7 ms·

A few years ago, a British inventor appeared on a TV show called Dragon's Den (UK version of Shark Tank) and pitched his idea of an improved spray bottle called

A few years ago, a British inventor appeared on a TV show called Dragon's Den (UK version of Shark Tank) and pitched his idea of an improved spray bottle called the Anyway Spray. Instead of a normal plastic tube inside a bottle with an opening at the end, he designed a tube with millions of tiny perforations along its length. This meant the spray bottle could operate at any angle (even upside down) and could empty all liquid in a bottle with no leftover. Here is a 1 min demo of the spray: https://vimeo.com/195318537 https://vimeo.com/195318537 Here's an explanation of how it works https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXk46rvzdpY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXk46rvzdpY And here's the original pitch he made on Dragon's Den https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjOvyjeZyIw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjOvyjeZyIw

fouc 8y ago
Seems like he managed to license it to Tesco's range of label products. Good for him.
- nothrabannosir 8y ago
  Good for us! :)
MichaelApproved 8y ago
Why isn't this in everything? I'd easily pay an extra few cents to have this in spray bottles. It's such a frustrating problem.
- gxs 8y ago
  Jumping to the conclusion that everything a company does is calculated and delibarate is a mistake I see a lot of people make, but in this case it’s accurate. In a business that operates at a scale of 100s of thousands if not millions of bottles sold annually, cents matter and can make up a significant portion of revenue. With this in mind, there is a huge incentive to get people to buy sooner rather than later and more often. Forcing a small amount to remain in a used up bottle is definitely a benefit to the company even if the product is going to waste. This doesn’t include the cost of implementing something new. I’d imagine a company would do extensive survey based research to understand if the additional customer satisfaction would outweigh the costs/downsides. If it’s not a conscious decision, it’s a nice coincidental benefit to them.
  - markkanof 8y ago
    Maybe, but it seems more likely this isn't due to malice but just stupidity/apathy. Maybe most companies just aren't aware of this technology, or they don't want to implement something new because of uncertainty about the potential problems with the new technology. For example, maybe 1 out of a 100 of these bottles gets completely clogged and won't dispense anything at all. That looks bad for the company and maybe even requires a recall. It's easier to just stick with what they are doing and no-one is complaining loudly about the small bit of wasted product.
    - manigandham 8y ago
      Large companies are constantly doing research and development which handles all of this. They definitely aren't stupid and aren't waiting around for youtube videos to learn about things. They have teams that actively engage with new suppliers and inventors and are also getting pitched constantly with new ideas. It's most likely that extensive testing and consideration showed that this wasn't worth the costs. You even described such a scenario so I'm not sure why you think that's stupid or apathetic, when it's actually quite calculated.
  - richie5um 8y ago
    Yup. Business benefit supersedes customer benefit. Always.
  - akg_67 8y ago
    I am not sure why you were downvoted. There are several examples of the behavior you described. Potato chip companies reducing the quantity of chips in a bag but keeping the size and price same. Because they were unable to raise prices with older packaging. Typically customers didn’t look at weight, just size of package. It was in the news for quite a while and IIRC there is a business case study. It has been happening in beverages and other items too. Why do you see now package weights of odd numbers like 11.5 or 14.5 oz instead of standard number like 12 oz or 16 oz with typically no price reduction. Recently I encountered same behavior with toothpaste tube in Japan. To keep the form/shape of the toothpaste tube with usage the nozzle was designed to suck in air to fill new space in the tube. My wife claimed we are out of toothpaste and wanted to throw away the tube. The toothpaste tube was perfectly formed but I noticed tube was still little heavier than I would expect for a empty plastic tube. But when you squeeze the tube mostly Air was coming out with little bit of spray of paste. Reducing the air space with paper clip, we were able to use paste from same tube for another 2 weeks. Typical behavior would be most probably what my wife was going to do to throwaway old one and open a new one.
- icantdrive55 8y ago
