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Review: BioBidet FLOW Faucet with hands-free motion sensor technology

Hands-free hands washing for our no-touch reality.

Biobidet flow faucet
Image: Joe Rice-Jones / KnowTechie
The Good
Hands-free washing is magical
Easy to install
No wiring needed
The Bad
Hard to change batteries
Sprayer could be easier to pull down (might just be the amount of flex in my sink)
8.9
Overall

In our new, no-touch normal, hand-washing has taken a special place of necessity. The thing is, how often do you wash the faucet compared to the number of times you wash your hands? Yeah, I didn’t think it was a high number. That leaves your faucet as a germ-spreader, especially in the kitchen where it often comes into contact with uncooked foods.

Let me break it down a little. You wouldn’t cut your vegetables with your hands all covered in chicken, right? Washing the chicken residue off your hands is one of the safest things to do in food prep to avoid nasty stomach bugs, and it takes literally seconds of your time. Ah, but you still have to turn on the faucet with dirty hands, right? You could open it beforehand but then you’d be wasting water.

Quite the conundrum, but it can all be solved by having a hands-free faucet. We’re looking at one today from BioBidet, called the FLOW faucet, and they know a thing or two about spraying water. Let’s see if it cleans up or merely trickles down the drain.

So, what’s it all about?

Biobidet flow faucet sensor

Image: Joe Rice-Jones / KnowTechie

You know those infrared-sensor activated faucets at pretty much every restaurant nowadays? Imagine that technology on your kitchen faucet, with a few other enhancements to boot. Sounds great, right?

The Flow faucet from BioBidet has an infrared sensor at the base to start the water flowing or to turn it off once running. It’ll flow for three minutes unless you turn it off, enough to wash your hands or fill all but the largest pots.

Biobidet flow faucet

Image: Joe Rice-Jones / KnowTechie

It’s also got a pull-down sprayer, that’s also automatically triggered. Another infrared sensor starts the water flowing as soon as you tug the sprayer head out of the faucet, and cuts off the water flow as soon as the weight pulls the sprayer back to its normal position. It’s pretty darn magical, and it’s saving me precious minutes every time I cook.

Is it easy to set up the BioBidet FLOW faucet?

Biobidet flow faucet controller

Image: Joe Rice-Jones / KnowTechie

It all comes down to this little box, which runs off four AA batteries, so you don’t have to wire anything to the mains. It’ll work for about two years before those batteries run down, at which time you just stick in another four and you’re running again. Oh, and there’s a manual override in case you can’t get to the store for batteries straight away.

Installation was a breeze. I found that taking my existing faucet out was the most complicated part, mainly because whoever installed it to begin with overtightened the cold water intake. Once that was out, it was a very simple 15 minutes to fasten on the new faucet, screw the control box to the back wall of my under sink cupboard, and put all the tubing where it needed to go.

I spend a lot of time in the kitchen daily, with a toddler that never seems to stop eating. I’m really glad for the extra time this faucet gives me for not having to wash the handles every time I wash my hands while cooking. Bonus points for the sprayer hose being just long enough to refill our water filter jug, something that I normally dread doing as it means filling multiple jugs and transferring it by hand.

You can get your own hands-free faucet from Home Depot, starting at $229. It is also available on Amazon if you prefer that route.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to go pretend I’m a Jedi while washing my hands (again).

Editors’ Recommendations:

Just a heads up, if you buy something through our links, we may get a small share of the sale. It’s one of the ways we keep the lights on here. Click here for more. A sample unit was provided for the purpose of this review.

The Good
Hands-free washing is magical
Easy to install
No wiring needed
The Bad
Hard to change batteries
Sprayer could be easier to pull down (might just be the amount of flex in my sink)
8.9
Overall

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Maker, meme-r, and unabashed geek with nearly half a decade of blogging experience. If it runs on electricity (or even if it doesn't), Joe probably has one around his office somewhere. His hobbies include photography, animation, and hoarding Reddit gold.

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