This Smart Sauna Device Automatically Throws Water Onto the Kiuas and Brings You Beer

We certainly have saunas in the United States (usually in gyms and rec centers), but they are not nearly as popular here as they are in Nordic countries like Finland. Saunas are practically a way of life in Finland, and most Finns spend a lot of time in them to escape the frigid temperatures during the winter. They’re also a major part of culture and socialization. To keep the hot room nice and steamy, sauna users need to frequently dump water on hot stones. This Smart Sauna device automatically shoots water onto those stones and also orders beer as a bonus.

When you’re sitting in a sauna (naked if you’re in Finland — chlorine carried on bathing suits can produce toxic vapor), you’ll need to frequently dump water from a bucket onto the hot stones (called kiuas). How often you do that is up to you and your tolerance for humidity, but you’ll probably end up doing so pretty frequently. This Smart Sauna device saves you the trouble and shoots water onto the kiuas at the touch of a button. The device’s buttons mounted next to the bench in the sauna and the water nozzles are positioned around the kiuas basket.

Those buttons are connected to the GPIO pins of a Raspberry Pi. A script on the Raspberry Pi checks for button presses, and triggers a water pump via a relay when necessary. In this case, that water pump came from a car (presumably the pump normally used for the windshield wiper fluid). The Smart Sauna device also has a secondary — and arguably more important — function: to dispense beer. That beer is indispensable when Finnish saunas regularly approach 200 degrees Fahrenheit. Alright, it doesn’t actually dispense beer. Instead, pushing the button causes the Raspberry Pi to play an audio file through a Bluetooth speaker in the living room. That audio file contains a spoken request for beer, which your significant other will hopefully respond to. In the future, the Smart Sauna device will be improved to autonomously throw water in response to the current humidity level.