  I think most companies basically just care about the over priced chemicals they sell in the sprayer. They want a sprayer that just empties the product, so the consumer can buy more? I try to reuse sprayer bottles. Some bottles allow this, but it's getting harder to get the tops off. I usually refill the opened bottle with 10% bleach, and water. I use the spray bottle until it stops working. Sometimes I use ammonia instead of bleach. Ironically, it sounds like this guy's invention might use more liquid per squeeze; hence causing the consumer to buy more pricy liquid? Maybe, I'm wrong?
- logicallee 8y ago
  In my quick analysis (could be mistaken, I welcome corrections), if this is one-time disposible then it only makes sense if the value to the consumer of the amount of product not thrown out as a result, is less than the extra cost of licensing and manufacturing this and this cost can be passed onto the consumer somehow. In other words, if this costs 5¢ more then it is worth spending an extra 5¢ on if you keep from throwing at least 5¢ of product out. Below this it is better to throw a little product away. (However, consumers might overvalue being able to use the last little bit of product. Perhaps they value at 25¢ to not throw the last 1/30th of the product away, even though they paid less than $7.50 for the whole package. i.e. perhaps they paid $5.00 but would pay $5.25 to keep from throwing away the last 1/30th of the product. However this seems unlikely!) More likely, if it costs 25¢ it is more economical to throw away, for example, 5¢ of product instead, by not having it. However this analysis assumes that the 25¢ is passed onto the consumer. If the consumer is very price-sensitive (for example there is a standard price and very standard volume, as is the case with milk, though that isn't dispensed this way) then adding this as a competitive advantage would benefit the consumer, while the supplier eats the costs as a cost of acquiring this consumer. This is my quick analysis.
  - MichaelApproved 8y ago
    It's nice that it would end up using all the product but I'm thinking more about convenience. I often hold a bottle sideways and, while there's plenty of liquid, I can't get the spray to work in that orientation. So frustrating.
- chewxy 8y ago
  Here's a cheaper and faster hack: soft tube + weighted end. The weighted end will tend to go towards where the liquids are. Imagine a bottle being held lengthwise. The weighted end will be in the same location as where the liquid is. Turn the bottle upside down... the weighted end drops to where the top of the bottle is, along with where the water is. Standard pressure thingies still work - you still get a spray. No need for custom membranse.
  - PhasmaFelis 8y ago
    I saw an instructional thing about that. They did it with a bit of silicone tubing the same diameter as the original, and a steel nut with matching inside diameter. Swap out the tube and screw the nut over the end. I'm not sure you could actually make it work upside-down without crimping, but at any normal usage angle it works great.
  - fencepost 8y ago
    What it really comes down to is the question of the actual goal and the costs of reaching that goal. For a huge percentage of things "good enough" is in fact good enough. It's also important to not confuse the goal and proposed solutions for reaching that goal. For the example above, is the goal to be able to spray upside down? To ensure that the sprayer is able to spray a higher percentage of what's in the bottle? How large is that percentage improvement (90% up to 95%?), what's the incremental cost of increasing that percentage, and what is the actual worth of 5% of the contents of the bottle? A draw tube that is flexible enough to fold in half, strong enough to not kink, sturdy enough to not collapse when bursts of suction are applied, weighted enough to stay in liquid, strong enough to assemble quickly and easily, etc. is probably also expensive enough to just not be an economical solution. By the way, if you don't purchase cleaning supplies regularly you may have missed that a lot of those tubes have gone away - they're now molded as part of the bottle so just tipping the bottle will put all remaining liquid at the intake point.
  - exikyut 8y ago
    What cheap alternatives to small bits of metal could be used for the weight? Metal could interact with and damage a lot of different things.
SheinhardtWigCo 8y ago
I know it's for TV but that was a great pitch.
ikurei 8y ago
I wonder how the economic and environmental costs of the extra tubing (the tube in Anyway Spray bottles is longer than a straight, conventional one) compares to the costs of those few last drops for most sprayed products...
- loopdoend 8y ago
  This improvement would cause the manufacturer to sell less product by volume.
thomk 8y ago
That episode of Dragons Den is infuriating. Here is a guy who has invented something with a widespread, common appeal. He invented a product that potentially fixes a real problem in 1,000,000,000 units per year and he has to give away 20% of his invention to get support.
- acjohnson55 8y ago
