There is something downright masculine about upshifting.The feeling of power as a car kicks into gear and takes off. But what if you could get the same feeling when you brush your teeth?
When I was growing up I thought all faucets were going to be like this—all digital, electronic thermostat and sleekly mysterious. Nope: 99% of faucets I use are still the old twist’n'turn and get the bath-temperature wrong variety. Perhaps it’s because designs like this one from Italian makers Treemme are slightly impractical: it requires its own largeish mounting shelf, with built-in digital display. Perhaps its because I don’t have the big piles of money required to have a designer bathroom. Perhaps its because with that particular sink it looks a lot like a urinal. [Trendir via Craziest Gadgets]
Luckily, my cat was always too dumb to make the connection between the faucet and fresh water, so she’s made do thus far with just sipping from her water dish. But I’ve heard that once kitties taste from the tap, they never want to go back. For running water addicted cats, MAKE contributor tsruzik has constructed a pretty ingenious automatic cat faucet using an IR sensor and some tubing.
This lovely faucet uses a sensor to follow your hands as you move underneath it. As you move them from left to right, the water increases in temperature, enabling you to control how hot the water is by placing your hands on one side or the other. It’s pretty awesome. Hit the jump for a video of it in action.
Kohler’s Karbon faucet is not the first to receive a cutting edge design, but it packs that extra wow factor with it’s segmented, cylindrical design. The articulated faucet not only looks like a series of James Bond-esque pistol silencers, but it lets you drag and hold the faucet where you need it. It doesn’t hang limp or shoot back to the base like those with a pullout head.
If we were handy enough to build our own sinks, we’d build one exactly like this “The Ripple” faucet, designed by Smith Newnam, which equates relative ball movement to the temperature and amount of water flowing out. Hot water makes the LED glow red, while cold makes it glow blue, and the two hot and cold channels mix together in the open air to make for your desired temperature. Awesome? Definitely. Practical? Not so much. Just try moving that ball around without accidentally touching the scorching water. [Flickr via Yanko Design]
