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u/UpCDownCLeftCRightC Never Safe From Wumbo Jul 05 '26
The soap dispensers are totally in on it as well.
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u/Baebel Jul 05 '26
The soap dispensers in particular make me nervous, since some can even be extra sensitive. Don't like the idea of leaving puddles of soap behind.
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u/SoldatPixel Jul 05 '26
Oh hey you were within 6 inches of me? Dispenses
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u/IM_V_CATS Jul 05 '26
My favorites are the ones with a long delay to the point that they seem broken. I move my hand out of the way after nothing happens and then it dispenses soap to add to the growing puddle.
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u/Obvious_Incognito- Jul 05 '26
And don’t forget the touchless paper towel dispensers.
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u/UpCDownCLeftCRightC Never Safe From Wumbo Jul 05 '26
And when those don't work you have the Dyson air dryers that still doesn't dry your hands properly.
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u/parrotfacemagee Jul 05 '26
It's more hygienic to leave with wet hands than use an air dryer. All it's doing is blasting poo particles around at jet speed
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u/AlsoIHaveAGroupon Jul 05 '26
Patrick Stewart in the short-lived series Blunt Talk expresses this best when he's using the bathroom while running late for a flight.
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u/xrosexthornex Jul 05 '26
The rule is simply that the soap will work on the side the sink doesnt, or not at all.
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u/MysticalMummy Jul 05 '26
My work place bathroom has two. One doesn't like to dispense at all. The other one randomly dispenses like there's a ghost hand waving underneath it every few minutes.
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u/vasnir Jul 06 '26
They had to put labels on all of the soap dispensers at my work, "approach from side."
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u/Reasonable-Song-4681 Jul 05 '26 edited Jul 05 '26
The ones at work are very hit or miss, usually just miss. Management eventually replaced the touchless soap dispensers though as they never worked either (and were a lot easier to replace). Also, the touchless toilets act as a very unfortunate bidet if you move even a fraction of an inch while sitting on them. Oi.
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u/woah_man Jul 05 '26
My pro tip is that I always put a piece of TP over the toilet sensor before I sit down. Then I remove it when business is done and it flushes as I walk away.
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u/ButtersScotch7000 Jul 05 '26
I love getting the Old Faithful treatment because I had the audacity to breathe while taking a crap.
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u/DrkSpde Jul 05 '26
The worst are the ones that won't activate unless you're close enough to repeated slam you knuckles into the back of the sink.
Did humanity forget that foot peddles are a thing?
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u/morpheousmorty Jul 05 '26
In these ways I wonder about humanity a lot. We put up with a lot that just makes no sense.
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u/psirrow Jul 06 '26
All things mechanical are replaced with electronics. All basic electronics are replaced with ASICs. All ASICs are replaced with micro computers. All micro computers are replaced with IOT. All IOT are replaced with off-site AI.
Every step of the way, the manufacturer could be less clever.
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u/Ven-Dreadnought Jul 06 '26
No but in America is you're guaranteed to have at least one person stomp that pedal with the force meant to smash a human skull, leading to a high likelyhood of breaking it.
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Jul 05 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Iron_Jack Jul 05 '26
There must be a goldocks zone of skin tone, because I'm so pale sensors also can't see me most of the time.
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u/PatchyWhiskers Jul 05 '26
Now the problem here is that the sensors are actually reaching into the ethereal and detecting souls. And as we all know, gingers don’t have them!
(Joke)
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u/wolfgang784 Jul 06 '26
Now I wonder if this is my problem lol. Sun turns me reflective, and I sometimes genuinely struggle with these sinks.
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u/OkSmoke9195 Jul 05 '26
goldocks zone of skin tone
I think the terminology is actually "goldcocks zone"
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u/CassianCasius Jul 05 '26
TV show Better of Ted did a whole episode on this. comedy series about a souless corporation. New motion sensors in the building couldn't see black people, so they hired white people to follow the black people around and activate stuff for them. Or for the motion sensor water fountain they had a serpate water fountain with a sign saying it was for the black people.
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u/kai58 Jul 05 '26
I thought most of those sensors worked by detecting infrared, or does how dark your skin is also affect how much infrared you radiate?
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u/Mediocre-Housing-131 Jul 05 '26
They work on proximity sensors. It blasts a light down and has another sensor right next to the light looking for that light. When you place your hand or anything else under it, it will see it's own light reflected back at it and turns on.
Proximity sensors will work exactly as well on a black person as it would on a white person, or a dog, or even a pencil lol. They don't discriminate.
If you just pretend the sink water is already on and wash your hands like water is already flowing, it works flawlessly. It's people who overthink it lol
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u/wronguses Jul 05 '26
Pulse-oximeter.
There are versions or adapters that end in a sticky bit of tape that goes on your earlobe. Way better for darker skin in my experience of a decade on a telemetry floor.
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u/JPesterfield Jul 05 '26
I'm surprised it would care at all, it's not just something is blocking the sensor?
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u/the__storm Jul 05 '26
These touchless sinks just have an infrared light in them and a sensor to detect how much light is reflected back. Darker skin reflects less light so it's harder to detect (particularly if the sink/background is light, because then the sensor has to be calibrated to not be very sensitive).
