There is one question that decides whether a cheap laser measure is useful to you or quietly annoying, and almost nobody asks it before buying. Does it display sixteenths of an inch, or does it give you decimals. Everything else on this page is secondary to that.
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| # | Best for | Model | Shows sixteenths | Range | Rating | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Overall | Bosch GLM100-23 | Yes | 100 ft | 4.6 · 2,674 | Check price |
| 2 | Mid-range | Klein Tools | Not stated | 100 ft | 4.5 · 1,120 | Check price |
| 3 | Laser and tape | LEXIVON LX-201 | Yes | 130 ft | 4.5 · 3,668 | Check price |
| 4 | Budget | RockSeed 2-pack | Not stated | Not listed | 4.4 · 22,354 | Check price |
| 5 | Biggest display | DTAPE 2 in LCD | Not stated | Not listed | 4.5 · 5,147 | Check price |
| 6 | Cheapest | Ogeto 165 ft | No | 165 ft claimed | 4.4 · 6,287 | Check price |
Not stated means the listing does not say either way. Check the listing text for the word fractions before you order, and return it if it arrives showing decimals.
Your tape measure is marked in sixteenths of an inch. Your saw cuts to a pencil line. Every piece of timber you buy is sold in feet and inches. So when a laser measure hands you 8.47 feet, you have to turn that into something you can mark, and you have to do it standing on a ladder holding a plank.
One owner of a budget unit put the problem plainly. It measures in inches, but whole inches with decimals after them, and converting a decimal to the standard sixteenth is not something you can do usefully with one hand occupied. As they put it, you would need a spare hand for a calculator.
That is not a small annoyance. It is where DIY measuring errors actually come from. The tool may be accurate to a sixteenth of an inch, but if you round 8.47 feet to eight foot six in your head, you have introduced an error of about half an inch, which is roughly eight times the tolerance you paid for.
So before you compare anything else, look for the word fractions in the listing. Bosch Blaze units display sixteenths and say so. The LEXIVON says so. Several of the cheap units say feet, inches and metres, which usually means decimals. Where a listing is silent, this guide says not stated rather than guessing, because it is not something to be optimistic about.
The second thing that separates a good homeowner tool from a bad one is menu depth, and it works the opposite way round to how these are marketed.
You will use this thing four or five times a year. Between uses you will forget everything about it. One owner described exactly that experience with a budget unit: they read the manual, got it working, put it away for a month, and had to read the manual again, because the icons do not mean what icons usually mean.
A tool with three functions you remember beats a tool with twelve you do not. Pythagoras modes, continuous measurement, stake out and volume calculations all look good on a feature list, and for occasional use every one of them is a menu you have to navigate past to take a simple distance. Buy the boring one.
Every cheap unit here claims well over a hundred feet, and indoors on a pale matte wall you may well get it. Outside it collapses. One owner of the Ogeto measured over a hundred feet at night against a white reflective object, then found that in daylight, in shade, they would be lucky to get fifty. If you are measuring a garden or a driveway, none of these are the right tool and the outdoor guide explains why.
These look ideal for home use and one of them is on this list. There is a specific thing to understand about all of them before you commit.
The laser and the tape do not measure from the same point. One LEXIVON owner worked out that the laser expects the back of the case to be held flush against the surface, and it adds three and three eighths of an inch to account for the body of the tool. The tape hooks from the front. Use them interchangeably without thinking and you will be out by the length of the case.
The other thing is that the tape in these units is the compromised half. The same owner found the blade too thin, and it bent between the six and seven inch mark and would not stay straight afterwards. An electrician reported the magnets breaking after a single waist height fall. The tape has to fit inside a case that is also holding a laser and a battery, and something has to give.
None of that makes them bad. It makes them a homeowner tool rather than a trade tool, which is exactly what this page is about.
It shows sixteenths, it is quick, and nearly three thousand people rate it at 4.6. For most homeowners the sensible thing is to buy this and stop reading.
Right for: anyone doing real work around the house who wants a number they can mark on timber.
Read our full review of the Bosch GLM100-23 Blaze
Check price on AmazonA recognised trade brand at a price close to the anonymous units. Worth the small premium mostly because there is a company behind it if something goes wrong.
Right for: homeowners who want brand backing without professional pricing.
Read our full review of the Klein Tools Laser Distance Measure
Check price on AmazonThe most sensible version of an idea that suits home use perfectly. A laser for the room, a tape for the shelf, one thing in the drawer. Read the note about the offset before you use it.
Right for: general household jobs where most measurements are short and a few are long.
Read our full review of the LEXIVON LX-201 2-in-1
Check price on AmazonTwo working laser measures for about twenty dollars, with over twenty two thousand ratings behind them. If you mainly want to stop dragging a tape across a room on your own, this is enough tool.
Right for: occasional use, and for keeping one upstairs and one in the garage.
Read our full review of the RockSeed Digital Laser Distance Meter, two pack
Check price on AmazonA two inch backlit screen is a real advantage if you are reading it at arm's length or without your glasses. The rest of the owner feedback is mixed and worth knowing before you choose it over the RockSeed.
Right for: indoor measuring where a large clear readout matters more than anything else.
Read our full review of the DTAPE High-Accuracy Laser Measuring Tool
Check price on AmazonIt measures, it is cheap and over six thousand people rate it well. It is last here because it fails both of this page's tests, and it is worth being clear about that rather than burying it.
Right for: rough estimating, room sizing and anything that does not end in a saw cut.
Read our full review of the Ogeto 165 ft Digital Laser Distance Meter
Check price on AmazonIf your measurements end in a cut, buy the Bosch. It shows sixteenths, it is quick, and the extra cost is less than the timber you will waste getting decimals wrong.
If your measurements end in an estimate, how much paint, will the sofa fit, how big is the loft, then the RockSeed two pack is plenty of tool and costs about a fifth as much.
If you want one object rather than two, the LEXIVON is the best executed hybrid here, as long as you remember that the laser and the tape do not start from the same place.
Whatever you buy, keep the tape measure. These are better than a tape for anything long or awkward and worse than a tape for anything under about a foot, where you cannot hook an edge and the reference point becomes the problem.
An LM50 branded unit was removed despite thousands of positive ratings. One owner reported their cuts getting progressively worse, then checked the tool and found it consistently off by a margin they described as not small, with no instructions available anywhere to recalibrate it. A second owner reported it reading two millimetres over on every measurement even after reconfiguring. A consistent uncorrectable offset is worse than an obviously broken tool, because you trust it.
A CRAFTSMAN CMHT77638 was removed after an owner posted photographs of four consecutive measurements of the same twenty inch opening, taken from a fixed position without moving the tool, where the readings varied by almost a full inch. They described themselves as a lifelong Craftsman buyer and said the tool had sat unused on a shelf for a year. With only 64 ratings behind it, there is not enough countervailing evidence to keep it on a page aimed at people who will trust whatever they buy.
Measure something you already know. A doorway, a sheet of plywood, a run of worktop, anything you can also check with a tape. If the two agree you are fine. If they do not, you have found out now rather than after cutting. The full check takes about five minutes.
For the overview, our main laser measure guide covers the picks and the reasoning in one place.