8 ms·

Smart urinals stuck on boot at a gas station in Germany

TonyTrapp 4y ago
As some of the comments in the reddit thread indicate, this is a common sight and these displays are only there to show ads. The urinal itself is as dumb as it can be.
prepend 4y ago
Seeing this would make me doubt the ability of the management. Although I suppose gas stations are just locally minmaxing for any extra nickel. It seems odd that the minimal ad revenue would pay for the electricity. Maybe it’s a situation where the power cost is externalized to the decision so they see “$4 extra per month” without being able to itemize and track the extra $5 in power.
- mschuster91 4y ago
  These things are usually something extremely low powered like Raspberry Pis or Android tablets with a kiosk-mode app. That's like 20€ a year in power, but advertisement income can be far higher (the customers literally can't pee without watching the ads) - and as gas stations are barely profitable on gas and concession sales are falling everywhere because of rampant inflation, they look for every opportunity they can use to make some money. The core problem is, as so often these days, that decades of unchecked capitalism have "optimized away" resilience on all levels: first, too much competition led to gas stations depending on concession sales (while oil companies make ever more insane profits), and now gas stations depend on nickeling-and-diming customers for shit that used to be free (by exposing them to ads wherever they can, some places have gated their vacuums and air pressers behind payment, and good luck finding a free loo). It's going to be a real shitshow when the ad companies shut down as the advertisers are cutting back on budget.
  - dmix 4y ago
    Better regulate gas stations otherwise they might end up buying into some failed cross promotional scheme putting ads in bathrooms. The horror.
    - mschuster91 4y ago
      Regulatory agencies should have stepped in as it became obvious that competition had led to unhealthy business practices. The thing is, a resilient (!) economy is a complex thing, and it absolutely requires outside feedback regulation. A lack of competition aka mono/duo/oligopols controlling markets is obviously unhealthy, because too large and powerful entities can and will gouge customers in the best (=most harmless) case, or actually make absurd demands from politics in the worst case when they get way too large (see the recent Credit Suisse bank scandals). The other way around, too much competition, is also bad, as it incentivizes unhealthy business behaviors such as wage theft, tax evasion, barely making profits (and thus, having no reserves for the event of an externally-caused economic shock), or exploiting customers to the point that they rather piss into a bush (and annoy residents) than pay 50ct for a loo. And to make it worse, a part of the problem is that there are a ton of gas stations - in Germany, about 14.000 [1] - but only a handful of oil suppliers. And the suppliers have an insane amount of leverage here: the gas stations are effectively locked to them (e.g. virtually all oil in Eastern Germany originates from two refineries in Leuna and Schwedt), so the refineries can charge whatever they want, and gas stations don't have the freedom to add markup to make profits on gas. [1] https://www.adac.de/verkehr/tanken-kraftstoff-antrieb/deutschland/tankstellen-in-deutschland/ https://www.adac.de/verkehr/tanken-kraftstoff-antrieb/deutsc...
  - misterben 4y ago
    Android P
- JKCalhoun 4y ago
  Treating your customers as ad-holes is ultimately pound foolish. Speaking of pissing on your customers, I tried to create an FB account recently (thinking that the software I sell ought to have a FB presence). Immediately I received an email from FB accusing me of lying when setting up the account — requiring me to now submit my (mobile) phone number in order to begin the process of resolving the issue. Yeah, no. Bye, FB.
  - bluGill 4y ago
    FB has a large scam problem they are trying to get on top of. while I understand you not wanting to give them your number, I also understand their wish to verify you are a real person and not another automated scam.
PreInternet01 4y ago
There's nothing particularly smart about these urinals: the screens are meant to show ads, but usually only show reminders (accompanied by a godawful jingle) about how you can use part of the EUR 0.50 you just spent on entry towards a purchase in the adjacent shop. (These setups showed up all over Europe years ago, with gas stations outsourcing their toilet facilities to companies taking care of cleaning and maintenance. Payment is collected on entry, which gives the customer a ticket, which entitles them to 30-cent-or-so discount on coffee or whatever. Advertising is supposed to make this all work. It does not seem to have been a very successful model, with many facilities being in a state of disrepair as shown in these pictures)
- noduerme 4y ago
  it's really weird... I moved from America to the EU, and found myself in a tiny village in France, where my nearest neighbor was a trucker. They seem to have the same mentality all over the world.
  - 9dev 4y ago
    I'm inclined to agree, but what mentality are you referring to in particular?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- pigsty 4y ago
