Yet again, I need some search help. Apparently I've lost all my Google/Amazon-fu because I can't seem to find anything these days.

Back when I was living at home in high school, my parents had the bathrooms redone. Because I've always been such a gadget nut, my dad decided to put something cool in my bathroom's shower.

Basically, there was a panel with three buttons. On/off, up, and down. Next to these there was an LED (or something) readout. To turn the shower on, you pressed the "on/off" button, and not only would the shower turn on but it would automatically heat up to a preset 98 degrees. You could press the up and down buttons to change the temperature.

The only other knob in the shower was just a diverter to switch between shower and bath, like normal.

For some reason, I can't for the life of me find equipment like this anymore. I don't know if there was something fundamentally wrong with the design or what, but it seemed to work fine in our house...

Can anyone find anything like this? It's hard to explain why it was so awesome, but it really was. I loved the consistency of knowing exactly what the temperature was going to be, and how it would adjust for changes in the incoming water temperature. I'd definitely consider installing one in my own shower (I know a good handyman/plumber).

I'd appreciate some Google-fu assistance...

I had a controller like that on my tankless water heater. It would only control the temperature though. It didn't turn on the water flow.

That seems like a useful product as well, though I wouldn't imagine it would help for showers. I'd think the limit you would want for showers would be different from the limit you would want for your dishwasher, for example, or even your washing machine's hot mode.

This was basically a replacement for a shower's heat control knob. If I can't find it it's no big deal, since installation would be pretty expensive. I'd have to be able to get electrical power to the shower (safely). The installation in my old bathroom also involved something run to under the sink and connected to a 9V battery. That was there so that if the power went out, you could still turn the shower off

I understand this isn't exactly what you're looking for, but it does the same thing aside from turning the water flow on and off. On my heater, you had one main temperature control which would be located next to the heater or in a utility closet. The control I linked to is an auxiliary unit specifically designed for use in a bathroom. When turned on (taking a shower), it takes precedence over the main controller which is likely set to 120º all the time. When done showering, you turn it off and the main controller takes back over.

On my particular water heater, you could have 3 total temperature controllers. One main, and two auxiliary.

You might be looking for something more like this which doesn't appear to require a new water heater.

Some models of Rinnai and other tankless water heaters have this feature. Usually that function is used to automatically fill a bathtub, the heater turns the water on and after a preset volume later, turns it off.

Thanks, Rob, that's more along the lines of what I'm looking for. What you're talking about is fine, but I don't quite understand how you'd change the temperature while in the shower. I'm also not sure how you'd get it to the temperature you set on a normal shower control, just throw it all the way to the hottest setting? I'm not sure how well that works. I'd rather know that what was coming out of the showerhead was the exact temp I wanted.

Phew! The prices for those iodigital products sure ain't cheap! Oh well, I knew they'd be expensive, I was just looking for some ideas for a possible future install. Thanks again!

FWIW I do remember the shower control you described. I couldn't tell you if I remember it from 10 ro 15 or 20 years ago, but I thought it was a great idea.
I hope you can find one somewhere. I looked briefly on Amazon and was unsuccessful.

"digital shower controls" seems to bring up the most hits. Right from the top, three brands with good looking stuff, Moen, Kohler and Mira.

Great idea, Bruno, and it's led to a real "good news, bad news" situation. I searched for the phrase you did and did an image search. In that list I spotted the exact same control I had!

But that's the good news. The bad news is the content of the thread. I'm not too concerned about the leaking he experienced (his unit is in terrible shape! I keep my stuff nicer than that), but it worries me that he can't even find out who made it...

I think it's likely what your dad did is have a servo-controlled on/off valve, and then behind it something called a "thermostatic mixing valve" connected to the temperature controller. You can roll your own system with those components. You will also need a thermocouple to measure output temp.

You can probably find all this in one unit, too. But "mixing valve" should help your Google-Fu.

I know that's not what he did. You can see the shower control in the thread I linked to in my post before yours...