Dumb tech: Moen faucet sensor vs mug

[ionelv]

This morning I was first in the office and as I entered the kitchen to grab some coffee, I noticed that one of the two faucets was running (probably for many hours) even though lever was in off position. I turn it on then off and the faucet shut off. Thirty seconds later, as I am finally getting my coffee, the faucet turns on again. I repeat the on/off procedure and I stick around for a bit. Faucet turns on again by itself. I finally notice by accident that the faucet has a motion sensor on its left side facing the soap dispenser. I remove the mug, wait around a few minutes: problem solved.

Moral of the story: the smartest tech (e.g. motion sensor for hands free faucet operation) can be “defeated” by the dumbest objects (e.g. mug placed at just the right place to trigger the motion sensor and waste tens of gallons of water).

PS: I tried replicating the original conditions by putting the mug again roughly in the same place and I could not trigger the faucet’s sensor again.

Comments

[thewayne]

I was at a very large game store in Phoenix just before Christmas. They have a very interesting bathroom arrangement: many individual bathrooms with a toilet and lockable full-sized doors, then a single wash area with like four automatic faucets. One of them was running constantly.

I went up to tell the people at the front counter, the guy said it does that. It's catching a reflection from the lighting or something. Apparently if you wave your hand in front of it, it breaks the contact and it'll shut off. Much as you learned about the mug.

I like the idea of them, but it seems like most of the time (for me) they're timed too short, or because my right arm doesn't move quite right it's hard to turn on with it. The spring-loaded faucets are equally frustrating, I usually end up holding them down/on with my other hand.

[ionelv]

Sometimes I get a feeling that humanity will be defeated by its own tech that will go haywire, made even more poignant than the current AI rampup towards AGI and an inevitable singularity event, but illustrated in the past by close calls such as the 1983 near-nuclear war event that was prevented by the actions of a single man.

[thewayne]

I know of the event that you linked.  I can't disagree with you, I can simply be glad that I'll probably be long gone before it happens.