Review on 🚿 GROHE 26644000 Rainshower SmartConnect Showerhead: Remote Control, 2 Spray Options, Starlight Chrome by Sherry Meurer

OVERVIEW: Overall, this is a good showerhead for a renovation scenario. The build quality of the shower head leaves a lot to be desired, and the flow pattern is not as good as in special rain showers that are better suited for renovation. The wireless remote seems to be working well so far - the battery life has been good, the electronics seemed well made and there hasn't been much lag. If you can install a proper rain shower head with an optional hand held shower head and diverter valve, I would recommend going that route. If not, then this is an acceptable option. BUILD QUALITY: Simply "well" built overall. This is not what I would call traditional Grohe standards. The remote control is actually very nicely done, but the main shower head doesn't feel as solid. The shower head is all plastic, which doesn't bother me too much as it saves a lot of weight. Most people using this wireless remote control showerhead will be using it in an aftermarket situation - if they are doing a major remodel most people will likely opt for a custom rain shower/hand control combo with controls/switches built into the main temperature valve. flow. . In such an upgrade situation, light weight is actually very important. If you're mounting your showerhead on a long extension sticking out of the wall, you'll want as little weight as possible - if the showerhead is a very heavy all-metal construction (like some of Grohe's other rain showerheads), there's a risk of excess pressure being applied the water connections in the wall. I have a problem with the quality of the plastic construction. It's entirely possible to have quality plastic construction (Grohe does this on some of its other models). However, the plastic parts of this shower head are not well suited for use. The different parts/plates don't fit tightly together and don't inspire confidence over time. My unit's shower panel is separate from the main body, and the battery compartment is particularly egregious - the cover that holds the batteries doesn't fit at all. It's loose and wobbles when I press on different ends. Luckily, there's an O-ring in the battery compartment to keep water out, but that doesn't make installation a problem (especially with a shower head this expensive!). That being said, the chrome finish feels just as good as other Grohe products I've used - feels durable and is very easy to clean. I don't have very hard water, so I can't comment on how easily the jets clear water buildup. While the shower head isn't the best in design, the remote control is actually quite nice. Everything fits together well, there are o-rings or flexible membranes to keep water out etc. The circuit board in the remote control is pretty well made too. It's laid out nicely, there are lots of vias, the soldering is well done, the pins appear to be gold plated, and the ICs used are high quality original equipment (they use the N52832 SOC which is not a cheap chip). ). The only thing I would like to see is a conformal coating. While not much moisture should get in due to proper sealing, it is intended for use in a very humid environment and extra precautions wouldn't hurt. FLOW RESTRICTOR: I don't normally recommend this and I haven't done it on any other shower head I've had. However, I believe this unit will benefit from the removal of the flow restrictor. I try to put a flow restrictor on all my water devices as I support water conservation efforts. However, with the large surface area of this showerhead, it just isn't comfortable with the built-in throttle. I've removed the limiter from my device and instead am trying to limit myself to shorter showers. Where I've installed this no children use the shower so I can reasonably assume that users will offer shorter shower times and be comfortable with the restrictor removed. If you wish to remove the restrictor from your device all you have to do is use needle nose pliers and pull the blue cap out of the water inlet before installing the strainer and gasket (see photos). Alternatively, you can simply remove the O-ring from the restrictor and moderately increase the water flow. FLOW PATTERN: This shower head has three modes: rain shower, intensive shower and both at the same time. The Rainshower mode is similar to most other Grohe rain showers, although there's a fairly bright hole in the middle of the Rainshower shape, which houses Activerain's intense jet nozzles. The lack of water in the center is noticeable when standing under the shower head and spoils the impression. So I find the combo mode to be the best and leave it there most of the time. Before I removed the flow restrictor, the only mode I found acceptable was the "activerain" high jet mode. A rain shower or combo felt like a very faint drop of water and it took me ages to get anything out of my skin or hair. Keep in mind that I have very good water pressure in my house and have never had a problem with other shower heads in the past (even with flow restrictors installed). If you have poor water pressure, your problems get even more confusing. SECURITY: I've spent quite a bit of time playing with the cybersecurity aspect of this device. So I can't give a full report yet. However, I have some preliminary findings to share and will update this review if I learn anything else in the future once I have time to sniff Bluetooth packets. At first I was happy to reveal my USRP and try some replay attacks, but then I found out that this device actually uses the BLE protocol. This is a very crowded area, but luckily there are several well-documented tools for testing Bluetooth devices. This is my first time testing a BLE device, so I read some standard tools first. I've tried using a combination of tools including bluez and BLEAH (built into Bettercap). All tests were performed on a virtualized installation of Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS. I found that while the remote runs a Nordic Semiconductors SOC, the main showerhead uses a Texas Instruments chipset. The ads only seem to appear for the first few minutes after installing the batteries, that's the only time I can connect and explore the services and features. I have attached a summary table of image properties. Note that there are some read/write features that only seem to be available after pairing. I suspect these are features related to the changing state of the shower head, so I'm happy to see that they have put in place some mandatory safety measures (although safety is probably minimal as neither the shower head nor the remote control have that capability for input or output). device that requires Just Works authentication). After this short period, the showerhead seems to no longer be aired on the advertising channels. I don't currently have a device that can passively intercept Bluetooth packets, but I've ordered one. Once I have it I'll try to run some tests to see if I can intercept and possibly fake the packets from the remote to the shower head. I currently believe that the cyber security measures on this device are better than most traditional BLE devices. While I assume it's not infallible, it seems more difficult to break into than most other BLE devices I've seen posts about. Maybe someone more familiar with Bluetooth security than me will respond in the comments (I'm just an amateur after all).