Pool floats, rafts and air cushions for the water half of the weekend

A float earns its place by what it does once you stop thinking about it. We look at three things on this shelf: whether the seat keeps your back off hot vinyl, whether there is somewhere to put a drink, and whether the chambers hold overnight so the morning does not start with a pump.

The hammock style floats are the ones people keep. A mesh seat lets water through, so you sit half submerged and stay cool, and the inflated back gives you something to lean on. The versions with a moulded cup holder are worth the small premium if your pool has no ledge. The scallop raft is the opposite idea: a big flat surface you lie on rather than sit in, better for sun than for conversation.

The swim rings and the tanning float are the light end of the shelf, easy to throw in a car and cheap enough to treat as seasonal. The two vented seat cushions are the odd ones out, and we nearly put them elsewhere. They were designed for an office chair or a wheelchair, they take a little air or a little water, and at nineteen inches across they double as a small ring in shallow water, which is why they sit here.

Care is dull and it works. Rinse salt and chlorine off before the vinyl dries, let the float dry completely before folding, and store it loosely rather than crushed under something heavy. Fold a float wet and you will find the seam that failed next June.

Sizes, air and the people who actually use these

A float is bought for one of two jobs, and they pull in opposite directions. Either you want to be on top of the water and dry, which means a flat deck and a closed floor, or you want to be in it and cool, which means a mesh centre. Trying to buy one float that does both is the most common mistake on this shelf, and the hammock loungers are the nearest honest compromise because they change shape.

Sizes here are about one person at a time. Everything listed takes a single adult; the bigger rafts simply give that adult more room to cross their ankles rather than seating two. The small vented cushions are the exception and sit on the shelf because they are the same vinyl, the same valve and the same patch — people buy them for bleachers and desk chairs rather than for play, and ages have nothing to do with it.

Pressure is what kills floats, not sunlight. Fill them in the shade, leave a little give in the chambers, and never top one up in the afternoon when what is inside has already expanded. Our standards for this shelf are a separate valve per chamber where the design has more than one, and a seam that is welded rather than glued. The fun of a float is that it is still there in August.

Nothing on this page is a recommendation from a shop assistant, because we are not one. We list what the brand sells, grouped by the activities it gets used for, and the sizes come straight off the listing rather than out of a sales script.