Kohler's new smart fixtures make Alexa your bathroom buddy


While Kohler is mostly known for simple bathroom fixtures, it's been releasing a few high-end smart products, like toilets, for years. But now the company is expanding to the whole bathroom. The brand introduced a new platform at CES, Kohler Konnect, that runs on a new line of products users can customize with presets and control with motion or voice -- and some even have Amazon Alexa built-in.

These apply to a new suite of products, from mirrors to showers to toilets, designed to work with Konnect. Users can start a shower, warm a toilet seat, adjust lighting from the mirror or fill a bathtub to a desired depth through vocal control. Users can fiddle with environmental presets using a new app for iOS and Android, while the Konnect platform as a whole can automate tasks and monitor water usage. Some of the new products in the lineup can connect to Amazon Alexa, the Google Assistant and Apple HomeKit.

Sure, it might feel goofy at first to command your toilet to flush itself. But as more voice assistants enter homes and lives, creating a bathroom that's responsive to your vocal and gesture controls will probably feel natural. Install an Senseate intelligent faucet in your kitchen and tell it to fill a precise measurement, or treat your royal self with a voice-activated heated toilet seat. You'll have to wait to make your connected bathroom dreams come true: Kohler's Verdara Voice Lighted Mirror, which comes with Amazon Alexa installed, will be the first Konnect product on the market with a March release window, with others coming later in 2018.

Click here to catch up on the latest news from CES 2018.

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