When I first moved to Portland, Oregon, I worried about how I'd survive the endless, gray, rainy winters. A friend advised me to find a way to get warm—really warm—at least once a day. I don’t have regular access to a sauna or a hot tub, so I take a hot shower every morning to defrost my chilly toes before I stuff them into wool socks and leather boots. That hot shower is an indispensable part of my day.
When the box from Nebia arrived, I pounced on it. For a showerhead, Nebia has a very glamorous origin story. In 2010, cofounder Carlos Gomez Andonaegui was working as the CEO of Sport City, Mexico City’s largest gym club chain. He and his father designed the Nebia prototype to save water in the showers, with the novel idea of using atomizing nozzles normally used in agricultural and aerospace fields.
He met Nebia cofounder Philip Winter in Mexico City, while Winter was working at Endeavor, a nonprofit that encourages entrepreneurship in different parts of the world. After bringing on another cofounder, Gabriel Parisi-Amon—a former Apple engineer—Nebia installed a prototype in an Equinox gym in San Francisco. It quickly attracted the attention (and dollars) of various Silicon Valley illuminati, most notably Tim Cook.
The original version cost $500. Several years later, Nebia has partnered with venerated faucet manufacturer Moen for a much more accessible version at $199. (On Kickstarter you can currently preorder it for a $40 discount.) Nebia sent me the version with the magnetic hand wand, which will retail for an expected $269. Preorders will begin to ship in mid-March.
It’s easy to install—just unscrew your current showerhead and neck pipe, screw the Nebia by Moen in, and stick the sliding arm and the round magnetic dock on the wall (you can screw it in, too). It’s incredibly beautiful. After I installed it, my husband and I took a few minutes to admire it in our humble bathroom, like having a Valentino gown hanging in the closet next to your jeans and ratty old sweaters.
But after three weeks, my husband rebelled and took it down when I was on a work trip, and I haven’t put it back up. In the dead of a Portland winter, even a luxury, high-tech showerhead just wasn’t warm enough.
Low-flow showerheads aren’t exactly new technology; I used one before the Nebia came, with a flow-rate of 1.75 gallons per minute (the average showerhead uses more than 2 GPM. Low-flow showerheads save homeowners in both water and energy costs since you don’t have to heat as much water. You can also try making one yourself.
Undoubtedly, the Nebia by Moen showerhead looks much better than anything you could build on your own. Nebia sent me a sample in gleaming, spot-resistant nickel, but it also comes in an equally attractive black, or white and chrome.
The showerhead is a massive 8 inches wide, a circle with six tiny nozzles around the rim. Nebia’s atomization technology disperses the flow into millions of tiny droplets while reducing flow to a remarkably low 1.35 GPM. At that rate, you could save up to 10 gallons of water per shower compared to average showerheads. (With the hand shower on, the Nebia's flow rate increases to 1.7 GPM.)