Piped music
While it pains me to say so, the H2O is unfortunately not eco-perfection. Horizontal shower connections (such as branching off taps) may not be suitable. I tried the H2O on my brother’s shower, and while it screwed in just fine, a rough crackle was the best sound it would manage. Still, such setups are not especially common and any shower with a vertical outlet should produce the required pressure just fine.
Yet it’s the quality of reception that’s the real glaring, annoying clanger. Unlike standard radio sets that can be placed in a favourable spot, with extendable aerials for further accuracy, the H2O is, unfortunately, clamped in one spot. If radio reception is shoddy in your shower, then it’s a hissy, crackly wash for you. Out of frustration, I customised my H2O with a wire coat-hanger – hardly an elegant or especially satisfying solution – yet it did provide a significantly better signal.
Even the most convoluted of plumbing can accommodate the H2O, but the pressure might not be sufficient
So the H2O is conceptually excellent. It is British too, and the eco-outlook make you want it to succeed. At 35 quid it certainly won’t break the bank, but you could end up, bizarrely, giving it away to someone whose shower cubicle offers better reception.
Verdict
Hopefully an H2O mark 2, complete with small retractable aerial, will appear sooner rather than later. I appreciate it may look marginally less neat and tidy, but there’s only so much radio fuzz one can take. Anything else? DAB would be lovely (but power hungry, alas), MP3 even better.
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H2O water-powered shower radio
COMMENTS
Consumer whore
Fill your house with more junk to save the world.
Eh?
Green? WTF? So the power shower isn't using energy to run it at all, then? That's probably why it didn't work on the tap-shower-thing because there's only base water pressure through it and, thus, no power.
And how is it green? It has a rechargeable battery and sits there stealing power from the water pressure that someone, somewhere has had to pay and use energy to be pressurised. And it has a rechargeable battery in it too! Energy-saving (on the order of pence per decade) if you have high enough water pressure already, maybe, but green? Er, no.
This is yet-another "green" invention that actually makes things worse but helps lazy people think they are doing something for the environment while they stand in a pressurised, heated spray of water sourced from reservoirs miles away. Let's get this straight - the Trevor Bayliss clockwork radio is orders of magnitude more green than this tacky piece of ill-thought-out junk. And then look at the price! I could buy several dozens battery powered radios for that, or a handul of wind-up ones, or even just one and a shed-load of normal batteries (and still, strangely, be more green!).
This isn't green. It isn't even an application WORTH saving energy on (it's 80mW of output, ffs, and radio circuits take virtually nothing which is why crystal sets used to be "unpowered"). And certainly not one worth pushing your plumbing through a cheap bit of plastic for. I bet it even invalidates any warranty on your shower, too. It's a stupid idea. Stupid people will buy it. But, Reg, ffs, can we please moderate this kind of junk off the front page at least?
slightly off-topic
I'm wondering how much the electric bills would go down if I figured out how to hook up several of these little turbines to the cold water inlet and a wall socket and then just kept the taps running...
So many comments, so little understanding of physics...
As I understand it, the power comes from the energy released when the water flows from an area of higher pressure (the pipe) to an area of lower pressure (your shower). The net result of this will be a slightly reduced pressure at the shower head, meaning a slight reduction in the flow of water through your shower. You probably won't notice this.
The pressure in the pipe will originate from one of two sources; either 'head pressure' in a tank, or from a pump in a power shower, in which case, either you are utilising potential energy which you would otherwise be throwing away when the water falls out of your shower head and drains away, or you are slightly increasing the load on the pump which drives the shower, at your own cost. At no point are you stealing power from the water company, as far as I am aware, these utilities pump the water through a water tower already to maintain a constant pressure, if anything, by slowing the flow of water through the shower, you are reducing the amount of water pumped into such storage in the first place.
All that said, the radio is nasty and gimmicky.
That's because
You'd need to install a turbine between the Elan Valley and Birmingham to generate enough power to run a DAB set.
