Very Intelligent

A smart shower head, you say? From hai?

And by the way, that’s pronounced like “hi,” as in the sentence, “Oh, hi Mark.” (Kudos to hai for leaning into this in their own product video.)

Now, in my experience, when you see the word ‘smart’ attached to a product that has not previously been smartified, it can go one of two ways:

A. The smart features actually do something useful, making your life easier by providing a solution to a huge problem you somehow didn’t know you had.

Or…

B. It’s perhaps the stupidest fucking thing you’ve ever seen, providing solutions not to problems you didn’t know you had, but problems that simply do not exist, thus increasing screen time through app use without benefit.

The problem here? We, as humans, vary. What one of us might think of as an eye-roll-inducing bit of tech bro tinkering might be someone else’s perfect life hack. Therefore, instead of arguing one way or another, I watched a fifteen-minute YouTube review of this thing and will now outline what I learned so you can judge for yourself whether it’s worth it.

First thing: though it does have bluetooth, you don’t need to plug it in. Ever. Because it features a “shower-powered turbine.” Basically, inside its apparatus, they put a turbine that generates power via the water running through it. Not a feature, per se, but I wanted to dispel any concerns you might have about waking up late and rushing to get ready for work, only to realise you can’t shower because you forgot to charge your shower head.

In terms of its smart features and drawbacks, here are a few I thought were interesting:

1. You can set your desired temperature of the water via the app. It will then let you know when the water reaches that temperature. If you step away, it’ll even send you a push notification. (It also keeps track of your average temperature and estimates the energy consumed to achieve this.)

2. You can actually monitor how much water you use. and set a desired number of gallons to use on the app. Once you reach that threshold, the light on the shower head will change, letting you know it’s time to get out.

3. Due to the above-mentioned turbine, the bluetooth inside the shower head powers down after each use. That means, if you want to use the various smart features, you do need to open your app at the outset of a shower and sync it. If you don’t, it won’t tell you when the water has come to temp.

Hidden in that last bit, though, is something important: this thing can just be, you know, a shower head. Moreover, it can be a very sturdy shower head; the reviewer notes the high-quality build early on. This thing is strong brushed metal, not plastic (aside from the piping).

Were you to pay the initial price of $200 as quoted in the video (which, lol, holy shit!), getting a ‘nice solid shower head’ might be a let down. But we’re selling this thing for the same price as the cheap Amazon shower head the reviewer mentions at the end of the video: 30 bucks.

So, what do you think? Is it time to smarten up your showering?