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Anyone seen any info on the Dyson AirBlades used for hand-drying in public restrooms? They are very effective at drying , but flick a lot of water up and onto t

Anyone seen any info on the Dyson AirBlades used for hand-drying in public restrooms? They are very effective at drying , but flick a lot of water up and onto the unit. I guess if everyone has properly washed their hands the WHO way, the rinse water should be safe, but I'm still wondering whether you are risking getting virus from the previous possibly infected person who also doesn't know the words to Happy Birthday.

satysin 7y ago
I hate those god-awful AirBlade dryers. I have long fingers and it is almost impossible to dry my hands without that disgusting pool of water flicking up onto the tips of my fingers. Curl your fingers you say? Not possible due to how narrow the gap is without almost always making contact with the sides of the unit. Terrible machines.
- flir 7y ago
  Totally agreed. Can't get my hands in and out of them without brushing the sides. It's not easy to take something terrible (a hand dryer) and make it worse. Since this pandemic, I've just stopped using them altogether.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- Polylactic_acid 7y ago
  They have an alternative version that solves this issue. I'm not sure if this is a successor or alt product though. https://www.dyson.com.au/hand-dryers/airblade-v.aspx https://www.dyson.com.au/hand-dryers/airblade-v.aspx
  - sjwright 7y ago
    Still looks like a great way to aerosolize the content of people's insufficiently washed hands. Yeesh.
- JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
  It is surprising this wasn't realized when the machine was being developed. Contacting the pool of water at the bottom, or the sides of the drier, seems reasonably unhygienic.
  - erikpukinskis 7y ago
    Design is fundamentally iterative. It’s easy to see the right design in hindsight, but it takes raw numbers to get there: you have to throw away a certain number of designs to get to the right one. And throwing away designs costs money. That’s why often it’s not until v2 or v3 of a product that they hit the right design. You often need the revenue from v1 and v2 to pay for more thrown away designs.
- qwerty456127 7y ago
  The world is designed for short people with short parts. Fingers are not the only problem.
- sjwright 7y ago
  Terrible machines before the pandemic; an order of magnitude more terrible during it.
m3kw9 7y ago
There was a study saying it blows crap all over you. I close my eyes when ever I use it now to prevent a certain virus from getting into my eyes
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/the-bacterial-horror-of-the-hot-air-hand-dryer-2018051113823 https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/the-bacterial-horror-of-... Although, I imagine the liberal application of far-UVC lighting for free air antiseptic purposes in the loo might mitigate the issue to an extent.
  - greesil 7y ago
    bacteria only, thankfully.
  - ficklepickle 7y ago
    Only when it is unoccupied I hope! https://www.self.com/story/people-who-attended-this-sexy-neon-light-party-say-their-eyes-got-burned https://www.self.com/story/people-who-attended-this-sexy-neo...
    - toomuchtodo 7y ago
      Far UVC light (207–222 nm) deactivates pathogens without damage to skin and eye cells. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-21058-w https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-21058-w
      - alfonsodev 7y ago
        It’s any recommended consumer lamp for out there ?
        toomuchtodo 7y ago
        I couldn’t find one myself, so I’m working to have one manufactured in Shenzhen.
monocasa 7y ago
Pretty much all hand dryers spread microbes like you wouldn't believe. I've taken to just letting my hands air dry, but I'm in a very dry climate where that happens very quickly.
et-al 7y ago
Dyson makes a $1500 integrated faucet that incorporates a hand-dryer. https://www.dyson.com/hand-dryers/dyson-airblade-wash-dry-overview.html https://www.dyson.com/hand-dryers/dyson-airblade-wash-dry-ov... Somehow none of the geniuses in the design world have criticised that the 331mph Air Blade dryer, when pointed at a concave surface, i.e. the sink, would spit things right back in the opposite direction. I've used this faucet/dryer while transiting through Reykjavik and you can see the remaining soap lather blown from the sink drain up over the counter and onto my shirt (and everywhere else). It's an expensively flawed idea.
- icebraining 7y ago
  Same here, in an office in Amsterdam. The sink hadn't fully drained when I moved my hand beneath the sensor inadvertently. Result: soapy water everywhere, including the floor and my clothes.
- roywiggins 7y ago
  I too was first introduced to those things flying through Reykjavik, and since then I've met them in a few office bathrooms. They are the absolute worst. How anyone thought it was a good idea is beyond me.
Brakenshire 7y ago
I hope that one of the outcomes of this crisis is we take a proper evidence-led approach towards building and design standards to reduce the spread of infectious disease. For all new buildings or products, any surface which is touched by hundreds of people each day needs to be redesigned to be contactless or to use materials that minimize transmission; products like hand dryers should pass standards that measure whether they spread bacteria or viruses; buildings and public transportation (buses, trains and planes) need to use HEPA filters to reduce airborne transmission risks, and to filter out air pollution; and sinks for hand washing need to become a standard feature at office receptions or entrances/exits. We should also be able to reduce the normally accepted steady state of deaths, ill health and economic impacts from flu and other unnecessary sickness. But this is going to be more and more necessary as global disease transmission becomes easier. It could be a new strain of flu or a drug resistant TB next year. There has to be defence in depth and in advance, not just hoping always for a magic fix after the problem has occurred.
- hinkley 7y ago
  Someone needs to socialize the idea that patina on bronze, brass and silver is a good thing. Frankly I'm a little surprised the hipsters didn't latch onto it right from the beginning. It turns out that copper can not only kill bacteria but also degrades naked dna/rna strands, preventing gene transfer between species. Problem is, the last time we were still using brass a lot, it was all lacquered in plastic.
hinkley 7y ago
There's a one-sided version I saw recently (internet says the Airblade V), which seems to be less of a game of Operation and actually mostly seemed to work. But to your point, the intake vents are mounted very low on the side, and I think I'd feel a lot better about recirculation if the intakes were farther above the outlets.

