool, as it's easy to import articles to read and draw up ideas and lists.
For the Car Dad
The Nokian Surpass AS01's are some of the best-reviewed tires on the road, drawing praise from the
automotive press as well as on message boards. I've only put about 100 miles on my set, but I’ll already add myself to the list of fans. These tires are grippy, quiet, and ride with supreme confidence. They also come with a 55,000-mile treadwear warranty, which is not typical for an ultra-high-performance tire like this. Nokian is a Finnish tiremaker known for its winter shoes. This model features the highest proportion of silica the brand has ever used, providing the benefits of the compound, which is better for braking distance, longevity, and grip in wet conditions. (The downsides of a silica-heavy tire compound are faster wear in hot weather and higher cost). If your dad has been making noise about needing new tires, head him off at the pass this Father's Day and have a stack of four new tires delivered—most shops will be happy to mount them if you leave on the stickers.
Portable tire inflators and
jump starters are both great things to have, and I have both. The AX65 from Noco is a high-powered combination of the two, and the best version of either I've encountered. The tire inflator is extremely quick—as fast as a gas station air compressor in my testing—and advertises that it'll take a tire from flat to 40 pounds per square inch (psi) in two minutes. It holds 2,150 amp-hours of power, enough to jump a regular passenger car multiple times. It jumped my Dieselgate-era Jetta with ease (I've had the device for a month and already needed to jump my car thanks to its lack of alarm when you leave on the lights—VW was apparently dedicating its software engineering resources to other projects at the time). It'll also recharge a phone or laptop via a 60-watt USB-C port, so it's not just taking up dead space on road trips until disaster strikes.
For the Yard Dad
My childhood neighbor Don Elmerick had the finest lawn I've ever seen. Elmerick, who lived across the street from my mother's house for nearly 50 years before he passed in 2019, spent every summer meticulously tending to his acre of bright green grass, getting tan while mowing shirtless in jeans. His lawn was so nice that, as legend had it, the groundskeepers from the modest public golf course behind our house would come by to admire it. Every dad I know, including myself, would love to have a lawn like that. Unfortunately, I do not have the spare 10 to 20 hours a week it takes to do the research and labor required.
I won't say that the Lawnbright plan has my more modest patch of lawn looking like Firestone Country Club after six months of treatment, but it does look better than any lawn I've kept in my adult life. That's thanks to this service, which uses data from your lawn to create a custom treatment plan and then sends different treatment bottles at strategic times. All you do is open the box, attach the bottle to a hose, and spray. I applied the Green Machine formula in the fall and then Weed Wipeout in the spring. If your dad is always talking about how nice another man's grass looks, this is the gift for him.
For the Camper Dad
It is insane to pay $375 for a pocket knife … unless it's this one. Oregon's Benchmade makes exceptional blades, and this new lighter version of the brand's
flagship Bugout (which can be had for a more modest $200) is a third lighter while retaining its edge just as long. There is a lightweight anodized aluminum handle, a little locking button to open it, and a black steel blade that has a Rockwell hardness scale rating of 60-62 HRC, on par with a high-end Japanese cooking knife. It feels amazing in your hand and cuts through cardboard like room-temperature butter.
For the Retro-Tech-Loving WIRED Reader Dad
Chances are your dad is not old enough to have used an original Super 8 from the ‘60s such as the one that inspired this design by retro camera-maker Camp Snap. But maybe he, like me, had a
PXL 2000 as a kid? This new video camera has built-in retro filters and a screen-free shooting experience that forces you to live in the moment while memorializing it. You download the video to your computer by USB later, at which point you can upload it to your Instagram story. It’s a fun gadget to play with and has all the basic shooting features you need to make distinctive and vibe-y shorts—it even has a shoe if you want to mount a light or external mic.
For the Dad Who Doesn’t Buy Himself Clothes
Look, dads have a lot going on, and figuring out personal style may not always—or ever—be at the top of that list. That's where you come in. And I know what you're thinking: Dad does not want a shirt for Father's Day. When it comes to most shirts, you're right. This shirt, though? This shirt he will like. Taylor Stitch's short-sleeve California shirt is luxuriously soft, light enough for summer (I find it comfortable to about 85 degrees Fahrenheit, but I have one of the heavier double knits), and it has the kind of classic, timeless style that will fit just about any dad. There are quite a few fabrics to choose from here, ranging from the double-knit cotton pictured here to some hemp versions to a couple of cotton slub jersey fabrics. All the cotton shirts are organic. There's a good selection of colors, too, allowing you some range to tailor your pick to your dad's style, or what you want your dad's style to be. But I promise you, your dad will love this shirt. —Scott Gilbertson
For the Traveler Dad
Perhaps your dad is like me and has been using something like the same nylon Outdoor Research mesh pouch as a toiletry bag for the last 30-plus years. I've been on the hunt for something better and finally found it with this stylish pebbled-leather case from Cuyana. It's simple with one zipper and two interior side pockets for smaller items like flossers and nail clippers. Unlike other bags of this style, the pebbled leather also lines the interior, so it has a premium feel and isn't easily soiled, like suede.
<small>Source: Wired</small>
