Shine Bathroom Assistant Review (They’re Dead)

Updated 2/18/22: Today I got a notification that the company has filed a “General Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors“, which according to Cornell Law School is basically an alternative to bankruptcy. So guess that means nothing is going to matter about this company after all.

The Shine Bathroom Assistant first crossed my feed back in May 2021. It certainly intrigued me for a few reasons I will cover in a minute. The idea behind this system it to automatically do a job NOBODY likes to do….keep a toilet clean! For me personally there is a few other reasons this looked interesting. My house has a whole house water softener that has a built in filtration system. The water is great, but it also means that the city water chlorine is removed (which helps keep things clean). That being the case we have had to clean more often. Also the toilets I installed are pressure assisted. This means you can’t use a tank “drop in” style cleaner because the tank has an inner tank and no water in it porcelain portion. Needless to say, I saw a lot of upside in the Shine Bathroom Assistant. Now, let’s see how the rubber meets the road.

Shine Bathroom Assistant – Ordering

The system is still listed on the website as “Pre-Order” Status. I placed my pre-order back in May 2021. I have four bathrooms so for the discount I ordered four units. After many months of waiting I finally received my order today January 12th, 2022. So from a timing perspective you should not expect an overnight delivery, because I think they are still processing orders in the order they came in even back into 2021.

The packaging was decent easy to unpack, with the exception of the cleaning pods. These items are plastic tubes, with a foil closing on them. They are very tightly packed in the Styrofoam and the foil does almost rip off when you extract them. Also one of the three in the first unit I opened was actually drained/empty.

Shine Bathroom Cleaning Pods

Shine Bathroom Assistant – Setup

Here is a place where I had a lot of issues. The mobile app is still missing functions that say “Coming Soon” like updating WiFi or calibration. This is odd to me that this is a live app with so many coming soon items

Shine Bathroom App

The other thing I ran into was two of the four units did not work right. One unit would not “create” the cleaner. If you pay attention as you setup the app says there will be “bubbles”. The video below is what it is supposed to look like and this never happened. You can also tell when it’s created the cleaner as it actually gets a “clean” smell to the water. That’s the best way I can describe it. Also the unit would not spray the bowl so I had to contact support.

Shine Bathroom Assistant Electrolysis

Chat support was good enough to replace this unit without an issue. Then I went to another unit and it was completely DOA. The unit would not power up. I also tried another base and the reservoir still did not power up. I have not re-contacted support as of writing this but I suspect they will also replace this unit.

Updated 1/13/21: I got on chat support and they quickly replaced the other unit. Oddly they are not asking for any of the bad units back. That strikes me as very interesting. At $129 a piece you’d think they want them back for inspection or something.

Another seemingly odd thing is the default spray setting is 1 second and the first couple flushes never ran the spray long enough to “prime” the spray hose. That is something to be aware of as you test it out. I set the spray times to the maximum for the first few then lowered it to 1.5 or 2 seconds to ensure enough spray for the elongated bowls….which brings me to that aspect. All the bowls are “elongated” so only time will tell if the spray function reaches the front of the bowls.

Also, they “claim” that the device is Alexa enabled, yet there is NO indication on the Alexa side on how to integrate this. Most every device I have you need to enable it or add the device, but this is nowhere to be found. That leads me to another setup issue. Their support site and KB’s are generally not very useful. They were written a while back but go to their support site and search for ‘Alexa’ nothing is found.

Shine Bathroom Alexa Update 1/13/21: While on chat I asked about Alexa and this was the response from Meredith on chat, “It has not been released yet, they are making the final touches on it and it should be released in the next few weeks”.

Shine Bathroom Assistant – Long Term

This is something I will have to report back as we see the two working units do their thing over time. One replacement unit order was placed and I need to get the other one done. The 50% failure rate on a four device order is a little disturbing to be honest. I am hopeful that with our water softener/filter this will over time help keep things clean, but I am yet to determine if it will be the hassle of the initial setup issues and initial cost. The ongoing costs of the cleaning pods will have to be checked too.

