7 ms·

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

by 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.
- buro9 4y ago
  I was never convinced on bidets as in the UK virtually no-one has them. But then I heard the line (from a Frenchman) "If you got shit on your fingers would you wipe it off with a piece of tissue, or wash your hands? Why would the answer be different for your bum?". On reflection, why aren't they everywhere?
  - idontwantthis 4y ago
    Seriously. Once you have lived abroad and gotten used to it, you can’t go back to toilet paper. It is revolting, and ineffective compared to just a little bit of water.
    - makeitdouble 4y ago
      Wait, aren't you still wiping your butt afterwards ? at least to wipe the water ?
      - DrThunder 4y ago
        Not really wiping, just padding. This avoids the dreaded rolls of tp stuck in your ass as well.
  - tescocles 4y ago
    "If you got shit on your fingers would you wipe it off with a piece of tissue, or wash your hands? Why would the answer be different for your bum?" I don't know about you but I don't tend to touch my keyboard or food with my anus like I do with my hands
zelphirkalt 4y ago
Maybe shit is not worthless. Maybe we can mine some data outta that. We need to be smart about it though. I am skeptical, whether spraying water at the butt is a good idea. What about the additional aerosols that creates? And if the spraying does not have the water pressure, you might end up with a dirty and wet butt, instead of only a dirty butt. I also dislike toilets, which when you dump, allow water to splash up at you. I don't think that water is necessarily very clean.
quickthrower2 4y ago
Bidets are quite nice when you get used to them
MrBuddyCasino 4y ago
> 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. Why are american toilets like that? As a european, it seems barbarian.
- 0_____0 4y ago
  Cost and precedent. It's inexpensive to get a prefab kit that only needs to be bolted to a couple spots on the floor and wall, less finicky than building a partition all the way to the floor. Also USians are used to it, so we don't complain :)
  - themaninthedark 4y ago
    You can get partitions that go all the way down, they just cost more. But the reason for the shorter partitions isn't generally cost. 1. Security: you can see if someone is still in the toilet when it is closing time, etc. 2. Cleaning: it is easier to clean with a gap, more clearance for the mop. What I really wish we would get is stall door locks that indicate if locked or not. A properly hung stall door should naturally move to the open position but most are not properly hung. So you have a row of stalls all with the door closed and no idea if they are occupied or not. Which means you are either pushing on the doors, looking under or through the gap. It's Barbaric.
    - gambiting 4y ago
      >>What I really wish we would get is stall door locks that indicate if locked or not. Wait......that's not standard in the US????? I've never seen a bathroom with a door lock that doesn't show its state on the outside, even if it's a simple mechanical latch.
      - bombcar 4y ago
        You often have to "crackpeek" to see the state of the basic mechanical latch in the USA: https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/11rd9ia/i_hate_how_toilet_stalls_in_the_us_are_not_built/ https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/11rd9ia/i_hate_how_to... has a picture The "moving part" doesn't go through the door. Fancier bathrooms have deadbolts or equivalent that show the occupancy on the outside; amusingly enough so do the portapotties.
looping__lui 4y ago
Oh, you absolutely miss the point of these toilets: they show you digital Ads while you are “at the business”. I guess thats a pretty neat revenue stream… To make matters even weirder: you are charged 1 EUR or so for most of these Urinals and then you have to watch advertisements in addition.
SOLAR_FIELDS 4y ago
Are you Scandinavian by chance? My Scandinavian colleagues were always completely mortified at the massive gaps we have in American stalls. The rooms Scandinavians get are complete utopias in comparison
- Macha 4y ago
  It's not just Scandanavia, most European countries have, if not full on doors on their cubicles, non-visible vertical gaps and horizontal gaps of at most 5cm (2in). You might occasionally see a pub or shelter with US style door gaps to discourage drug use, but very much the minority.
loveparade 4y ago
It's fine, Google killed that product a while ago. You probably got caught in the middle of the shutdown.
mrighele 4y ago
What is interesting is that you don't need absolutely any technology to have a toilet that cleans your ass with water. It's really just a pipe that comes out from below the seat and a knob to manually open/close the water, it's even simpler than the flush.
- bluGill 4y ago
  You need water pipes from your water source to the toilet. That technology is a lot more complex than you give it credit for. Most likely there is an electric pump someplace in the chain, which adds in a lot more technology. (There is also water treatment, but since we are not talking about drinking water I will ignore that)
  - DrThunder 4y ago
    Every toilet already has a pressurized water line going to it.... it wouldn't be able to refill after a flush if it didn't You literally just T junction off the line that's already present. Not complex at all. The bidet itself has a valve that stays closed until you're ready for it to spray.
    - bluGill 4y ago
      That has noting to do with how complex the technology behind our water system is.
      - DrThunder 4y ago
        What are you even talking about? Your responded directly to a comment about bidets, not water system complexity.
        bluGill 4y ago
        The comment specifically said it wasn't complex technology, but that pipe the bidet connects to is complex technology.
DrThunder 4y ago
Not sure about the other features of these Google toilets but a bidet is absolutely something everyone should have. You can buy a cheap one from Amazon that hooks on to your existing toilet. Sooooo much better actually cleaning your ass instead of smearing shit around with your tp and getting tp bits stuck in your crack. I'll never go back to pure tp after having a bidet.
- rationalist 4y ago
  I have a bidet, but I think the main problem is most people don't know how to use a toilet properly. If you spread your cheeks apart before sitting down, there is a lot less surface you have to wipe. If you lean forward when you go (rest elbows on thighs), you're in the anatomically correct position (the Squatty Potty's selling point). Wipe any sweat/hairs off the seat after you get up before you flush, and close the lid (or lift the seat if there is no lid) before you flush to avoid spraying dirty water on the seat. Having a somewhat decent diet (mine isn't great, but it's still good enough) helps a lot too: turds will have form rather than just be like a paste, requiring just one wipe to make sure things are clean. I doubt 99% of parents teach that (and they probably don't even practice that themselves). And most people aren't going even consider optimizing their toilet routine or care about the person using the toilet after them.
zrail 4y ago
You need more fiber in your diet if you're dumping toilet cloggers every day, my guy.
- inportb 4y ago
  You need Google Fiber https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=re0VRK6ouwI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=re0VRK6ouwI
fnord77 4y ago
the point is to show ads
sandworm101 4y ago
I am reminded of a recent BBC article: "Man killed by telescoping urinal." That is some scifi horror imho. And it happened in front of a theatre showing the Harry Potter play, suggesting dark arts at work. Then I learned about what these objects actualy do. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-64439322 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-64439322
dna_polymerase 4y ago
This must be the most hilarious comment I've ever read on here, and everyone is discussing this without even flinching… :D
userbinator 4y ago
I suspect they were "low flush", which means exactly what it says. They're supposed to save water, but only if one flush is enough.
fullstop 4y ago
I don't have a bidet, but I'm seriously considering getting one as it's a much cleaner option. I wouldn't clean peanut butter off of my hands with a tissue and consider it clean. My kids used to get scared by the toilets which automatically flushed because their bodies were small and it was easy to be missed by the sensor and it would flush while they were still sitting on it. It's older technology, sure, but it's solving the problem of people not flushing toilets while introducing new problems. I was once in the Microsoft building in NYC and used the toilet when the person in the stall next to me quickly fled the room and I saw water starting to run under the toilet wall (which was maybe 20cm from the floor). I had to quickly finish my business and tell the person working the desk that I had gone to use the bathroom and saw that a toilet was overflowing. I guess what I'm getting at here is that either all of the tech giants have toilet problems or you need more fiber in your diet.

