Anyone plan to buy a smart faucet?

[Pink Jazz]

I was wondering, is anyone here planning to buy a smart faucet?


I'm planning to buy the U by Moen Smart Faucet, either on Prime Day or Black Friday.  In our case this is the only one that will work for us, since it is the only one that can run on batteries (the Delta VoiceIQ and Kohler Sensate with Konnect require an unswitched power outlet, which the only one under our sink is taken by our dishwasher, with the other half being switched and taken by the garbage disposal).  I think it is pretty cool that you can link it with Alexa the faucet can dispense a specific amount of water or water at a specific temperature.

[Takumi]

https://youtu.be/J1FVsVE54Qw

[Duke87]

Why the fuck is this even a thing?

[Max Rockatansky]

No, if anything I need less gimmick appliances since my wife tends to bring them into the equation as a novelty. 

[Scott5114]

It's just another thing that can break down. And what are you supposed to do in five years when the software isn't compatible with your phone anymore?

[US 89]

Only if I can also get the smart dish soap and smart sponge that go with it. 

[Ned Weasel]

I always thought my faucets were smart enough when the knobs could turn them on and off and adjust the pressure and temperature.

It's okay, though.  I've also been accused of having a "solution in search of a problem."

[Brandon]

And to think there's this amazing technology that rarely breaks down and relies on no batteries whatsoever to control the faucet.  A hand and adjusting the temperature manually with the faucet.

I think I'll pass on most of these "smart" home ideas.

[qguy]

I don't like my plumbing fixtures to be smarter than I am. 

Seriously, though, sound interesting. We of course expect a full report. IOW (wait for it)...  let us know how it comes out. 

[SectorZ]

It's just another thing that can break down. And what are you supposed to do in five years when the software isn't compatible with your phone anymore?

This. It's already happening with dozens of things, where not only the problem you specified but as well the manufacturer deprecates the software and you're left with a paperweight.

[formulanone]

It's just another thing that can break down. And what are you supposed to do in five years when the software isn't compatible with your phone anymore?

It probably just becomes a regular faucet instead of a fairer faucet.

We have a refrigerator with Wi-Fi capability, though only to set the temperature and find out if the door was left open...though we didn't buy it because it had those features. As soon as I downloaded the app, it asked for an email and password because it isn't really that smart...so I've never proceeded further with those silly features. We turned off the Wi-Fi because that's just another drain on bandwidth.

In any case, we now have a larger, wider, and deeper fridge which makes ice and water which is all we wanted without compromise.

[corco]

With a smart faucet can I hack into your computer and flood your house when you're not home? That seems fun.

[kphoger]

With a smart faucet can I hack into your computer and flood your house when you're not home? That seems fun.

I don't think he's considering the smart drain plug, though.



Heck, we're thinking of replacing the kitchen faucet, and I've been wondering if it would be over the top to buy one whose faucet doubles as the spray wand.

I think we'll just go old school and get a flip faucet.

[1995hoo]

I would be mildly interested in a faucet that operates hands-free when you stick either your hands or the dishes underneath it, provided the sensor works better than the ones you encounter in public restrooms where if you don't hold your hands in exactly the right spot, the water turns off and then turns on for a split second when you're moving them around trying to find the right spot. I know those sorts of faucets exist for home use, but I don't know how much they cost.

We currently have a kitchen faucet where the end pulls out for use as a spray wand and I like the faucet, but my problem is that the tubing or whatever you call it that slides out of the faucet when you pull out the end has gotten a couple of pinholes over the years such that it sprays out the sides. You have to grip that tubing in your fist to prevent water from spraying too much, and that makes it hard to use the faucet that way. Hence why the idea of replacing it has occurred to me, but it's a low priority since we're also having the house repainted and most of the windows replaced.

