(no subject)

[camwyn]

The office building I work in has automated toilets. You sit down, you use them, you stand up, they flush. If they fail to flush automatically you press a button. Simple, probably timesaving, almost certainly more hygienic because you're not touching a handle that was last used by someone who'd just wiped. I'm good with that.

What bugs me is that if I wear white trousers into one of the stalls, the toilet flushes before I get the chance to drop trou and sit down. I can only assume the photosensor it uses goes 'oh, hey, large pale vertical mass, someone must have done their business and stood up'. It happens every time I wear white trousers, without fail. I've done it often enough to notice the pattern.

I'm not thrilled with this, partly because it's a waste of water and partly because it's startling, but it also has me wondering: does this mean they don't flush automatically if a black woman or an Indian or Pakistani woman uses the toilet? Does the photosensor assume it's being pointed at a pair of trousers if what it sees are a pair of brown legs instead of pale ones?

I suppose I should be glad the machine is that stupid, since total recognition of the difference between legs and trousers means that there's a camera involved rather than a photosensor, but still- that's just an uncomfortable implication there.

Comments

[derien]

When I had a cup that was black inside and could not make the automated faucet run into it for more than a second at a time I wondered the same thing.

[camwyn]

I've since determined that it only happens in certain stalls, which I think aren't quite as well lit as the others. it's still weird.

[tibicina]

See. I find this weird because my experience is that if I wear black shirts or skirts and lean back a little too far, the automatic toilets will flush while I'm still on the toilet. So... no clue what's going on with the photosensors. (though it could also, potentially, be different kinds/settings whatever.)