satysin 7y ago

I hate those god-awful AirBlade dryers. I have long fingers and it is almost impossible to dry my hands without that disgusting pool of water flicking up onto the tips of my fingers. Curl your fingers you say? Not possible due to how narrow the gap is without almost always making contact with the sides of the unit. Terrible machines.

flir 7y ago
Totally agreed. Can't get my hands in and out of them without brushing the sides. It's not easy to take something terrible (a hand dryer) and make it worse. Since this pandemic, I've just stopped using them altogether.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
Polylactic_acid 7y ago
They have an alternative version that solves this issue. I'm not sure if this is a successor or alt product though. https://www.dyson.com.au/hand-dryers/airblade-v.aspx https://www.dyson.com.au/hand-dryers/airblade-v.aspx
- sjwright 7y ago
  Still looks like a great way to aerosolize the content of people's insufficiently washed hands. Yeesh.
JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
It is surprising this wasn't realized when the machine was being developed. Contacting the pool of water at the bottom, or the sides of the drier, seems reasonably unhygienic.
- erikpukinskis 7y ago
  Design is fundamentally iterative. It’s easy to see the right design in hindsight, but it takes raw numbers to get there: you have to throw away a certain number of designs to get to the right one. And throwing away designs costs money. That’s why often it’s not until v2 or v3 of a product that they hit the right design. You often need the revenue from v1 and v2 to pay for more thrown away designs.
qwerty456127 7y ago
The world is designed for short people with short parts. Fingers are not the only problem.
sjwright 7y ago
Terrible machines before the pandemic; an order of magnitude more terrible during it.

m3kw9 7y ago

There was a study saying it blows crap all over you. I close my eyes when ever I use it now to prevent a certain virus from getting into my eyes

toomuchtodo 7y ago
https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/the-bacterial-horror-of-the-hot-air-hand-dryer-2018051113823 https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/the-bacterial-horror-of-... Although, I imagine the liberal application of far-UVC lighting for free air antiseptic purposes in the loo might mitigate the issue to an extent.
- greesil 7y ago
  bacteria only, thankfully.
- ficklepickle 7y ago
  Only when it is unoccupied I hope! https://www.self.com/story/people-who-attended-this-sexy-neon-light-party-say-their-eyes-got-burned https://www.self.com/story/people-who-attended-this-sexy-neo...
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    Far UVC light (207–222 nm) deactivates pathogens without damage to skin and eye cells. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-21058-w https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-21058-w
    - alfonsodev 7y ago
      It’s any recommended consumer lamp for out there ?
      - toomuchtodo 7y ago
        I couldn’t find one myself, so I’m working to have one manufactured in Shenzhen.

monocasa 7y ago

Pretty much all hand dryers spread microbes like you wouldn't believe. I've taken to just letting my hands air dry, but I'm in a very dry climate where that happens very quickly.

et-al 7y ago

Dyson makes a $1500 integrated faucet that incorporates a hand-dryer. https://www.dyson.com/hand-dryers/dyson-airblade-wash-dry-overview.html https://www.dyson.com/hand-dryers/dyson-airblade-wash-dry-ov... Somehow none of the geniuses in the design world have criticised that the 331mph Air Blade dryer, when pointed at a concave surface, i.e. the sink, would spit things right back in the opposite direction. I've used this faucet/dryer while transiting through Reykjavik and you can see the remaining soap lather blown from the sink drain up over the counter and onto my shirt (and everywhere else). It's an expensively flawed idea.

icebraining 7y ago
Same here, in an office in Amsterdam. The sink hadn't fully drained when I moved my hand beneath the sensor inadvertently. Result: soapy water everywhere, including the floor and my clothes.
roywiggins 7y ago
I too was first introduced to those things flying through Reykjavik, and since then I've met them in a few office bathrooms. They are the absolute worst. How anyone thought it was a good idea is beyond me.

Brakenshire 7y ago

I hope that one of the outcomes of this crisis is we take a proper evidence-led approach towards building and design standards to reduce the spread of infectious disease. For all new buildings or products, any surface which is touched by hundreds of people each day needs to be redesigned to be contactless or to use materials that minimize transmission; products like hand dryers should pass standards that measure whether they spread bacteria or viruses; buildings and public transportation (buses, trains and planes) need to use HEPA filters to reduce airborne transmission risks, and to filter out air pollution; and sinks for hand washing need to become a standard feature at office receptions or entrances/exits. We should also be able to reduce the normally accepted steady state of deaths, ill health and economic impacts from flu and other unnecessary sickness. But this is going to be more and more necessary as global disease transmission becomes easier. It could be a new strain of flu or a drug resistant TB next year. There has to be defence in depth and in advance, not just hoping always for a magic fix after the problem has occurred.

hinkley 7y ago
Someone needs to socialize the idea that patina on bronze, brass and silver is a good thing. Frankly I'm a little surprised the hipsters didn't latch onto it right from the beginning. It turns out that copper can not only kill bacteria but also degrades naked dna/rna strands, preventing gene transfer between species. Problem is, the last time we were still using brass a lot, it was all lacquered in plastic.

hinkley 7y ago

There's a one-sided version I saw recently (internet says the Airblade V), which seems to be less of a game of Operation and actually mostly seemed to work. But to your point, the intake vents are mounted very low on the side, and I think I'd feel a lot better about recirculation if the intakes were farther above the outlets.