The Lush Bath Bot Is a Vegan, Recyclable Floating Speaker That's Out to Make a Point

WIRED

26-01-2025

When the cosmetics brand decided to make a Bluetooth speaker, it didn't know how hard it would be to make it sustainably. The next challenge: Will anyone actually buy it?
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Would you buy tech hardware from a company best known for making soap?
Cult British cosmetics brand Lush, famed for inventing the bath bomb, is attempting to forge the category of bathroom tech with its first foray into electronics: the Bath Bot, a small, water resistant Bluetooth speaker with colour-changing LEDs that can float in the tub while you soak.
The Bath Bot is roughly the size and shape of a Lush bath bomb—spherical on top with a hexagonal base—and can be connected with Lush's app to play music and soundscapes designed to match the vibe of the brand's famous bath products.
True to Lush's values, the company claims the speaker is designed with ethics front and center: It's manufactured in the UK (where it is based), recyclable, and vegan (which basically means it doesn't use glue). But did I mention it costs $180?
Adam Goswell, Lush's tech R&D lead, says the company's hardware ambitions started with a 2017 trip to Chinese tech hub Shenzhen. At that time, the team had a more ambitious goal in mind: They wanted to build their own tablet. Inspired by the likes of Fairphone, they wondered if, rather than buying thousands of off-the-shelf tablets for their employees to use in-store, they could work with suppliers to produce something as ethically sourced as possible.
But the team soon realised that tech is trickier than toiletries in this regard. 'Trying to do the supply chain interrogation we do with our normal cosmetics on electronics got really difficult,' Goswell says. They'd ask where a battery came from, or where the components within the battery came from, and suppliers either didn't know or wouldn't say. They shelved the tablet idea and eventually landed on Bath Bot as their first hardware project.
Lush describes the floating Bath Bot as the 'ultimate bathing companion.' Lush
Announced over a year ago, the Bot has taken longer than expected to get to market, with some customers complaining about unfulfilled pre-orders or wondering if the product is vaporware. The reason for the delay, says Goswell, was due to Lush's lack of experience with electronics. The product was ready, but they hadn't realised how long it would take to get the relevant certifications needed to sell such a device. The Bath Bot is now available in the UK, EU, and will soon be in the US (excepting California, which has extra regulations).
Some compromises still had to be made during the development. 'The components in there aren't what we would deem as 100 percent ethical, but we tried our best,' says Goswell. The team had wanted to use recycled materials out of environmental concerns but had to opt for virgin plastic to keep the device waterproof. The end result is recyclable though, and Lush says buyers will be able to bring theirs in-store for repairs if needed.
Manufacturing electronics inevitably comes with a carbon cost, but Goswell believes the Bath Bot's is justifiable. 'If it was a single-use device or a cheap, throw-away one that broke within six months, I think that would be a different question, but we've made it to last,' he says.
Indeed, a cheap device it is not. The £150 price tag has raised eyebrows even among ardent Lush fans on forums such as the 115k-member r/LushCosmetics subreddit. As one 'Lushie' put it, 'Why would I buy a $200 speaker from a bath store?' You can get a waterproof Bluetooth speaker from established brands for significantly less, likely with better sound quality: Ultimate Ears' floating Wonderboom 4 retails for around $100 (and often sells for less), while JBL's cheapest waterproof speakers can sell for as little as $40—you can find some even cheaper on Amazon.
The reasons for the high price, Goswell says, include the fact that it's Lush's first tech product and the company is not making that many, both of which drive up costs. Trying to choose more ethical components adds to the price, as does manufacturing in the UK. Ultimately, he says, Lush doesn't want to pitch the Bath Bot against other Bluetooth speakers but sees it as more of a lifestyle accessory, akin to something like a Philips Hue lamp. While it's designed for use in the bath, he also likes to take it with him to hotel rooms for ambient lighting.
I decide to test the Bath Bot in its intended environment, running a bath and setting up the Lush app ready to connect. Bath drawn, I drop the bath bot into the water where it duly floats around, cycling through coloured lights that give the illusion of dyeing the bathwater around me. Available in black or white, the Bath Bot has just four buttons—on/off, play/pause, and two volume controls. When I turn it on, it emits a particularly pleasing startup sound featuring birdsong and a few gentle guitar notes.
In the Lush app, I find a playlist that matches the bath bomb I'm using: Ickle Bot ($8, sold separately), a baby blue, robot-shaped thing. I chose it because it looked cute, but as the playlist opens with lullaby-style music, I realise it may be intended for children (afterwards, I look online and see that it is indeed suitable for ages six months and above).
The Bath Bot has a number of different light settings to set the mood of your bath. Lush
Regardless, the experience starts off appropriately relaxing; an indie singer croons soothingly over gentle piano in a track like a slowed-down sea shanty, while the multicoloured LEDs cycle in tempo. Most of the music in the Lush app is from Lush's own record label; the company commissions music for its spas and occasionally releases records. The sound quality isn't up to that of my usual UE Boom portable speaker, but it's perfectly adequate for the job and perhaps better than I expected given the speaker size—at least in the less-than-ideal testing environment of my rather echoey bathroom.
My peaceful bathing is somewhat disrupted, however, when the first Ickle Bot song segues into ambient sounds of water splashing and children shrieking. This not being my idea of relaxation, I try some of the other playlists, designed around different bath bombs. Magic Bus plays rather generic-sounding rave beats; Sex Bomb starts with some bell chiming that I don't find particularly seductive. Annoyingly, I also find that the music stops playing when I click to explore different parts of the Lush app or open other apps on my phone.
After a while, I head to Spotify and choose music I know I actually like, which I imagine is how most people will end up using the Bath Bot. When I shift in the water, the speaker bobs about; it sounds louder or quieter as it floats from my shoulders to my feet and occasionally clunks inelegantly against the side of the tub.
As I go to pull out the plug, I've had an enjoyable bath, but I wouldn't go so far as to call it a 'super-powered sensory bathing experience,' as Lush advertises. And despite Goswell's protestations that the Bath Bot is a product for the long-term, I can't help but think that many may use it a few times before discarding it as a gimmick.
Goswell admits that making the Bath Bot was a risk; the company spent 'significant money' on R&D and manufacturing to make a product that you wouldn't expect from a cosmetics company. But he insists that even if it turns out not to be a commercial success, the process of developing a first hardware product has been invaluable. His team is now considering making Bath Bot accessories and more content for the app. They're also thinking up other bathroom tech—one suggestion is using the water flow from a shower to power a device, like hydropower on a tiny scale.
But their ambitions also stretch further. Headquartered in Poole, on the UK's south coast, the company is interested in larger-scale tidal power and has just co-funded a three-year PhD studentship at nearby Bournemouth University.
While this will explore the development of a new tidal energy station at Poole Harbor to power Lush's head office operations, Goswell also floats the idea of using tidal to power servers for a large language model. It could be a way, he says, of creating an AI-assisted digital experience while mitigating some of the carbon concerns.