Some months ago, we bought a new kitchen sink faucet, liking the handsfree feature (on/off by waving in front of a sensor). Of 2 possibilities, the salesman pushing for the on w/ a smart controller with wifi, saying we wouldn't ever have to use the wifi, and it was $50 cheaper. And he didn't mention the existence of the branded a/c adapters for the faucet, and misled somewhat about the nature of the warranty (the lifetime part doesn't cover the electronics--those are covered for 5 years which seems reasonable enough I guess).
Turned out that it requires 6 or 8 size D(? large, pricey) battery cells which ran down in ~5 weeks. Due to a bug(?) or design problem, the cold water got stuck in "open" mode when the batteries died, and could not be turned off except by shutting off all cold water to the faucet. Replacing batteries, etc etc didn't help. The manufacturer said yes there was also another bug, due to wifi not being set up, it was constantly probing for a network, and ran down faster. The only way to fix it was to connect to wifi, or get a new controller. They (Moen) were repeatedly very competent and helpful on the phone, understood why I preferred not to connect it to wifi in my case, and sent us a new controller with the fix, under the warranty. The local salesman however, after long discussion and not super-happily, allowed us to get the other sensor model with no smart controller box, and days later, to return the old faucet for the full original price. (Moen provided a return shipping label for the unused replacement controller box.)
We have been happy with the new/simpler sensor model, which seems to have neither of the bugs of the first one (Moen said that in this one, a capacitor saves enough power to turn off the water, in case the batteries die while the water is running). Takes just something like 2 AAA batteries which last a long time, working very nicely.
My wife points out that the the simpler model actually did turn out to be significantly less expensive, and we had to have a plumber come for something else right at the same time so they did the faucet swap then and the total cost difference was about a wash. We were grateful that it turned out well in the end. I would probably buy from Moen again, considering, but would read online more at their site about the product, and listen to the salesman somewhat less.
Some months ago, we bought a new kitchen sink faucet, liking the handsfree feature (on/off by waving in front of a sensor). Of 2 possibilities, the salesman pushing for the on w/ a smart controller with wifi, saying we wouldn't ever have to use the wifi, and it was $50 cheaper. And he didn't mention the existence of the branded a/c adapters for the faucet, and misled somewhat about the nature of the warranty (the lifetime part doesn't cover the electronics--those are covered for 5 years which seems reasonable enough I guess).
Turned out that it requires 6 or 8 size D(? large, pricey) battery cells which ran down in ~5 weeks. Due to a bug(?) or design problem, the cold water got stuck in "open" mode when the batteries died, and could not be turned off except by shutting off all cold water to the faucet. Replacing batteries, etc etc didn't help. The manufacturer said yes there was also another bug, due to wifi not being set up, it was constantly probing for a network, and ran down faster. The only way to fix it was to connect to wifi, or get a new controller. They (Moen) were repeatedly very competent and helpful on the phone, understood why I preferred not to connect it to wifi in my case, and sent us a new controller with the fix, under the warranty. The local salesman however, after long discussion and not super-happily, allowed us to get the other sensor model with no smart controller box, and days later, to return the old faucet for the full original price. (Moen provided a return shipping label for the unused replacement controller box.)
We have been happy with the new/simpler sensor model, which seems to have neither of the bugs of the first one (Moen said that in this one, a capacitor saves enough power to turn off the water, in case the batteries die while the water is running). Takes just something like 2 AAA batteries which last a long time, working very nicely.
My wife points out that the the simpler model actually did turn out to be significantly less expensive, and we had to have a plumber come for something else right at the same time so they did the faucet swap then and the total cost difference was about a wash. We were grateful that it turned out well in the end. I would probably buy from Moen again, considering, but would read online more at their site about the product, and listen to the salesman somewhat less.