We do have some "smart devices"–some smart light bulbs and a wifi-enabled thermostat. I use the app to control the thermostat less often than I expected before we got it because it also has a "vacation" mode–you tell it when you're leaving and when you're coming home and it adjusts automatically. Tell you what, though, last June having the app to control it was very useful when we came home from Toronto two days earlier than planned because my father was dying. I was able to adjust the thermostat when we stopped for dinner in Bedford, Pennsylvania, so the house had cooled off by the time we got home. The smart light bulbs have been great. Among other things, we can control each bulb in a fixture individually–so, for example, if we're both sitting on the family room couch and I'm watching baseball while my wife wants to read, I can turn on just the one overhead bulb for her side of the couch so the other two bulbs don't cast a glare on the TV screen. We also don't need to wire a dimmer switch because we can voice-control what percentage brightness we want at any given time.

What I would like to have, but do not because it was too expensive when we got our dryer and it wasn't offered when we got our washer, is laundry machines that will ding your mobile phone when the cycle is complete. As it is I set a timer, but that's always inexact unless I use a time cycle on the dryer.

[Scott5114]

And to think there's this amazing technology that rarely breaks down and relies on no batteries whatsoever to control the faucet.  A hand and adjusting the temperature manually with the faucet.

I mean, I like the idea of being able to control the temperature to the precise degree. But not enough to spend more money on it. And it probably wouldn't even work properly in my house, anyway, because I have copper piping and I have to run the faucet for a few minutes to get actually-hot water out of it.

It probably just becomes a regular faucet instead of a fairer faucet.

I wouldn't necessarily make that assumption. In the last ten years, corporate electronics have definitely skewed toward devices becoming disposable. (But without the price decreases to justify that.) My 10-year-old iPad, for instance, still works just fine, hardware wise. I only use it for YouTube because I don't have much other need for a tablet. Except I started getting error messages from the YouTube app saying "You must update YouTube to continue." Go to the App Store... "This version of YouTube is not compatible with this device."

Another reason why I insist on open-source software whenever possible.

Heck, we're thinking of replacing the kitchen faucet, and I've been wondering if it would be over the top to buy one whose faucet doubles as the spray wand.

Our house came with one of those. It's pretty convenient. Of course, I grew up in a pair of houses where the spray wand never worked, for whatever reason (what causes that, anyway?) so having a spray wand at all kind of feels like a luxury.

[kphoger]

I like the idea of being able to control the temperature to the precise degree.

I'm not.  Other than the bathtub/shower, I never need a specific temperature of water in the house.  In the kitchen, I either need (a) full cold water, (b) full hot water, or (c) somewhere/anywhere in between for washing dishes.

I grew up in a pair of houses where the spray wand never worked, for whatever reason (what causes that, anyway?) so having a spray wand at all kind of feels like a luxury.

The reason we're thinking of replacing ours is that the main faucet loses water pressure every so often.  We can then turn it off and right back on again, and the water pressure is normal for a while.  I've checked the aerator and the cartridges but don't see any clogs.  So we're thinking it's the diverter, such that the main faucet sometimes "thinks" the spray wand is in use sometimes.  Not totally sure, though.  All that is to say, perhaps the diverter was the cause of your non-functioning spray wand.

[1995hoo]

And to think there's this amazing technology that rarely breaks down and relies on no batteries whatsoever to control the faucet.  A hand and adjusting the temperature manually with the faucet.

I mean, I like the idea of being able to control the temperature to the precise degree. But not enough to spend more money on it. And it probably wouldn't even work properly in my house, anyway, because I have copper piping and I have to run the faucet for a few minutes to get actually-hot water out of it.

....

We don't have copper piping and I often have to do what you describe, especially in the morning when I go to shower. I've always just assumed that's a function of my showering up on the third floor while the hot water heater is two floors down in the basement, such that it takes 30 seconds to a minute before hot water comes out. Maybe it's not "for a few minutes" depending on how you meant that phrase, but the hot water is definitely not instantaneous.

If I ever need water heated to a particular temperature for something, I use my wife's Instant Pot Zen teakettle. You set what temperature you want the water heated to and press the button and it heats it. The thing is FAST. I love using it to boil the water to cook pasta because it's a lot faster than filling a pot on the stove and waiting for it to boil.

[SEWIGuy]

And to think there's this amazing technology that rarely breaks down and relies on no batteries whatsoever to control the faucet.  A hand and adjusting the temperature manually with the faucet.