by d00mer 4y ago

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.

buro9 4y ago
I was never convinced on bidets as in the UK virtually no-one has them. But then I heard the line (from a Frenchman) "If you got shit on your fingers would you wipe it off with a piece of tissue, or wash your hands? Why would the answer be different for your bum?". On reflection, why aren't they everywhere?
- idontwantthis 4y ago
  Seriously. Once you have lived abroad and gotten used to it, you can’t go back to toilet paper. It is revolting, and ineffective compared to just a little bit of water.
  - makeitdouble 4y ago
    Wait, aren't you still wiping your butt afterwards ? at least to wipe the water ?
    - DrThunder 4y ago
      Not really wiping, just padding. This avoids the dreaded rolls of tp stuck in your ass as well.
- tescocles 4y ago
  "If you got shit on your fingers would you wipe it off with a piece of tissue, or wash your hands? Why would the answer be different for your bum?" I don't know about you but I don't tend to touch my keyboard or food with my anus like I do with my hands

zelphirkalt 4y ago

Maybe shit is not worthless. Maybe we can mine some data outta that. We need to be smart about it though. I am skeptical, whether spraying water at the butt is a good idea. What about the additional aerosols that creates? And if the spraying does not have the water pressure, you might end up with a dirty and wet butt, instead of only a dirty butt. I also dislike toilets, which when you dump, allow water to splash up at you. I don't think that water is necessarily very clean.

quickthrower2 4y ago

Bidets are quite nice when you get used to them

MrBuddyCasino 4y ago

> 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. Why are american toilets like that? As a european, it seems barbarian.

0_____0 4y ago
Cost and precedent. It's inexpensive to get a prefab kit that only needs to be bolted to a couple spots on the floor and wall, less finicky than building a partition all the way to the floor. Also USians are used to it, so we don't complain :)
- themaninthedark 4y ago
  You can get partitions that go all the way down, they just cost more. But the reason for the shorter partitions isn't generally cost. 1. Security: you can see if someone is still in the toilet when it is closing time, etc. 2. Cleaning: it is easier to clean with a gap, more clearance for the mop. What I really wish we would get is stall door locks that indicate if locked or not. A properly hung stall door should naturally move to the open position but most are not properly hung. So you have a row of stalls all with the door closed and no idea if they are occupied or not. Which means you are either pushing on the doors, looking under or through the gap. It's Barbaric.
  - gambiting 4y ago
    >>What I really wish we would get is stall door locks that indicate if locked or not. Wait......that's not standard in the US????? I've never seen a bathroom with a door lock that doesn't show its state on the outside, even if it's a simple mechanical latch.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      You often have to "crackpeek" to see the state of the basic mechanical latch in the USA: https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/11rd9ia/i_hate_how_toilet_stalls_in_the_us_are_not_built/ https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/11rd9ia/i_hate_how_to... has a picture The "moving part" doesn't go through the door. Fancier bathrooms have deadbolts or equivalent that show the occupancy on the outside; amusingly enough so do the portapotties.

looping__lui 4y ago

Oh, you absolutely miss the point of these toilets: they show you digital Ads while you are “at the business”. I guess thats a pretty neat revenue stream… To make matters even weirder: you are charged 1 EUR or so for most of these Urinals and then you have to watch advertisements in addition.

