We were genuinely excited to hear that Consumer Reports identified bathrooms within their "7 Top Home Improvement Trends for 2017" article posted yesterday.  So imagine our disappointment when the new bathroom trend identified turned out to be a self-cleaning toilet that depending on the "features" will likely cost between $5,000 to $10,000! While we would gladly pay good money to never clean a toilet again, we might need to wait a year or ten for those UV light toilets to come down a bit in price.  We were really hoping for a few good bathroom "Skills" to teach to our new Amazon Alexa devices that millions of us received this past holiday season.  
So in an effort to develop our own "Five Alexa Bathroom Trends for 2017" here are a couple new options to bring your bathroom up-to-date, as well as our wish-list ideas to watch out for in the future. 

1. "Alexa, turn off the master bathroom light":  Light systems are already common within home automation, but the most common are single bulb solutions. We now have a couple of options that allow you to control nearly any light system using your voice and your Alexa device: Not just on and off, but light intensity as well!

2. "Alexa, play my morning playlist on Spotify" : Alexa devices can send audio (like Flash Briefings, podcasts and music playlists) to nearly any bluetooth speaker device you've paired it with.  We are anxious to install this new bathroom fan and bluetooth speaker combo from Broan (SPK110 - $140) so Alexa can deliver your daily news and music within your bathroom. Broad even makes a second speaker (without the fan) for true stereo sound!

3. "Alexa, warm my bath towels" : With a wide variety of heated towel racks to choose from (we prefer Knox) you can easily install an Alexa controlled smart outlet to turn your rack on and off.  We've had good success with the TP-Link Smart Plug devices ($29), apps and Alexa Skills. 

4. "Alexa, tell Nuheat to warm the bathroom floor to 84" : While there are already a few different thermostat options to control the temperature of your home with an app or Alexa, we are keeping a close watch on Nuheat, a company that makes WiFi enabled thermostats for floor heating. Bathroom floor heating systems have become affordable and we install them in about 50% of the bathrooms we remodeled in 2016. Nuheat already has the iOS and Android apps to control their thermostats, so it's probably just a matter of time before they create a new skill for Alexa to heat your bathroom floor as well.

5. "Alexa, set shower to 92 degrees" : Another option on our very short "someday" wish-list is that soon you'll be able to control the temperature and intensity of your shower by voice. The only question is whether she'll be able to hear you over your shower speakers/ventilation fan! 

Of course once Alexa understands all of you're new skills and temperature preferences, it will veery likely just be a matter of "Alexa, Good Morning" and your bathroom lights will turn on, your towels will warm, your favorite music will play, your floors will warm and the shower temperature and pressure will be exactly as you want it.  Welcome to 2017! 

If you're ready to make your professionally remodeled bathroom not just beautiful but also Alexa friendly, be sure to visit our Contact page and let us help! 

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While we spent time late last year promoting our new profile with the Better Business Bureau (BBB), and some really glowing reviews by happy clients, Angie's List helped us get 2017 started right this week with notice that we have been awarded the Super Service Award for 2016!  According to over 75 consumers reviews on our public Angie's List profile, Diamond Bath is within the Top 3% of all of professional bathroom remodeling and design companies in the Chicagoland area during 2016!  This is our third consecutive year of receiving this prestigious award since we began to focus our remodeling work to only residential bathrooms five years ago.  We wish to thank everyone who provided a review for our remodeling services during 2016 which helped us achieve this award again. We look forward to continuing this tradition throughout 2017 and beyond. 

- Jim & Jen T. 

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