Measuring up a lawn to be planted, or a wall to be painted, with a tape measure can be tedious. For long measurements the tape slumps in the middle, and often you need a second person to help hold one end in place.

Instead, using a laser beam to measure things is quick and easy and only needs one hand. The Bosch GLM 50C Laser Measure ($199) is, thus, a useful tool for home renovators: just point the laser beam onto a target surface and read the result.

The only problem I had with it was making sure my hand was steady enough for the laser dot to stop moving. Putting it on the ground or against a firm surface is a good idea.

The device can measure distances up to 50 metres with reasonable accuracy. Bosch claims a precision margin of 1.5 millimetres so you have to go back to the tape measure if you're looking for anything finer than that, say to build a chest of drawers.

The laser measure can also automatically calculate area and volume.

Despite the usefulness of this little gadget, it is not intuitive to use; it takes a while to work your way around it. I had to read the documentation to make sure I was using all the features correctly.

However, pairing the device to a phone is easy. In a handy feature, rather than transferring your measurements onto a scrap of paper (or is that just me?), the GLM 50C can transfer measurements to your phone via Bluetooth.

You can make sketches within the GLM "measure&document" app, which keeps everything organised and recorded, but this also needs a bit of time and effort to understand how it all works.