We’ve had a number of Wrongest Product Award nominations for kitchen concepts: the waffle batter dispenser, the breakfast sandwich maker, a duo of products intended to increase the efficiency of our banana consumption (here and here), and for the dog owners among us whose canines start slobbering while watching us consume the perfect waffles enabled by our waffle batter dispenser: the pet treat maker.
So it seems only fair that we give bathroom products some equal time.
Those water-proof shower radios dangling off the pipe have always seemed pretty amateur looking, more evocative of soap-on-a-rope than 21st century cloud-stored digitized music. Kohler has the upgrade with their Bluetooth-enabled “Moxie” shower head/speaker. Now you don’t have to interrupt your morning serenade as you make your way from bedroom to bathroom and back. And lest you think this dual-function gizmo is too single-purpose, the speaker can be removed and played anywhere near its wireless source, which you presumably have not dropped in the toilet.
I guess the sunglasses make sense with the dance moves?
And you really don’t want to do that, because then your smartphone-controlled toilet (also, by the way, equipped with speakers) will revert to a dumb piece of porcelain like the one you grew up with and most of us still have. The “Satis” toilet comes to us from Japan (of course). With its app, you can raise and lower the seat, flush the toilet or control the bidet. But wait, there’s more, and I’m not just referring to the built-in speakers. You can monitor its water and electricity consumption (I guess that makes it “eco”) … and “you can also record your daily bowel movements with the app’s “Toilet Diary,” and provide your doctor with a detailed account of your dirty business.” A steal at $5,686. I think I have john envy.
I think this image says it all.
There are other mashup plumbing inventions we could include here, like the Axor “Waterdream” portable combo light fixture and shower. Currently still a prototype, Waterdream is intended to bring “bathing into the living room, with all of its emotive, sentimental objects suggestive of home.” It sounds more like a water nightmare to me, especially for the inhabitants of the apartment below it. But maybe it’ll distract Fido from the pet treat maker.
Best reader comment: “Once in a while we see true genius at work. Minds that take us to creative heights and make us ask “why has it taken so long”. This isn’t one of those times.”
Previous Wrongest Product Award nominations
The Wrongest Product Awards will go to those products (and their designers) that embody the least amount of redeeming value while incurring the use of unnecessary, often gratuitous, materials or energy.
How is this relevant to EcoOptimism, you might ask? Easy – it shows how extraneous so many products are, often in a “what-were-they-thinking” sense.
Nominations are open. Send yours to ImNotBuyinIt (at) EcoOptimism.com.