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Kohler's fog-emitting smart 'Stillness Bath' is yours for $8,000
The company will also release a hands-free faucet and home energy storage system this year.
Uber users in the UK can reserve a premium ride a month in advance
Uber Reserve is initially available in London, Manchester, Bristol and Bath.
Kohler's smart home upgrades include a mood-setting bath
Kohler has grown its smart home line to include a mood-setting bath, a lower-cost smart toilet and a hands-free faucet.
The Mateo bath mat can monitor your weight, posture and even your shoe size
Bathroom scales are scary. When you step on one, it's rarely good news, especially in 2020, when you can beam the vital statistics to your phone, and see those holiday excesses in line graph form. Mateo is a smart bathmat that hides such horrors. In fact, it covers it in toweling. There are two parts: a machine-washable cloth cover that looks like your garden-variety bath mat, and a slim mat that houses the technology to detect a surprising number of metrics from you. While weight measurement is the most mainstream feature here (people have historically bought bathroom scales that languish in the corner), the Mateo has medical-grade 7,000-dot pressure mapping. What it can do is a little... intense. Not only can it identify users by their footprint, it can also create a heat map of how your foot makes contact with the ground. And an awful lot more.
Britain's first 'poo bus' hits the streets
Thanks to a range of new technologies, Britain's buses are steadily swapping traditional fuel for greener alternatives. Over in Bristol, however, Wessex Water believes more can be done with the brown stuff. That's why it's today put the UK's first bus powered entirely by human and food waste into service. The Bio-Bus, as it's known, is a 40-seater shuttle capable of travelling up to 186 miles on a full tank of bio-methane gas, which is generated via a process called anaerobic digestion.
Kohler VibrAcoustic baths bombard your senses with light and sound to drown out stress
Bathtime isn't just for luxuriating in champs and bubbles as part of an MTV-guided tour of your Manhattan high-rise (we're looking at you Ms. Carey). It's also for taking some well-deserved time off to undo pent up stress and get yourself clean with the help of an audiovisual assault. Which is why Kohler's rolling out a new line of its Underscore baths with VibrAcoustic tech that incorporates lighting, sound and vibrations to help "bathers... drift into deep relaxation" -- just not so deep they pass out and drown. The systems range in price from $1,055 to $4,634, with the Chromotherapy feature reserved for the higher end models, and come bundled with a touchscreen unit that can connect to mobile devices for audio streaming. Of course, there are also four pre-loaded tracks composed by a sound therapy specialist specifically calibrated to sync your breathing up with preset beat and chord patterns and get you to calm down. It's a whole new world of hygiene just waiting for you to take the plunge. So, if you've got money to burn and New Age-y predilections, this is your next bathtub.
Sony floats waterproof Bravia XDV-W600 1-Seg TV for the bath
It's round, white, and floats in the tub and goes by the name XDV-W600 -- the latest Bravia TV to numb the mind. The little 1-Seg set features a 4-inch, 16.7-million color, 272 x 480 pixel LCD; AM/FM tuner; 2GB of internal memory to record up to 10-hours of 1-Seg television broadcasts; and up to 23-hours of viewing off the internal rechargeable + 2x AA alkaline batteries. It also carries an IPX7 and IPX6 waterproof rating making it submersible for up to 30 minutes at a depth of 1-meter and capable of withstanding penetration by your Jacuzzi's water jets. Although it would likely distort the video into a fisheye view, we really wish that advances in curved and circular LCDs had progressed to the point of mass production -- that square display kills the aesthetic on these ovular TVs. Ships in Japan on October 30th for an expected ¥39,800 (about $368).[Via Impress]
World of WarCrafts: Halaa Battle Token soap
Every Thursday, Shelbi Roach of The Bronze Kettle guides you in creating WoW-inspired crafts using real world mats with World of WarCrafts.Let's face it, PVP can definitely have an adverse affect on one's physical approachability. Have you ever had the unfortunate opportunity to smell a hardcore PVPer? Do yourself and your fellow raid members a favor and practice some good hygiene with this Halaa Battle Token soap. Here is what you will need: Opaque Glycerin Soap Bars Soap Dye Soap Fragrance Carving Tools Click on the images below to view a gallery of step-by-step instructions. %Gallery-28458%
Water Games Technologies Red Diamond bath tub features HDTVs, cellular control
We're no strangers to out-there bathroom fixtures, but the $47,000 Red Diamond bathtub from Water Games Technologies is probably a new low high in powder room decadence. The screaming-red tub features multicolor lighting, a computer-controlled heating system that maintains your desired water temperature, an automatic disinfection system and built-in massager. Of course, that's what any peasant's tub offers -- the real action is in the two retractable HDTVs, Swarovski-encrusted champagne holder, and built-in GSM module that lets you call your bathtub and get things ready for some splashy time from afar. No word on availability, but if you're in the market we're certain your butler can figure it out for you.[Via Born Rich]
MTI Whirlpools' Stereo H2O throws tunes in the tub
We know, you're already skeptical about this one, especially considering all the dodgy material that's already floated your way, but unless someone at MTI Whirlpools is blowing hot steam, this one is for realz. The Stereo H20 bathtub actually does manage to integrate audio-blastin' equipment into a container full of water without guaranteeing any sort of unexpected electrocution along the way. Touting the soothing benefits of "full-bodied sound," the tub rocks several acoustic transducers on the shell's exterior near the waterline, which should theoretically create a bucket of sound to "envelope" the bather in question. Additionally, the digital amplifier that powers said speakers includes provisions for your iPod (or any other DAP, we presume), CD / DVD player, or even an eight-track jam if you can find the correct adapter. Unsurprisingly, there's no word yet concerning the pricetag on this unique piece, but if it's anything like the musically inclined Aquagate shower, it'll probably be reserved for the more affluent set anyway.[Via OhGizmo]
JVC's XA-AW33 floating audio system
We've seen floating audio toys before. But this a first to feature a "dying/fleeing coming king woman" jazz setting. Janky machine translation aside, the XA-AW33 floating mono speaker from JVC features an NXT flat panel speaker surface with an IPX7 waterproofing to keep up to 256MB of your MP3 and WM DRM'd audio files toasty dry. It even features a downward firing pale-blue lamp sure to make your jumbley bits appear even more borg-like. Hot. Yours now for ¥19,800 ($169) in Japan. [Via Impress]
Sony files patent for adjustable bathtub
Sony seems to have decided that the traditional one-size-fits-all bathtub is ripe for a rethink, so the company has filed a patent application for a tub that can be reshaped based on an owner's needs. Basically, it works like the detention-level trash compactor; press a button and the walls of the tub close in or slide out, resulting in a wide and shallow tub, or a narrow and deep one. We knew Sony was scrapping some lines of business, and exploring others that might show more potential, but we had no idea they were going in this direction. Maybe Sir Howard just likes to take a good soak, and wants to make sure he can do so in a brand-loyal manner.
