Moen’s new U by Moen Smart Faucet could banish measuring cups, spoons, and thermometers from your kitchen. Once installed, you’ll need only to tell your Alexa or Google Assistant-powered smart speaker exactly how much water you need and at what temperature. When the water has reached the desired temperature, simply wave your hand over the faucet and it will dispense the precise amount into your container and then shut off.
The faucet can automatically dispense from as little as one tablespoon of water up to 15 gallons at whatever temperature you desire, or you can just say “hot water” or “cold water.” You can also create customized presets, such as “baby bottle” or “dog bowl,” with the Moen app and have the faucet pour just the right amount of water to fill the specified vessel. Or if you want to fill your sink to wash the dishes, you can create a preset to fill the sink with as many gallons of hot water as it will hold.
Don’t feel like talking? A sensor on the front faucet recognizes gestures and will start and stop the water flowing with a wave of your hand, regardless of what position the faucet handle is in. That sounds like just the ticket when you’ve been handling raw meat or preparing bread or cookie dough and don’t want to contaminate or otherwise dirty the faucet before washing your hands.
The faucet’s pull-out spigot can be adjusted from a stream to a spray with the push of a button, and there’s a Power Clean feature that sends the water out with greater force to help rinse the food off dirty dishes. When you want to return the spigot to the faucet’s neck, a weight at the end of the hose beneath the sink causes it to retract quickly.
The faucet doesn’t even require an AC outlet—Moen says it will run for up to two years on battery power. And it’s not radically expensive: Prices for the the U by Moen start at $450.