  Whenever people call out Europe for having paid toilets, commenters always show up to say they’re glad toilets aren’t free because they’d be so filthy otherwise. I’m glad you nipped that in the bud. Euro paid toilets have always been outright disgusting and not once better than the free toilets found literally anywhere else in the semi-developed world in my experience. I’ll take a free SE Asian toilet over a paid French toilet any day of the week. Nice thing about ads in toilets is frustrated users will be very creative in showing their lack of satisfaction with commercials blasting while they piss.
  - 4y ago
_doom_ 4y ago
r/itrunsdoom ?
fernandohur 4y ago
It was probably just a shitty release
ClumsyPilot 4y ago
Internet of piss. Just wait untill they start selling dick enlargement pills. At some point all the home toilets will be smart, there wil be a bug and they will fail to boot. Without booting they will not flush. Thus London will have another Great Stench On a more srious note, ford recently patented 'our car will drive off if you fall behind on payments". We have to get the IoT stuff under control, and the law will not be changed untill something terrible happens. Maybe a ford car drives off with a newborn or causes multiple deaths.
- idontwantthis 4y ago
  > Just wait until they start selling dick enlargement pills. It still takes a quarter and a twist, but have you never bought horny goat weed at a truck stop?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epimedium?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epimedium?wprov=sfti1
ignoramous 4y ago
From reddit comments, it seems like these are ad-supported public urinals. Nothing inherently smart about the display, unless its...
jonahbenton 4y ago
Fix that ChatGPT
d00mer 4y ago
I think I'm not going too far when I claim that such inventions are utterly over-engineered for no good reason. I had a chance to visit Google's Mountain View office a few years ago, where they had these modern toilets that were supposed to "wipe your ass for you" by spraying water at your asshole or something similar. Never got to even try that feature as I took a pretty properly sized dump and jammed the system somehow. Unfortunately, there was no plunger at hand to unclog it, neither was there a flush button as everything was automatic. I spent 10 minutes trying fix the situtation, but had to run into a meeting eventually, so I left the big pile of shit for the next person to handle. Next day, I tried again using a different box in the toilet. Unrelated: the toilet walls and door had like 70cm of space underneath where you could almost see the junk hanging from the person sitting next to you. Very unpleasant. Anyways, the goddamn toilet did not work again. This time I had no meeting and eventually I was able to flush the shit down, but it took like 15 minutes. I wonder if they still have those toilets, but this was possibly one of the worst toilet-going experiences in my life. I felt like I was unwillingly participating in some sick experiment set up by some psycho.
- danjac 4y ago
  > supposed to "wipe your ass for you" by spraying water at your asshole Presumably the tech is called Google Wave?
- Y_Y 4y ago
  Sounds like you wandered into the search department by accident
- afhammad 4y ago
  413 Payload Too Large
  - josefx 4y ago
    As long as it is not the teapot.
- pertique 4y ago
  While I've never used Google's toilets, cleaning your asshole using a water spray is usually accomplished by a bidet. They're somewhat common in toilets in parts of Europe, and quite common in Japan. It's preference, but people usually like them. That being said, if the toilet component sucked then the whole experience will suck. I just wouldn't discount ass-spraying toilets from one bad toilet. EDIT: Almost all the toilets with bidets I've used have also had manual flush options, although the UX is hit or miss.
tagyro 4y ago
These are (most probably) Sanifair toilets. Sanifair is part of Tank & Rast, a monopoly that owns all (ok, not all, only something like 98%) of the locations for gas stations on the German highways. Fun company </s> https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_%26_Rast#Kritik https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_%26_Rast#Kritik
- ushakov 4y ago
  I remember seeing their toilets at Bremen Railway Station. Never paid a cent in my life for the “privilege”
mellosouls 4y ago
For ads encouraging you to spend a penny.
liendolucas 4y ago
Ah, but is not only that kind of stupidity. To this day you can go outside to have a drink or a meal and you will be forced to order using your smartphone. Scan the fucking QR code, go to website and input the order, despite verbally and physically telling the waitress what I want without even looking at the menu.
causality0 4y ago
used exclusively to show ads to captive audience Unless they've also got security cameras in the bathroom I'd expect those screens to get smashed pretty quickly.
gadders 4y ago
I did see some urinals in a pub in London once that had a game attached. It's been a few years ago now and tbh I was pissed (UK sense) but I think by aiming your flow in one direction or the other you could either save a football (UK sense) goal or score one.