  He had the option to reject the deal, no? It's a free market for venture capital, so if that deal is so bad and the opportunity is so good, he should have been able to find a better one. From my perspective, having a great idea is not enough. Even having a proof of concept is not enough. There's a lot more that goes into building a successful business. Investors have to price in the chances of all the things that can go wrong in the process against the perceived value of the product. Likewise, as a founder, you often need at least some investors that can help propel you forward in some way. That can be worth a lot more than dumb money. I haven't watched the episode you mention, but generally this is how I think about it.
  - annabellish 8y ago
    >Likewise, as a founder, you often need at least some investors that can help propel you forward in some way. Which is the infuriating part, when the "investors" contribute nothing to the project but a tiny slice of money they didn't work for to begin with, and get vastly disproportional returns for it.
    - mcguire 8y ago
      Welcome to venture capital.
      - annabellish 8y ago
        That it is common makes it neither more nor less just.
    - acjohnson55 8y ago
kazinator 8y ago
If it was simply perforations, it wouldn't work when the bottle is upright because those perforations would let the air into the top of the straw. Rather, the straw is made of a membrane which lets water through while blocking gas.
- mackman 8y ago
  I’m not sure you can make a membrane that does that? I get the sense there is a membrane that wicks the fluid around the surface of the tube so you always have to pull in liquid before the gas? Maybe that’s the same thing.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- hanniabu 8y ago
  You need to let air through or else it creates a vacuum. What's happening is it just slows the flow of air enough to be able to get suction from the fluid. Having fluid in the tube also helps.
  - kazinator 8y ago
    You need to let air through into the bottle to replace the volume of ejected water. No air should ideally be entering the straw.
- m-p-3 8y ago
  You can retrofit it into an existing spray bottle with some flexible tubing and something to weight down the end, like some stainless-steel nuts. That way, the end of the tube follows gravity along with the liquid and ensure it remains submerged.
  - kazinator 8y ago
    I don't think there is any idea here other than retrofitting this innovative straw into existing spray bottles.
ebikelaw 8y ago
I have a spray bottle that I bought to clean windows, because it can shoot a stream about 20 meters which is great. It is also labeled "sprays upside-down!" which is really misleading. I thought it sprayed in any orientation but it doesn't. It only sprays when held straight up or straight down. There's an inlet on the base of the handle for the inverted case, and a valve that prevents the main pickup from drawing in air.
- ggg9990 8y ago
  That’s not “really misleading,” it’s “barely misleading” or perhaps “slightly misleading.”
  - esrauch 8y ago
    I think most people would assume the marketing meant "can spray at any angle, even the hardest case of upside down". I knew I did when reading this thread until I saw this comment.
    - ggg9990 8y ago
      To be clear, there are two products: one labeled “anyway spray” which sprays in any direction and one labeled “sprays upside down” which sprays right side up or completely upside down. Seems fair to me.
mmmBacon 8y ago
Cool. Looks like the guy got his stuff into products. He got raped by the investors in my view. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4335468/British-inventor-cleans-deal-Tesco.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4335468/Briti...
ollieshmollie 8y ago
I noticed the video described him as MBE, so I looked him up. He also invented a water filter and was named Member of the British Empire for it: https://ideas.ted.com/since-the-ted-talk-michael-pritchard-on-how-hes-helping-end-water-poverty-in-malaysia/ https://ideas.ted.com/since-the-ted-talk-michael-pritchard-o...
exikyut 8y ago
Considering the replies this has gathered, I'll add this (half-obvious) anecdata FWIW: you can, in I'd say 70-85% of cases, recover all of the product in a spray or pump if you don't mind (potentially repeatedly) fiddling with the hose. Just pull the hose out and bend/twist it really hard in a specific direction. If it's not utterly stiff, winding it tightly around a pencil (or your finger, or just twisting the hose to that tight of a bend radius) is ideal. Hopefully this much flexing means that after naturally uncurling the curl will still "stick" to a useful degree for longer than a single usage. One non-obvious extra detail: if the product is in a non-transparent spray bottle, before replacing the lid, rotate the spray pump so it faces the direction you've bent/curled the hose. Now a) you know which direction the hose is pointing and can eliminate "where is it in the bottle", and b) you just have to face it forward for it to work, which is intuitive.

