The easiest way to waste water is undoubtedly under the warm, comfortable stream of a shower. The average shower blasts out around two gallons per minute, and depending on how long you spend washing up, you could be running up your water bill substantially — not to mention wasting all the energy it took to heat the water up in the first place. But don’t worry; there’s a new gizmo on the rise that aims to help solve this problem.
Amphiro, a fledgling startup from Zurich, has built a small, retrofittable, self-powered shower meter that provides real-time insight into how much water and power you’re using. It doesn’t cut you off after a certain amount of time or limit your use of hot water. Instead, it simply displays the amounts of water and power you’ve gone through in big, easy-to-see numbers. The idea seems to be that once you’re no longer blissfully ignorant of the resources you’re literally letting slip down the drain, you’ll naturally feel compelled to change your usage habits.
You can actually get one of these things on your shower right now. The original Amphiro A1 meter is already available through the company’s website for about $89 bucks, but you might want to hold out for the new model they’re currently raising funds for on Kickstarter. Version 2.0 (the Amphiro B1) will be equipped with Bluetooth connectivity and an accompanying mobile app, so you’ll be able to keep track of your usage history for both water and power right from your tablet or smartphone.
Amphiro still has quite a long road ahead of it to reach its £20,000 funding goal, but if everything goes as planned and the campaign ends up a success, the company expects to ship the first units to backers as early as May 2015. Back the project now during the early stages and you can get your hands on an Ampriro B1 for a pledge of about $61.
