Discussion
Saw this photo on LinkedIn.
It's quite a clever idea! Rather than having to press potentially dirty buttons in a toilet to record your feedback, you can use a gesture instead. Nifty!
Except… Here's how they describe it on their website.
> No specialist hardware. No complex setup. Just plug in a camera-enabled device and you're live.
Oh. Good. A 24/7 video stream live from the loos. What could possibly go wrong with that?
@Edent seems like a QR code sticker w/ URL containing a code for the specific facility and prominently marked "maintenance required? scan this barcode and select one of the four options." would be a lot cheaper and less fun to vandalize.
@Edent I press the button. I assume it's good for your immune system.
But also the fact it's purely psychological, imo. It's in the loo so people assume it's nasty but anyone who uses the men's loo and sees how many walk out without washing their hands....well now those germs are out in the rest of the building.
Fair play, I asked the CEO about this on LinkedIn and here's his response.
Of course, you may not trust the technology or the company, but at least it shows it is being thought about.
Personally, I see the utility in capturing feedback - but in my opinion this implementation is just too risky for a private area. Makes sense in a coffee shop, but not in its loos.
(I've redacted the details because some of you are simply feral.)
@Edent BUT the camera has to be live on the device, so, EVEN IF we can trust the software maker to be telling the truth, the device could be hacked, as it obviously has some sort of connection to the internet to get results. And most devices can easily be polled remotely if they have WiFi or Bluetooth enabled on them.
@Edent If it's feeding *anything* it is potentially open to compromise and abuse. I don't find that answer at all reassuring.
@Edent "Good question, and it deserves a straight answer." is a very LLM way of writing.
@Edent Three light sensors, like the ones they already use for various purposes in loos, would have been a simple low -tech solution. Over-engineering is rampant these days.
"It's not a video stream" and "No images or footage are captured or stored" are not quite the same thing.
To do motion detection, you do actually need to record something, even if you never keep it. And to analyse it, it does need to be stored somewhere, even if its only there temporarily. ("In-memory" is still storage!)
This reads more like someone who doesn't understand the tech, pretending it is fine. Which does not make me confident that it was built safely.
@Edent how long till it asks for a tip 😁
@Edent
I am extremely dissatisfied that the new method doesn't accept a middle finger as an opt-out \s
@Edent It's almost like the most hygenic thing would be to just pay enough staff to regularly keep the bathrooms clean and stocked without any kind of electronic input at all. 🙄 But I guess that's 20th century thinking.
@Edent Sadly I don't have a photo, but I've also seen some units where the buttons are spaced out a bit more and they had a distance sensor for each button, allowing you to press a button by holding your hand in front of them.
The amazing thing about ⬆ is that it has shown me just how many people don't / can't read.
There's nothing in the text which talks about flushing. Indeed, I explicitly describe what the buttons are for.
The image on the left doesn't look like a flush mechanism. The words in the photo are reasonably clear.
I wonder how many people are getting needlessly angry at news stories simply because they cannot extract coherent meaning from the text?
@Edent to really approach peak technofascism its also gotta only recognise white people's hand gestures, like the racist soap dispenser probably installed alongside.
@Edent from now on I’m going to say “record my feedback” instead of “flushing the toilet”, just like the cool kids do
“After using the toilet, don’t forget to record your feedback and wash your hands”
@Edent I was just wondering where they would get the power supply for that tablet from.
@Edent Also, this problem was adequately addressed with passive infrared and a then-US$0.12 8 pin IC back in the 1980s.
@Edent ... feedback?
my solution to the button would be to push it with a paper towel between the button and my finger. Because some people will push it before washing their hands (some people don't wash their hands at all).
I am not scanning some QR-code because that takes too much time and I want to be out of there as fast as I can thankyouverymuch.
@Edent just place it outside, like the ones in the airports
@Edent There's so many things wrong with this but others have already said most of them so...
In most situations there's nothing wrong with the low tech solution of regularly checking on the bathrooms and asking customers to tell an employee if there's a problem.
And for the exceptions, the high tech solution should be immediately outside the bathroom not inside the bathroom, especially if it involves a camera, no matter whether camera is owned by customer (qr code) or venue (this silly thing)
@Edent why not just have the survey buttons/screen outside?! Don't put anything like this IN bathrooms!!
@Edent strangely enough, if you do a search you'll find a lot of toilet flushing apps
@Edent Who's this? Oh, it's my good friend, Mr. Sharpie! Mr. Sharpie has so many cool tricks, like protecting your privacy! Thanks, Mr. Sharpie!
@Edent Yes, a briliant way to get at least one camera in the toilets area.....
@Edent guys, this is a conspiracy to create a database of butts. They' won't need your face anymore because they can get the shape of your butt and recognize you from there :))
@mahadevank I think you're on to something!!
@Edent That sounds to me like someone with an agenda attempting to justify why a device in the loos is a good thing. Weirdos.
@Edent ohh, so they need camera to record gesture... why cant they put 3 sensors. Top, right, bottom and wave of the hand would indicate decision? XDD the camera in peee peee station seems more like a weird fetish than actual solution to a problem.
Also why do I need to press buttons if toilets are clean? Just fucking clean them everyday XDD
@Edent say, where is this, or which is the linkedin profile publishing it?
@Edent How Innovative! What will they think of next? Impromptu slice of life video subscriptions?
@Edent Does it recognize middle finger gestures?
@simondassow I wanna see if it can tell that I'm mooning it.
@Edent What if I don’t want a camera in a public washroom?
@LabSpokane probably just piss outside on the floor?
@Edent Oh, so it’s a British train.
@Edent This is a good way to discourage feedback, and encourage middle fingers.
This will prove less effective than the buttons.
@Edent You can read gestures with capacitative sensors that don't passively record while they wait for a trigger.
@Edent you could run the visual recognition locally on the device, the video would never leave the device. But even for that you have to trust the company..
...
Wha...
...
I'm sorry...
Why... Would _anyone_ want this?
WHAT HAPPENED TO MOTION SENSORS THAT ARE NOT CAMERAS?!
👀
@401matthall how do you solve the problem?
Seriously?
I'd identify the problem as "want to flush toilet without touching".
We've had motion sensors on toilets for... Wow... At least 3 decades, I think?
If there's _another_ problem it's not made clear by the graphic.
@Edent Password for remote ssh access: "jeepers creepers look at them peepers"
@Edent I'm sorry, but ...
What the actual fuck? Reviews on bathrooms? We've gone this low already? I thought we had at least another decade before they ask people to review taking a shit.
@KittenKoder I'm not sure if you've been to a public bathroom in a large venue recently, but these type of surveys are reasonably common.
It's a low effort way to see if people are happy with the state of the bogs.
@Edent But it's a bathroom, do people really spend that much time in them?
@KittenKoder again, that's not what's being asked here. The owners want to know if there's enough soap & loo roll, if the locks are broken etc.
People judge venues on the quality of their toilets.
I'm not arguing that asking for feedback is bad. I'm saying pointing a live camera into the loos is probably not going to end well.
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