fouc 8y ago

Seems like he managed to license it to Tesco's range of label products. Good for him.

nothrabannosir 8y ago
Good for us! :)

MichaelApproved 8y ago

Why isn't this in everything? I'd easily pay an extra few cents to have this in spray bottles. It's such a frustrating problem.

gxs 8y ago
Jumping to the conclusion that everything a company does is calculated and delibarate is a mistake I see a lot of people make, but in this case it’s accurate. In a business that operates at a scale of 100s of thousands if not millions of bottles sold annually, cents matter and can make up a significant portion of revenue. With this in mind, there is a huge incentive to get people to buy sooner rather than later and more often. Forcing a small amount to remain in a used up bottle is definitely a benefit to the company even if the product is going to waste. This doesn’t include the cost of implementing something new. I’d imagine a company would do extensive survey based research to understand if the additional customer satisfaction would outweigh the costs/downsides. If it’s not a conscious decision, it’s a nice coincidental benefit to them.
- markkanof 8y ago
  Maybe, but it seems more likely this isn't due to malice but just stupidity/apathy. Maybe most companies just aren't aware of this technology, or they don't want to implement something new because of uncertainty about the potential problems with the new technology. For example, maybe 1 out of a 100 of these bottles gets completely clogged and won't dispense anything at all. That looks bad for the company and maybe even requires a recall. It's easier to just stick with what they are doing and no-one is complaining loudly about the small bit of wasted product.
  - manigandham 8y ago
    Large companies are constantly doing research and development which handles all of this. They definitely aren't stupid and aren't waiting around for youtube videos to learn about things. They have teams that actively engage with new suppliers and inventors and are also getting pitched constantly with new ideas. It's most likely that extensive testing and consideration showed that this wasn't worth the costs. You even described such a scenario so I'm not sure why you think that's stupid or apathetic, when it's actually quite calculated.
- richie5um 8y ago
  Yup. Business benefit supersedes customer benefit. Always.
- akg_67 8y ago
  I am not sure why you were downvoted. There are several examples of the behavior you described. Potato chip companies reducing the quantity of chips in a bag but keeping the size and price same. Because they were unable to raise prices with older packaging. Typically customers didn’t look at weight, just size of package. It was in the news for quite a while and IIRC there is a business case study. It has been happening in beverages and other items too. Why do you see now package weights of odd numbers like 11.5 or 14.5 oz instead of standard number like 12 oz or 16 oz with typically no price reduction. Recently I encountered same behavior with toothpaste tube in Japan. To keep the form/shape of the toothpaste tube with usage the nozzle was designed to suck in air to fill new space in the tube. My wife claimed we are out of toothpaste and wanted to throw away the tube. The toothpaste tube was perfectly formed but I noticed tube was still little heavier than I would expect for a empty plastic tube. But when you squeeze the tube mostly Air was coming out with little bit of spray of paste. Reducing the air space with paper clip, we were able to use paste from same tube for another 2 weeks. Typical behavior would be most probably what my wife was going to do to throwaway old one and open a new one.
icantdrive55 8y ago
I think most companies basically just care about the over priced chemicals they sell in the sprayer. They want a sprayer that just empties the product, so the consumer can buy more? I try to reuse sprayer bottles. Some bottles allow this, but it's getting harder to get the tops off. I usually refill the opened bottle with 10% bleach, and water. I use the spray bottle until it stops working. Sometimes I use ammonia instead of bleach. Ironically, it sounds like this guy's invention might use more liquid per squeeze; hence causing the consumer to buy more pricy liquid? Maybe, I'm wrong?
