Our Top Picks From Lowe's New Kobalt Tools Line

Last week, I had the great fortune of traveling to New York City for the debut of Lowe's expanded Kobalt Tools line. Although the home improvement giant has offered Kobalt tools for years (Kobalt started in 1998 as a brand of mechanics tools), the line has now been expanded to include a variety of professional-grade cordless tools, designed to give users a more efficient and effective work experience.

One of the coolest parts about the event (besides seeing the tools and catching up with old friends, of course!) was getting to test the tools during a building competition. We split into teams of 5 and were instructed to build what everyone at the event called a "cornhole" but I know as a "bean bag toss." (Anyone else out there call them bean bag tosses? Or is it just me?)

Each team had to build two sets, and I'm proud to say that our team came in second place! But I digress - back to the tools!

Milwaukee Thermal Imager Camera

The coolest (literally) tool we saw at Milwaukee last week was their thermal imaging camera. We thought infrared laser thermometers were awesome but the thermal imaging camera is a serious piece of high-tech equipment.

Milwaukee gave this tool it's own presentation as we walked into a room with a wall size projection of a thermal view of the room. They had an HVAC display which we could use to identify the warm and cold areas of ducts and machinery. But our group had more fun looking at the walls and each other. Think of the movie Predator and it's vision, that's what this camera shows. It will create a heat map of whatever you point it at, showing the hot areas as read and the cold areas as blue with various other temperatures shades of orange.