OaSense is an easy to install smart shower head that helps you save water without compromising shower quality.
OaSense is a smart shower head that helps you save water – and money – with a presence-detecting sensor. It knows when you’re under the shower and pauses water flow when you’re not, leading to substantial savings. It enables you to take guilt-free showers without sacrificing their quality.
Like many of our best ideas, OaSense was born during a shower. I was concerned about the drought that’s still facing California, and was determined to do something about it. Anything, that is, but install a dreadful “low-flow” shower head with lackluster water pressure. While most new shower heads focus on attempts to make low-flow bearable, I realized that there were times when I really didn’t need the water running at all. Shutting it off manually, however, was a big pain since my bathroom at the time had 2 knobs for water (hot and cold). Finding the right temperature again would be a hassle, and everyone hates the roller coaster of water that is too hot or too cold. If only there were a way for my shower head to know when I needed water and when I didn’t!
I researched the idea some more and found that, while sensor-enabled flow devices have existed in sinks for years, there was no product on the market that functioned similarly for showers. With that, I was off to the races. The OaSense testing community and I quickly narrowed down the following seven features as areas of focus:
After spending countless hours and thousands of dollars refining and testing over 15 prototypes, I now believe that the product is ready for the market. In addition to raising money for the tooling necessary to manufacture components of OaSense, I’d like to validate public interest in the product. I hope that, like me, you’ll see the value in saving water without sacrificing shower quality.
Color options for OaSense are shown in the image below. Please note that actual color and sheen are subject to minor change.
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OaSense has undergone months of user testing, and we now have more than 30 beta units in the field for daily testing in households. We’ve tried our best to de-risk this product, and feel confident that we’ll be able to deliver on our promise of a great water-saving shower.
The primary tasks that would be left to complete after funding are:
1. Create injection molding tooling for shower tops.
2. Source customized swivel ball for a more elegant and cost-effective mounting solution.
3. Improve documentation and create customer support team.
4. Conduct a more thorough review of international bathroom appliance/water use codes to ensure that OaSense can be marketed internationally.
With my background in mechanical engineering and supply chain management, I feel confident that the task of sourcing and assembling parts will not be problematic. We’ve already got a team of local vendors lined up who are excited about this project and well qualified to help. In fact, we’ve even had them build out a few test units over our beta phase, and those showers work well!