logicallee 8y ago
In my quick analysis (could be mistaken, I welcome corrections), if this is one-time disposible then it only makes sense if the value to the consumer of the amount of product not thrown out as a result, is less than the extra cost of licensing and manufacturing this and this cost can be passed onto the consumer somehow. In other words, if this costs 5¢ more then it is worth spending an extra 5¢ on if you keep from throwing at least 5¢ of product out. Below this it is better to throw a little product away. (However, consumers might overvalue being able to use the last little bit of product. Perhaps they value at 25¢ to not throw the last 1/30th of the product away, even though they paid less than $7.50 for the whole package. i.e. perhaps they paid $5.00 but would pay $5.25 to keep from throwing away the last 1/30th of the product. However this seems unlikely!) More likely, if it costs 25¢ it is more economical to throw away, for example, 5¢ of product instead, by not having it. However this analysis assumes that the 25¢ is passed onto the consumer. If the consumer is very price-sensitive (for example there is a standard price and very standard volume, as is the case with milk, though that isn't dispensed this way) then adding this as a competitive advantage would benefit the consumer, while the supplier eats the costs as a cost of acquiring this consumer. This is my quick analysis.
- MichaelApproved 8y ago
  It's nice that it would end up using all the product but I'm thinking more about convenience. I often hold a bottle sideways and, while there's plenty of liquid, I can't get the spray to work in that orientation. So frustrating.
chewxy 8y ago
Here's a cheaper and faster hack: soft tube + weighted end. The weighted end will tend to go towards where the liquids are. Imagine a bottle being held lengthwise. The weighted end will be in the same location as where the liquid is. Turn the bottle upside down... the weighted end drops to where the top of the bottle is, along with where the water is. Standard pressure thingies still work - you still get a spray. No need for custom membranse.
- PhasmaFelis 8y ago
  I saw an instructional thing about that. They did it with a bit of silicone tubing the same diameter as the original, and a steel nut with matching inside diameter. Swap out the tube and screw the nut over the end. I'm not sure you could actually make it work upside-down without crimping, but at any normal usage angle it works great.
- fencepost 8y ago
  What it really comes down to is the question of the actual goal and the costs of reaching that goal. For a huge percentage of things "good enough" is in fact good enough. It's also important to not confuse the goal and proposed solutions for reaching that goal. For the example above, is the goal to be able to spray upside down? To ensure that the sprayer is able to spray a higher percentage of what's in the bottle? How large is that percentage improvement (90% up to 95%?), what's the incremental cost of increasing that percentage, and what is the actual worth of 5% of the contents of the bottle? A draw tube that is flexible enough to fold in half, strong enough to not kink, sturdy enough to not collapse when bursts of suction are applied, weighted enough to stay in liquid, strong enough to assemble quickly and easily, etc. is probably also expensive enough to just not be an economical solution. By the way, if you don't purchase cleaning supplies regularly you may have missed that a lot of those tubes have gone away - they're now molded as part of the bottle so just tipping the bottle will put all remaining liquid at the intake point.
- exikyut 8y ago
  What cheap alternatives to small bits of metal could be used for the weight? Metal could interact with and damage a lot of different things.

