Vera and Moen "U Smart Shower"

Community Playground General Discussions
1

Anyone seen this?

New product from Moen - combines a wall controller for in the shower and a digital valve which mixes the water to a desired temperature. Allows precise control and pre-heating the shower - will turn on and run the shower until temperature achieved, then pause until you’re ready. As luck would have it, I’m in the middle of a BR remodel and this looks interesting.

Access through wifi I assume, via an app for iphone/android.

Anyone think this could be controlled via vera - at least to incorporate into scenes, etc?

2

Its marketing is short on details. I hope it would not reply on a cloud server to function. https://www.moen.com/u. Still a little pricy at $500.

3

I can visualize a hacker grinning ear to ear hacking one of these while your taking a shower. Better hope he sets it to ice cold water rather than scalding hot. :o Considering how insecure the entire IoT is at this point in time, that isn’t coming anywhere near my house. Especially if it’s WiFi or even worse bluetooth.

4

Points taken, but I’d venture to say you have more potentially damaging things already wired to your system (hello, door locks and alarm systems) than a shower would entail to a hacker.

While the lack of security with IoT is obviously real, any hacker that wants to turn off my water in my shower can feel free. And I’d like to think I’m smart enough to jump out of the stream or turn it away from me if it gets too hot (haven’t we all been in a shower when someone flushes before?)

So other than the chicken little posters above, I agree the marketing materials are pretty sparse. For me to consider this, I’d want some kind of integration to what I already have (wake-up system that reads my appointments from Gcal and wakes me up accordingly, turns on lights/heater, turns on TV to news, etc.). Adding control of the shower would be great, but I have no desire for another independent app to do so …

Probably too early and the crystal balls are cloudy, but gotta think someone will be smart enough to figure it out.

5

I’d be more concerned with Vera (or a hacker, or a glitch) turning it on in the middle of the day while I’m at work and letting it run. I’ve had shower panels before where you set the mixer valve to a “preset” temperature- it’s great as long as the water heater is close by.

6

I’d rather spend the money towards a tankless hot water system** and/or a re-circulator so that there’s no need for a $500 shower handle that still needs a minute(s) to warm up.

I also wonder what the cost and ease to repair these is. Moen Positemp cartridges are already pricey at $40, in my opinion, and don’t seem to last more than a couple of years anymore.

** Caution: Tankless systems result in much higher water bills if you have teenagers that rely on the hot water running out to know when to get out of the shower.

7

Any decent themostatic shower mixer will warm up much more quickly than the simple water-proportion controls (which you obviously have if toilet flushing makes that much of a difference), and probably then pre-heating wouldn’t be necessary.

The reason is simple - if the water is too cold, it will open up the hot feed fully until it starts to make a difference.

If you assume the comfortable mix is 50/50 or even less hot water, then it would warm up twice as fast or better with a good thermostatic mixer.

Since you already have a problem with pressure variation, I would also look carefully at the responsiveness of this digital solution - modern mechanical thermostats respond very quickly, you hardly notice any change in water temperature due to pressure variations. If the digital solution is like the Vera responsiveness, you’d spend more time standing on the side of the shower than under the water!

8

This is one use-case I could buy into - big “get out of the bloody shower” button triggering a scene to set temperature to minimum :wink: Maybe with a 30 second countdown and flashing lights…

9

A watercop type of device that shuts of the water to the shower entirely would be a cheaper option. ;D ‘You have reached your allotted shower time, water will be turned of in 3… 2… 1…’

10

No, mains-water-cold is definitely better than no water 8)

Fortunately my main hot water feed tap is accessible, no need for fancy solutions.

11

I agree - let them have cold water to rinse that soap off. I foresee it happening only once in the winter, maybe a couple of times in the summer before the lesson is learned.