Conventional faucets are designed for systems using a central water heater with separate hot and cold pipes throughout the house. However, some houses now use electric on-demand water heaters that are placed under the individual faucets. These provide nearly instant hot water, don't waste energy heating water when you're not using it, and eliminate half the water pipes needed in the house.

Regular faucets have two valves for hot and cold. I suggest making faucets designed specifically for on-demand heaters that have only one valve(on the "cold" side). On the other side, there would be a knob that would basically be an electronic thermostat. It could be designed to match the other knob for aesthetic reasons, but would have temperatures marked on it and a color coded band around it to indicate temperature at a glance. (blue to red)

There are several advantages to this system. Instead of having to turn both knobs every time and having to find the right mix of hot and cold, most of the time you could just turn on the one knob. You usually use the same temperature in your sink or shower every time, so you would seldom have to change the temp knob. You would only have to set the desired flow rate, and the temperature would automatically go to where you like it. Even if you or other family members change it, you can easily turn the temp knob back to exactly your favorite setting using the temp marks.

You might worry that someone will change the setting without you noticing, and cause you to scald yourself. The individual heaters can be set to limit their max temperatures to safe ones. So, you could set the max for your shower heater lower than for your washing machine.

The heater will need some electronics to control the temp. This is because the amount of heat needed to achieve a given temp changes depending upon the flow rate. You also would want it to turn on max power initially to get it up to temp quickly and then lower it to maintain proper temp. This wouldn't be hard, it isn't rocket science.

This system wouldn't work with gas heating and I know that natural gas provides cheaper hot water than electricity. However, natural gas is a non-renewable fossil fuel. Most renewable energies like solar, wind and hydro, produce electricity.

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