I like to think of the shower as everyone’s private locus of individual particularity. Because no matter who you are, or what income bracket you may be in, or what current level of luxury you’re accustomed to when you bathe, it’s always easy to find fault with something. I.E., the water’s too hot or too cold; the spray is irregular or too uniform. My own most frequent experience is that of perpetual oscillation between hotter and cooler temps until, once the perfect 103 degrees is finally achieved—the scrubbing is complete, the soap has been banished from every contour, and it’s time to stop wasting the day and get the Hell out of the shower.

Smart Shower. Designed by Hansa.

The Smart Shower by Hansa, a company lately known to 3rings readers for the dynamic Latrava faucet, may be the perfect tool to irrevocably alter this frustrating ritual: “with numerous smartfunctions and a futuristic design, Hansa Smart Shower has superb pampering potential.” The fun begins with the Smart Shower’s flat panel head. Reminiscent of a millennial/digital/wired-in aesthetic (it actually resembles an inverted iPhone), the shower head is sleek and minimalist, with a beautiful front plate made of chromed or anthracite-coloured glass, and a svelte tower finished in polished chrome. But the look of it is only half the battle—or perhaps we should say a mere third—because, with bathing, the functionality is the thing. The Smart Shower delivers with a triple stream profile (integrated cascading “waterfall,” conventional needle spray, and flexible hand shower) and smart controls (all options are controlled with the convenient buttons along the axis of the tower).

As if that weren’t reason enough to get Smart, the Smart Shower also features a fourth mechanism of water delivery: a horizontal spout from the lower regions of the tower. While scuttlebutt on the web conjectures that this feature may be “for the crotch,” I’ll beg to differ. As near as I can tell, and for most average-sized Americans, the horizontal jet would make contact at the upper belly/mid-back region, the benign intent being effective rinsing of those hard to reach environs. For everyone who continues to insist on what I’ll call the “European” interpretation (we all know of the Old World’s universal approbation of the bidet), I’d refer them to the detachable hand shower: it’s attached to a lengthy and flexible hose, so you can direct the water (and, again, I don’t care to speculate) anywhere you might want it.