SOLAR_FIELDS 4y ago

Are you Scandinavian by chance? My Scandinavian colleagues were always completely mortified at the massive gaps we have in American stalls. The rooms Scandinavians get are complete utopias in comparison

Macha 4y ago
It's not just Scandanavia, most European countries have, if not full on doors on their cubicles, non-visible vertical gaps and horizontal gaps of at most 5cm (2in). You might occasionally see a pub or shelter with US style door gaps to discourage drug use, but very much the minority.

loveparade 4y ago

It's fine, Google killed that product a while ago. You probably got caught in the middle of the shutdown.

mrighele 4y ago

What is interesting is that you don't need absolutely any technology to have a toilet that cleans your ass with water. It's really just a pipe that comes out from below the seat and a knob to manually open/close the water, it's even simpler than the flush.

bluGill 4y ago
You need water pipes from your water source to the toilet. That technology is a lot more complex than you give it credit for. Most likely there is an electric pump someplace in the chain, which adds in a lot more technology. (There is also water treatment, but since we are not talking about drinking water I will ignore that)
- DrThunder 4y ago
  Every toilet already has a pressurized water line going to it.... it wouldn't be able to refill after a flush if it didn't You literally just T junction off the line that's already present. Not complex at all. The bidet itself has a valve that stays closed until you're ready for it to spray.
  - bluGill 4y ago
    That has noting to do with how complex the technology behind our water system is.
    - DrThunder 4y ago
      What are you even talking about? Your responded directly to a comment about bidets, not water system complexity.
      - bluGill 4y ago
        The comment specifically said it wasn't complex technology, but that pipe the bidet connects to is complex technology.

DrThunder 4y ago

Not sure about the other features of these Google toilets but a bidet is absolutely something everyone should have. You can buy a cheap one from Amazon that hooks on to your existing toilet. Sooooo much better actually cleaning your ass instead of smearing shit around with your tp and getting tp bits stuck in your crack. I'll never go back to pure tp after having a bidet.

rationalist 4y ago
I have a bidet, but I think the main problem is most people don't know how to use a toilet properly. If you spread your cheeks apart before sitting down, there is a lot less surface you have to wipe. If you lean forward when you go (rest elbows on thighs), you're in the anatomically correct position (the Squatty Potty's selling point). Wipe any sweat/hairs off the seat after you get up before you flush, and close the lid (or lift the seat if there is no lid) before you flush to avoid spraying dirty water on the seat. Having a somewhat decent diet (mine isn't great, but it's still good enough) helps a lot too: turds will have form rather than just be like a paste, requiring just one wipe to make sure things are clean. I doubt 99% of parents teach that (and they probably don't even practice that themselves). And most people aren't going even consider optimizing their toilet routine or care about the person using the toilet after them.

zrail 4y ago

You need more fiber in your diet if you're dumping toilet cloggers every day, my guy.

inportb 4y ago
You need Google Fiber https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=re0VRK6ouwI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=re0VRK6ouwI

fnord77 4y ago

the point is to show ads

sandworm101 4y ago

I am reminded of a recent BBC article: "Man killed by telescoping urinal." That is some scifi horror imho. And it happened in front of a theatre showing the Harry Potter play, suggesting dark arts at work. Then I learned about what these objects actualy do. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-64439322 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-64439322

dna_polymerase 4y ago

This must be the most hilarious comment I've ever read on here, and everyone is discussing this without even flinching… :D

userbinator 4y ago

I suspect they were "low flush", which means exactly what it says. They're supposed to save water, but only if one flush is enough.

fullstop 4y ago

I don't have a bidet, but I'm seriously considering getting one as it's a much cleaner option. I wouldn't clean peanut butter off of my hands with a tissue and consider it clean. My kids used to get scared by the toilets which automatically flushed because their bodies were small and it was easy to be missed by the sensor and it would flush while they were still sitting on it. It's older technology, sure, but it's solving the problem of people not flushing toilets while introducing new problems. I was once in the Microsoft building in NYC and used the toilet when the person in the stall next to me quickly fled the room and I saw water starting to run under the toilet wall (which was maybe 20cm from the floor). I had to quickly finish my business and tell the person working the desk that I had gone to use the bathroom and saw that a toilet was overflowing. I guess what I'm getting at here is that either all of the tech giants have toilet problems or you need more fiber in your diet.