About Chris Colotti

Chris is active on the VMUG and event speaking circuit and is available for many events if you want to reach out and ask. Previously to this he spent close to a decade working for VMware as a Principal Architect. Previous to his nine plus years at VMware, Chris was a System Administrator that evolved his career into a data center architect. Chris spends a lot of time mentoring co-workers and friends on the benefits of personal growth and professional development. Chris is also amongst the first VMware Certified Design Experts (VCDX#37), and author of multiple white papers. In his spare time he helps his wife Julie run her promotional products as the accountant, book keeper, and IT Support. Chris also believes in both a healthy body and healthy mind, and has become heavily involved with fitness as a Diamond Team Beachbody Coach using P90X and other Beachbody Programs. Although Technology is his day job, Chris is passionate about fitness after losing 60 pounds himself in the last few years.

20 comments

  1. Thanks Chris for posting this. I ordered 4 units also, but try as hard as I can, no one at customer service will respond to me and it’s too late for me to dispute the charge.

    • Yeah being that the “Pre-Orders” were done in 2021, it makes it nearly impossible to dispute, although most credit cards you can dispute anything IMO. In your case if it’s not been delivered you can probably still do such a dispute. In my case they have been delivered but the product itself has a lot of issues. in fact one of them just started spraying constantly and emptied the canister wasting all the solution and won’t stop. Another simply won’t be “found” to even set it up. I tried to do a chat today and they were not available even though it was during their operating hours. I feel like after all their work starting the company now it’s a black hole.

  2. I had my shine bathrooms for over a year, and they seem to be working ok. I did order extra refills, but now that I am running out and need the refills, I can’t contact anyone for them.
    thank you for the update

    • I have some refills I can sell you since all 4 units I bought are dead. or not working right and otherwise going into the trash at this point. You may just want to do the same. It was an interesting idea, but clearly mis-managed as a company.

  3. I ordered 1 and never received it. The hair on back stands up, that tthey are asking me for personalized information. What are your thoughts?

  4. The settlement is request social. How legit do you feel it is?

  5. Anyone no what their eletriclized solution is made of and if we can mix our own? I too an running out of replacement pods and don’t see any in ebay.

  6. How to I join the lawsuit? I spent a lot of money, never received some items and the pods are finished.

  7. If you’re interested in more about this confusing ABC case, a bankruptcy and restructuring attorney analyzes this case from the outside in this article: https://www.dailydac.com/assignee-unknown-the-curious-cases-of-smartlabs-shine-bathroom-technologies-liftopia-glasspoint-solarreserve-maker-media-toymail/

    • Interesting write up. Conclusion seems to be it’s legit, albeit odd the way it was filed/written/handled. At the end of the day there seems to be no more support for the product and I would not suggest people buy it even if they are still showing it’s for sale.

  8. All of this was very helpful to read. I ordered mine in August 2021 and I think I received them sometime in November 2021. I was waiting to use them on my new home that I closed on December 2021. I tried setting up on pod in July 2022 and it is a dud. Nothing I can do to get it to connect to wifi, so that it will work. I sure would like to find out if there is a way to get our money back. I purchased 2 units and since the first one isn’t working, I don’t plan to open the other unit. We should get a petition going and see if we can get our money back legally.

    • I think are just out of luck. If they really have (as documentation has indicated), have filed for bankruptcy or a variation there of you don’t have much recourse at this point. call it a loss and toss them in the trash, that’s what I did.

  9. I just saw this. I ordered one unit way back in 2019, I think they were still crowd funding but was told it would be shipped in about 6-months, and they said shipping would be moved up in I shared in Social Media, which I did. I think I finally received mine in late 2020. I was in an apartment and did not receive the tank holder I was promised as a promo. I set up the unit EXACTLY as instructed via the app and a companion video. Really did not work as well as I expected, the toilet would still get dingy and it would spray up on the lid and you better not flush while still seated! After I used up my pods (thankfully I did not get the lifetime supply option), I removed the unit and boxed it up. I figured if I waited, maybe they would create a new formula. I moved to a new residence and was just looking to try it again and saw this. I guess it is useless now.

    • I mean it seemed like a really interesting idea, who wants to scrub their toilet? At the end of the day I think they either just couldn’t deliver, or something went horribly wrong in their finances. At least their “shop” site is dead and they can’t take new orders. The main site is up but if you click BUY NOW it’s a dead link finally.

  10. Mine still “works” (I had to return one initial dud) but I’m out of the cleaning solution. I’m thinking of making my own. Has anyone done this? Bleach? Chlorine? This was a great idea plagued by poor execution and some faulty products. But a good idea.

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