SheinhardtWigCo 8y ago

I know it's for TV but that was a great pitch.

ikurei 8y ago

I wonder how the economic and environmental costs of the extra tubing (the tube in Anyway Spray bottles is longer than a straight, conventional one) compares to the costs of those few last drops for most sprayed products...

loopdoend 8y ago
This improvement would cause the manufacturer to sell less product by volume.

thomk 8y ago

That episode of Dragons Den is infuriating. Here is a guy who has invented something with a widespread, common appeal. He invented a product that potentially fixes a real problem in 1,000,000,000 units per year and he has to give away 20% of his invention to get support.

acjohnson55 8y ago
He had the option to reject the deal, no? It's a free market for venture capital, so if that deal is so bad and the opportunity is so good, he should have been able to find a better one. From my perspective, having a great idea is not enough. Even having a proof of concept is not enough. There's a lot more that goes into building a successful business. Investors have to price in the chances of all the things that can go wrong in the process against the perceived value of the product. Likewise, as a founder, you often need at least some investors that can help propel you forward in some way. That can be worth a lot more than dumb money. I haven't watched the episode you mention, but generally this is how I think about it.
- annabellish 8y ago
  >Likewise, as a founder, you often need at least some investors that can help propel you forward in some way. Which is the infuriating part, when the "investors" contribute nothing to the project but a tiny slice of money they didn't work for to begin with, and get vastly disproportional returns for it.
  - mcguire 8y ago
    Welcome to venture capital.
    - annabellish 8y ago
      That it is common makes it neither more nor less just.
  - acjohnson55 8y ago

kazinator 8y ago

If it was simply perforations, it wouldn't work when the bottle is upright because those perforations would let the air into the top of the straw. Rather, the straw is made of a membrane which lets water through while blocking gas.

mackman 8y ago
I’m not sure you can make a membrane that does that? I get the sense there is a membrane that wicks the fluid around the surface of the tube so you always have to pull in liquid before the gas? Maybe that’s the same thing.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
hanniabu 8y ago
You need to let air through or else it creates a vacuum. What's happening is it just slows the flow of air enough to be able to get suction from the fluid. Having fluid in the tube also helps.
- kazinator 8y ago
  You need to let air through into the bottle to replace the volume of ejected water. No air should ideally be entering the straw.
m-p-3 8y ago
You can retrofit it into an existing spray bottle with some flexible tubing and something to weight down the end, like some stainless-steel nuts. That way, the end of the tube follows gravity along with the liquid and ensure it remains submerged.
- kazinator 8y ago
  I don't think there is any idea here other than retrofitting this innovative straw into existing spray bottles.

ebikelaw 8y ago

I have a spray bottle that I bought to clean windows, because it can shoot a stream about 20 meters which is great. It is also labeled "sprays upside-down!" which is really misleading. I thought it sprayed in any orientation but it doesn't. It only sprays when held straight up or straight down. There's an inlet on the base of the handle for the inverted case, and a valve that prevents the main pickup from drawing in air.

ggg9990 8y ago
That’s not “really misleading,” it’s “barely misleading” or perhaps “slightly misleading.”
- esrauch 8y ago
  I think most people would assume the marketing meant "can spray at any angle, even the hardest case of upside down". I knew I did when reading this thread until I saw this comment.
  - ggg9990 8y ago
    To be clear, there are two products: one labeled “anyway spray” which sprays in any direction and one labeled “sprays upside down” which sprays right side up or completely upside down. Seems fair to me.

mmmBacon 8y ago

Cool. Looks like the guy got his stuff into products. He got raped by the investors in my view. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4335468/British-inventor-cleans-deal-Tesco.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4335468/Briti...

ollieshmollie 8y ago

I noticed the video described him as MBE, so I looked him up. He also invented a water filter and was named Member of the British Empire for it: https://ideas.ted.com/since-the-ted-talk-michael-pritchard-on-how-hes-helping-end-water-poverty-in-malaysia/ https://ideas.ted.com/since-the-ted-talk-michael-pritchard-o...

exikyut 8y ago

Considering the replies this has gathered, I'll add this (half-obvious) anecdata FWIW: you can, in I'd say 70-85% of cases, recover all of the product in a spray or pump if you don't mind (potentially repeatedly) fiddling with the hose. Just pull the hose out and bend/twist it really hard in a specific direction. If it's not utterly stiff, winding it tightly around a pencil (or your finger, or just twisting the hose to that tight of a bend radius) is ideal. Hopefully this much flexing means that after naturally uncurling the curl will still "stick" to a useful degree for longer than a single usage. One non-obvious extra detail: if the product is in a non-transparent spray bottle, before replacing the lid, rotate the spray pump so it faces the direction you've bent/curled the hose. Now a) you know which direction the hose is pointing and can eliminate "where is it in the bottle", and b) you just have to face it forward for it to work, which is intuitive.