I mean, I like the idea of being able to control the temperature to the precise degree. But not enough to spend more money on it. And it probably wouldn't even work properly in my house, anyway, because I have copper piping and I have to run the faucet for a few minutes to get actually-hot water out of it.

....

We don't have copper piping and I often have to do what you describe, especially in the morning when I go to shower. I've always just assumed that's a function of my showering up on the third floor while the hot water heater is two floors down in the basement, such that it takes 30 seconds to a minute before hot water comes out. Maybe it's not "for a few minutes" depending on how you meant that phrase, but the hot water is definitely not instantaneous.

If I ever need water heated to a particular temperature for something, I use my wife's Instant Pot Zen teakettle. You set what temperature you want the water heated to and press the button and it heats it. The thing is FAST. I love using it to boil the water to cook pasta because it's a lot faster than filling a pot on the stove and waiting for it to boil.

I have copper piping and still have that issue.  Copper isn't really any better than steel at retaining heat, and both are worse than the new flexible piping.  In fact the types of plastic piping that has come out in the last decade or so can be superior to copper depending on the quality of your water.  Way better than PVC.

That being said, I don't think it costs THAT much to lose heat overnight in your copper pipes.

[kphoger]

The time it takes to get hot water in my house is a function of the distance from water heater to tap.

copper

Several years ago, we did have the problem of the black rubber lining inside a flexible hose having deteriorated, such that small pieces would come out the tap in bathtub, and I'd have to fish them out of the bath water.  That hose has since been replaced with copper.

[Scott5114]

Yeah, the distance is definitely a factor, since the shower I use most frequently is at the far end of the house from the heater. I definitely think that the piping has something to do with it, though, since once the pipes are warmed up from me using the shower, I can get instant hot water from any tap in the house for a time.

I feel like PVC piping would produce hot water faster, since it doesn't transfer heat as much as copper does, but I may be wrong.

[formulanone]

It probably just becomes a regular faucet instead of a fairer faucet.

I wouldn't necessarily make that assumption. In the last ten years, corporate electronics have definitely skewed toward devices becoming disposable. (But without the price decreases to justify that.) My 10-year-old iPad, for instance, still works just fine, hardware wise. I only use it for YouTube because I don't have much other need for a tablet. Except I started getting error messages from the YouTube app saying "You must update YouTube to continue." Go to the App Store... "This version of YouTube is not compatible with this device."

Another reason why I insist on open-source software whenever possible.

Looking it up, it's still a mechanical device with some plastic valves, some tubing, and a few nuts that happens to have some brainy bits thrown in to show off; maybe a serious restaurant kitchen can make the most of it while performing other tasks, but it all seems like tech for tech's sake rather than any actual benefit.

We have an iPad 1 and 2 which aren't very good for anything right now, except to play a few kiddie games that can't be updated...They were freebies from their grandfather. I think I'm spoiled by the days of the late-1990s WWW sites which actually tried to make sure it was as backward-compatible as possible, but that ship seemed to go adrift at least a decade ago. The four-year-old "smart TV" won't run some apps (or so I'm told) without a Fire Stick to help it play the CBS application. I like that it can play a YouTube video, but it annoys the heck out of me that it takes 30-60 seconds to actually make anything appear on the screen after pressing the Power button. I guess they figure if the masses buy replaceable tech in new phones and tablets every 3-5 years, or a new PC every 4-5 years, why not every other appliance?

So yeah, hands have gotten civilization pretty darn far for the past four million years.

[Roadgeekteen]

The hell is a smart faucet?

[ozarkman417]

"Alexa, turn on my kitchen sink at 100 degrees"

Oh no, you forgot to turn it off? Too bad you can't get Black Friday deals on your water bill.

Does the "Smart Faucet" have a way to hook up to Alexa, just lake everything in a house these days?

[kphoger]

With a smart faucet can I hack into your computer and flood your house when you're not home? That seems fun.

just lake everything in a house

I think that's corco's plan.

[webny99]

With a smart faucet can I hack into your computer and flood your house when you're not home? That seems fun.

just lake everything in a house

I think that's corco's plan.

Very nicely played!