Venturebeat:
The startup, backed by a rare lineup — Tim Cook, Schmidt’s Family Foundation, Y Combinator — launched preorders for its first product, a shower-head, on Kickstarter last night. The size of Nebia’s seed round was not shared, but Y Combinator is known to invest at least $120,000 by default. Nebia aims to raise at least $100,000 more on Kickstarter.
But Nebia isn’t just out to create some pricy shower system. CEO Philip Winter claims the device uses 70 percent less water than a traditional shower, and he hopes to scale the product to a point where it’s cheap enough to bring to developing markets.
I’ve been very vocal about my dislike of Kickstarter projects in general but I love showers even more than I hate Kickstarter. This idea is very clever, looks great and, as someone who is always looking for a better shower experience (and to use less water), it’s something I am very interested in. I’ve backed this project.
So this project is backed by Tim Cook, Eric Schmidt AND Shawn King. I doubt any startup has ever seen this roster of investors.
“… but I love showers even more than I hate Kickstarter…”
You know that game I mentioned where I try to pick the author from the main index? I had no idea who wrote that sentence. NONE. 🙂
LOL You know, you’re probably right. 🙂
HA! GOT YA! 🙂
I think my brain just stopped when I tried to imagine ANY of you guys in the shower. Not that you don’t go there, I just didn’t want to imagine it. 🙂
I saw the other day a shower head on Groupon that had LEDs on it powered by the water pressure. It glowed red when the shower was too hot, blue when it was too cold, and green when it was just right.
Reimagine the shower aside (which I think is useful!), I could see a shower head that lights red at scalding levels as a basic building requirement in the future. And that would be a good thing, I think. Some small cost at scale, but imagine how many burn injuries it would save worldwide.
(I didn’t buy one. It’s impossible to burn yourself with my strata’s hot water; at worst you’d be very uncomfortable and have to turn it off. But I did point my parents to it.)
As long as you understand that in Kickstarter time May of 2016 is really September of 2017 or later…
Although perhaps Tim Cook will share some of his supply chain expertise so they actually ship their product on time.
While that is true of far too many Kickstarters, I think this one might ship when promised. That may just be wishful thinking on my part though.
That’s what I’m hoping for. 🙂
Great concept but I’ve traveled the world and have grown to absolutely despise showers that come from right above your head…clumsy design. I get that this moves but not enough for my tastes. The “rain shower”head is not good, functional industrial design in my opinion.
Agreed. Which is why , when you watch the video, you see the showerhead is adjustable like any other.
hate kickstarter? why would you hate a system which enables small business to get funding to develop new and innovative products? products which traditionally big lending doesn’t want to bother with? what is there to dislike about that system?