They work great. Until they don't. I'd stay away.

The Essie parts list shows ridiculously-expensive Moen part 169031 Power Splitter AC Adapter to operate the faucet on AC. I wonder whether you could just skip the battery pack & holder and plug an AC adapter (12V AC DC Adapter for Moen Kitchen Faucet) directly into the control box.

People on this site have mentioned Tapmaster foot valves which might be more reliable and could be used with any faucet. There are others on Amazon such as the Autotap AT200.

I just installed Kohler Artifacts touchless faucet and I LOVE it! I wish ALL of my faucets could be touchless now!

Same I have the kohler artifacts faucet and I really like it. I don’t leave it touchless all the time and it doesn’t randomly trigger it you have to be under the sensor

Thanks for the feedback. As suspected a good quality hands-free (touchless) option looks to be beyond my budget.

I️ had this same faucet installed in my previous home. Only had it for about six months before we moved but for the time we were there I️ thought it worked great.

The Kohler Artifacts does indeed sound like a great faucet, but well over my $300 budget.

I have a Delta Essa touchless. In <3mos, I elected to disable the touchless feature. Sometimes it was helpful, moreso just annoying. But the deciding point was that my cats could rub against it and turn it on.

Jennifer, your profile caught my attention on second look. I live in Maine and thought your paintings on Vinalhaven were beautiful and am pleased to follow you on Insta!

We stayed at a cabin with a touchless kitchen faucet...everyone hated it. My neighbor's touchless faucet works when it wants to.

BirchPoint- Thank you so much! I loved Maine and appreciate the Insta follow.💕

I have a Kohler Sensate that has been in place since April 2018. It is wired not battery. I have not had any issues with it and it was money well spent. You never have to physically touch the faucet to turn it on or off. The only time I touch it is to change water temp. So I keep it set to warm. At the time I spent just over $633.9 (includes 6% sales tax) for the stainless steel version. This price was after the 30% discount offered by the Kohler store. I mention this because I think the $300 is low for what you want and if you shop around might be able to save some money but I think you will still spend over $300 for a quality touch less faucet. Good luck

https://www.us.kohler.com/us/sensate-touchless-kitchen-faucet-w-15-1-2-pull-down-spout-docknetik-magnetic-docking-system-and-a-2-function-sprayhead-featuring-the-new-sweep-spray/productDetail/kitchen-sink-faucets/825440.htm?skuId=825438&brandId=915093

Personally, I've found them to be annoying at times, and it's one more mechanism to go wrong.

Our Moen touch less kitchen faucet has worked great for the last 5 years with 2 battery changes. Great buy!

We loved the two we put in our previous kitchen. It is really nice, for example, to be able to wash your hands after handling raw meat without needing to touch anything with your hands. The one at the prep sink got a little wonky a few years in, but we’re fairly sure that was a wiring rather than a faucet issue. The only problem with them is that now I tend to tap faucets and be mildly and momentarily annoyed when nothing happens. We had the wired versions. They were six years old and still going strong when we sold that house last year.

We are doing Moen motion sensor faucets in our currrent build.

All of that said, I don’t think your budget is reasonable for this. Our new ones will be ~$600 each, so while they’ve certainly gotten cheaper than the nearly $2000 we spent on our faucets in 2015, they’re still not a budget choice.

For a handsfree option that has been around for many years and doesn't contain electronics to worry about, google "Tapmaster."

In that price range, get a standard style faucet. Shouldn’t be difficult to find the style and feature you want. Moen and Delta are good bets, from my personal experience.