As some of the comments in the reddit thread indicate, this is a common sight and these displays are only there to show ads. The urinal itself is as dumb as it can be.

prepend 4y ago

Seeing this would make me doubt the ability of the management. Although I suppose gas stations are just locally minmaxing for any extra nickel. It seems odd that the minimal ad revenue would pay for the electricity. Maybe it’s a situation where the power cost is externalized to the decision so they see “$4 extra per month” without being able to itemize and track the extra $5 in power.

mschuster91 4y ago
These things are usually something extremely low powered like Raspberry Pis or Android tablets with a kiosk-mode app. That's like 20€ a year in power, but advertisement income can be far higher (the customers literally can't pee without watching the ads) - and as gas stations are barely profitable on gas and concession sales are falling everywhere because of rampant inflation, they look for every opportunity they can use to make some money. The core problem is, as so often these days, that decades of unchecked capitalism have "optimized away" resilience on all levels: first, too much competition led to gas stations depending on concession sales (while oil companies make ever more insane profits), and now gas stations depend on nickeling-and-diming customers for shit that used to be free (by exposing them to ads wherever they can, some places have gated their vacuums and air pressers behind payment, and good luck finding a free loo). It's going to be a real shitshow when the ad companies shut down as the advertisers are cutting back on budget.
- dmix 4y ago
  Better regulate gas stations otherwise they might end up buying into some failed cross promotional scheme putting ads in bathrooms. The horror.
  - mschuster91 4y ago
    Regulatory agencies should have stepped in as it became obvious that competition had led to unhealthy business practices. The thing is, a resilient (!) economy is a complex thing, and it absolutely requires outside feedback regulation. A lack of competition aka mono/duo/oligopols controlling markets is obviously unhealthy, because too large and powerful entities can and will gouge customers in the best (=most harmless) case, or actually make absurd demands from politics in the worst case when they get way too large (see the recent Credit Suisse bank scandals). The other way around, too much competition, is also bad, as it incentivizes unhealthy business behaviors such as wage theft, tax evasion, barely making profits (and thus, having no reserves for the event of an externally-caused economic shock), or exploiting customers to the point that they rather piss into a bush (and annoy residents) than pay 50ct for a loo. And to make it worse, a part of the problem is that there are a ton of gas stations - in Germany, about 14.000 [1] - but only a handful of oil suppliers. And the suppliers have an insane amount of leverage here: the gas stations are effectively locked to them (e.g. virtually all oil in Eastern Germany originates from two refineries in Leuna and Schwedt), so the refineries can charge whatever they want, and gas stations don't have the freedom to add markup to make profits on gas. [1] https://www.adac.de/verkehr/tanken-kraftstoff-antrieb/deutschland/tankstellen-in-deutschland/ https://www.adac.de/verkehr/tanken-kraftstoff-antrieb/deutsc...
- misterben 4y ago
  Android P
JKCalhoun 4y ago
Treating your customers as ad-holes is ultimately pound foolish. Speaking of pissing on your customers, I tried to create an FB account recently (thinking that the software I sell ought to have a FB presence). Immediately I received an email from FB accusing me of lying when setting up the account — requiring me to now submit my (mobile) phone number in order to begin the process of resolving the issue. Yeah, no. Bye, FB.
- bluGill 4y ago
  FB has a large scam problem they are trying to get on top of. while I understand you not wanting to give them your number, I also understand their wish to verify you are a real person and not another automated scam.

PreInternet01 4y ago

There's nothing particularly smart about these urinals: the screens are meant to show ads, but usually only show reminders (accompanied by a godawful jingle) about how you can use part of the EUR 0.50 you just spent on entry towards a purchase in the adjacent shop. (These setups showed up all over Europe years ago, with gas stations outsourcing their toilet facilities to companies taking care of cleaning and maintenance. Payment is collected on entry, which gives the customer a ticket, which entitles them to 30-cent-or-so discount on coffee or whatever. Advertising is supposed to make this all work. It does not seem to have been a very successful model, with many facilities being in a state of disrepair as shown in these pictures)

noduerme 4y ago
it's really weird... I moved from America to the EU, and found myself in a tiny village in France, where my nearest neighbor was a trucker. They seem to have the same mentality all over the world.
- 9dev 4y ago
  I'm inclined to agree, but what mentality are you referring to in particular?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
pigsty 4y ago
Whenever people call out Europe for having paid toilets, commenters always show up to say they’re glad toilets aren’t free because they’d be so filthy otherwise. I’m glad you nipped that in the bud. Euro paid toilets have always been outright disgusting and not once better than the free toilets found literally anywhere else in the semi-developed world in my experience. I’ll take a free SE Asian toilet over a paid French toilet any day of the week. Nice thing about ads in toilets is frustrated users will be very creative in showing their lack of satisfaction with commercials blasting while they piss.
- 4y ago

