Love to sing in the shower? Kohler has the showerhead for you
Kohler introduces a showerhead with a high-end speaker, among other product announcements for 2020.
Kohler's newest Moxie showerhead includes a removable speaker with Alexa smarts and Harman Kardon audio.
Kohler is known for its high-end kitchen and bath hardware. This year, the company brought four new innovations to CES 2020 to make your smart home feel a little bit more luxurious. Let's take a look at the newest options for smarter water.
Read more: Best shower head of 2020
Moxie Showerhead and Smart Speaker
If you love to sing in the shower, you have plenty of options when it comes to waterproof Bluetooth speakers. The most seamless way to integrate sound into your shower is with a built-in speaker, something Kohler has offered before in its Moxie line of shower heads with wireless speakers.
Kohler is revamping this line in 2020 with the addition of a new showerhead with built-in audio from Harman Kardon. There are several options here, so stay with me. You can get the $99 speaker as a stand-alone device, meaning not in a showerhead. It's waterproof and tuned by Harman Kardon to cancel out water noise. The speaker uses Bluetooth and has its own app separate from the Kohler Konnect app for setting up your music preferences. Kohler estimates the battery life to be 6 to 7 hours at 70% volume, and it charges via a cordless charging dock.
Spend a bit more, and you can get that same speaker with Amazon's Alexa voice assistant inside for $159. This adds voice commands and integration with the rest of your Kohler Konnect voice-controlled products. Both standalone speakers come with an accessory stand. Speaker pairing is an option, too if you have a large bathroom or use these speakers in other areas of your home.
The showerhead option uses a magnetic docking system to hold the speaker right in the middle, and it'll cost $169 for the Bluetooth model and $229 to add Alexa. All of Kohler's new Moxie speakers with Harman Kardon sound will be available for order this year, though we don't have specifics on how soon.
DTV Shower options expanded
No Kohler announcement would be complete without mention of its digital thermostatic valve shower system. Kohler isn't new to the smart shower space, and its DTV line of products creates nearly endless customization options in lighting, temperature, time, audio and water delivery.
This year, Kohler is adding a DTV Mode, available in bath/shower, dual shower and bath-only configurations. This DTV system has basic digital showering but with a simpler, radial control dial. You can still create customized bath presets, adjust the maximum temperature and remotely start your shower or bath from the app.
DTV Mode is a more basic system for water delivery without the lights and sound of DTV Plus, giving consumers the option to have Kohler's water customization without all the bells and whistles and multiple showerhead inputs of higher-priced models. The valve will cost $825 and the interface $225. That's significantly less expensive than the DTV Plus system's $1,200 touchscreen interface. DTV Mode is available to order now.
Aquifer Refine Purification System
Kohler's adding smarts to the kitchen in 2020, too. The Aquifer Refine water purification system is designed to sit under your kitchen faucet and improve your water quality. It has a three-stage filtration system to filter out lead, mercury, some pharmaceuticals, bacteria and viruses.
You'll get Wi-Fi connectivity so you can see your water usage and filter life and receive notifications about potential leaks. Leak detection will alert you with an audible alarm, a light on the device and a mobile notification. The Aquifer Refine system can also connect with Amazon Dash through Alexa to automatically order new filters as soon as your current filter life reaches 10%. Kohler estimates the system will sell for around $600 and be available to order this summer.
Smart faucets for every decor
Kohler is also adding several new designs to its lineup of smart kitchen faucets with Kohler Konnect technology. Most notable is the $399 Kohler Setra faucet -- the rest all cost $730 or more.
The Kohler Setra faucet will cost $399 and work with Kohler Konnect, Alexa and Google Assistant for voice commands.
The Setra and other designs (Graze, Artifacts and Crue) include on and off voice control, presets for specific things like spaghetti pots, water usage monitoring, leak detection and both manual and touchless faucet controls. The Setra faucet functions much like the Kohler Sensate faucet we tried out in 2019, but with a transitional design and a better price. Sensate, Setra and Artifacts styles are available for order now, with Graze and Crue coming later this year.
Touchless toilets
Kohler is again displaying touchless toilets at CES, this time integrated into its $1,000 San Souci and Tresham models and its $600 Reach and Corbelle designs. Said to be available sometime this year, the toilets feature a sensor so you can flush with a wave of your hand.
The sensor surrounds a physical handle and includes a color-changing night-light you can control from the Kohler Konnect app, where you can also adjust the sensitivity of the touchless control.
Kohler has expanded its line of smart products significantly in recent years with the Numi 2.0 smart toilet, Sensate faucet, Verdera Voice mirror and this latest round of announcements. We plan to test it all out at the CNET Smart Home, so stay tuned to find out how these smart kitchen and bath products perform in real life.
See also
- CNET's 20 favorite products of CES 2020
- All the cool new gadgets at CES 2020
- Full coverage of CES 2020