_doom_ 4y ago

r/itrunsdoom ?

fernandohur 4y ago

It was probably just a shitty release

ClumsyPilot 4y ago

Internet of piss. Just wait untill they start selling dick enlargement pills. At some point all the home toilets will be smart, there wil be a bug and they will fail to boot. Without booting they will not flush. Thus London will have another Great Stench On a more srious note, ford recently patented 'our car will drive off if you fall behind on payments". We have to get the IoT stuff under control, and the law will not be changed untill something terrible happens. Maybe a ford car drives off with a newborn or causes multiple deaths.

idontwantthis 4y ago
> Just wait until they start selling dick enlargement pills. It still takes a quarter and a twist, but have you never bought horny goat weed at a truck stop?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epimedium?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epimedium?wprov=sfti1

ignoramous 4y ago

From reddit comments, it seems like these are ad-supported public urinals. Nothing inherently smart about the display, unless its...

jonahbenton 4y ago

Fix that ChatGPT

d00mer 4y ago

I think I'm not going too far when I claim that such inventions are utterly over-engineered for no good reason. I had a chance to visit Google's Mountain View office a few years ago, where they had these modern toilets that were supposed to "wipe your ass for you" by spraying water at your asshole or something similar. Never got to even try that feature as I took a pretty properly sized dump and jammed the system somehow. Unfortunately, there was no plunger at hand to unclog it, neither was there a flush button as everything was automatic. I spent 10 minutes trying fix the situtation, but had to run into a meeting eventually, so I left the big pile of shit for the next person to handle. Next day, I tried again using a different box in the toilet. Unrelated: the toilet walls and door had like 70cm of space underneath where you could almost see the junk hanging from the person sitting next to you. Very unpleasant. Anyways, the goddamn toilet did not work again. This time I had no meeting and eventually I was able to flush the shit down, but it took like 15 minutes. I wonder if they still have those toilets, but this was possibly one of the worst toilet-going experiences in my life. I felt like I was unwillingly participating in some sick experiment set up by some psycho.

danjac 4y ago
> supposed to "wipe your ass for you" by spraying water at your asshole Presumably the tech is called Google Wave?
Y_Y 4y ago
Sounds like you wandered into the search department by accident
afhammad 4y ago
413 Payload Too Large
- josefx 4y ago
  As long as it is not the teapot.
pertique 4y ago
While I've never used Google's toilets, cleaning your asshole using a water spray is usually accomplished by a bidet. They're somewhat common in toilets in parts of Europe, and quite common in Japan. It's preference, but people usually like them. That being said, if the toilet component sucked then the whole experience will suck. I just wouldn't discount ass-spraying toilets from one bad toilet. EDIT: Almost all the toilets with bidets I've used have also had manual flush options, although the UX is hit or miss.

tagyro 4y ago

These are (most probably) Sanifair toilets. Sanifair is part of Tank & Rast, a monopoly that owns all (ok, not all, only something like 98%) of the locations for gas stations on the German highways. Fun company </s> https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_%26_Rast#Kritik https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_%26_Rast#Kritik

ushakov 4y ago
I remember seeing their toilets at Bremen Railway Station. Never paid a cent in my life for the “privilege”

mellosouls 4y ago

For ads encouraging you to spend a penny.

liendolucas 4y ago

Ah, but is not only that kind of stupidity. To this day you can go outside to have a drink or a meal and you will be forced to order using your smartphone. Scan the fucking QR code, go to website and input the order, despite verbally and physically telling the waitress what I want without even looking at the menu.

causality0 4y ago

used exclusively to show ads to captive audience Unless they've also got security cameras in the bathroom I'd expect those screens to get smashed pretty quickly.

gadders 4y ago

I did see some urinals in a pub in London once that had a game attached. It's been a few years ago now and tbh I was pissed (UK sense) but I think by aiming your flow in one direction or the other you could either save a football (UK sense) goal or score one.