You could create a sensor that worked by blocking/interrupting a beam instead, but then you would need either a sensor or reflector on the opposite side and it would be more difficult to keep clean.
These days radar presence sensors are really cheap so maybe touchless sinks will get better in the future.
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u/spicy_num_nuts Jul 05 '26
Most lower cost automatic products using infrared use simple reflection intensity to sense presence. They will be affected by skin roughness, color, and even surrounding light sources as they can all change what the sensor picks up. There are much more reliable IR technologies and even other detection methods but they are usually commercial grade and expensive. Also when the sensor window gets rough/scratched that also messes with the IR light reflection.
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u/ProfessorSur Jul 05 '26
Then there’s that one faucet that triggers its own motion sensor with the water and is stuck in a constant cycle of turning itself on and off, slowly driving you insane and still being unusable for washing because the water’s starting to pool in the basin
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u/Drachen1065 Jul 05 '26
The ones we have at work dont have sensors for your hands. They aim straight out from above the faucet and detect the person standing there instead.
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u/Passage_of_Golubria Jul 05 '26
I'm over here occasionally having to use the "make physical contact with the faucet" strategy (works but defeats the point)
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u/psirrow Jul 05 '26
I don't usually have a huge problem, but there was an air drier at a rest stop recently that didn't want to start until I was almost touching it.
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u/RonnieRaygun Jul 05 '26
What I've learned is that I'm invisible to robots. When the uprising happens and the war begins, I'll be the perfect infiltrator.
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u/melanthius Jul 05 '26
Is there one for "faucet is clearly out of battery, maintenance guy comes in, you tell him hey the faucet isn't working, he replaces some toilet paper rolls and calls it a day"
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u/TheCarbonthief Jul 05 '26
Gotta hold your hands in front of the sensor for it to turn on. Have to take your hands away from the sensor to put them under the water. Putting your hands in the water then causes it to turn off. Who designed this?
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u/Tallia__Tal_Tail Jul 05 '26
I work as a janitor at a college where all the bathrooms use touchless faucets and Im legitimately convinced those fuckers have a mind of their own. Theres a handful who turn on if you so much as look at them a little funny, some that wont turn on unless youre actively fingering the sensor, and some that actually seemingly sorta function, but I still hate because they run water when Im trying to clean the sinks
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u/InternationalCap2176 Jul 05 '26
Then the air dryer only turns on for 2 seconds, and you have to dry your hands on your jeans
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u/iorgfeflkd Jul 05 '26
We had a whole global pandemic teaching us the importance of hand-washing, and bathroom designers saw this and went "lets make it harder for people to wash their hands."
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u/wolfgang784 Jul 06 '26
Yea I felt this at a Chilli's recently. I struggled hard to get that damn sink to turn on but my hands were nasty from bein at work and I needed to wash before eatin my burger. Had to keep stopping from washing my hands to turn it back on, too.
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u/Mac_DG Jul 06 '26
One time I was down in Mexico and was using the bathroom. The guy next to me was having this problem.
Not being fluent in Spanish I signed to him to look at my hands to see how the faucet was activated.
He looked at me straight in the eyes and without any accent he said "Thanks Bud"
I still cringe about it to this day.
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u/IronFlame76 Jul 05 '26
I hate touch less faucets!!
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Jul 05 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Commercial-Royal-988 Jul 05 '26
The problem isn't the motion, its the position of the sensors. Every touch less faucet I've used the sensor activates at different places and all of them are not where your hands need to be in order to use the water.
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u/IronFlame76 Jul 05 '26
Someone needs to pin or up vote this comment because I never knew this is how they work! Thank you for this information!!
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u/Ultimatesims Jul 05 '26
Just wrap you hands around the neck and jerk off the water. Works 100% of the time.
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u/roniechan Jul 05 '26
I'll usually soap up and then hold one hand at a time in front of the sensor to rinse. You only need a little water to get the suds.
Of course, this whole technique assumes that the faucet is just kind of dumb and not actively bullying you.
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u/DaKaijuKid Jul 05 '26
I saw an online joke about jorkin it once, but honestly I know use that when I’m most desperate and it actually sometimes works.
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u/dark_hypernova Jul 05 '26
Me holding my hands under the faucet for a full two seconds before I notice it's a manual one.
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u/IM_V_CATS Jul 05 '26
I walked away from a manual one that I left running because I'm so conditioned to them shutting off on their own and someone stopped me to ask if I was going to leave it like that. I felt so dumb.
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u/dumahim Jul 05 '26
They recently remodeled floors in our office building and not only did we get automated faucets but automated soap dispensers. Problem is, not only do the faucet sensors suck, the soap sensors work too good so while you're trying to get water, the soap just keeps dispensing over and over just wasting soap.
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u/Particular-Clue-5374 Jul 05 '26
What about when u push ur hands further than the stream so you miss it but the water at least comes out 🤷♀️
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u/themanfromvulcan Jul 05 '26
I feel like more and more I’m spending too much time proving to a machine that I exist.
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u/LubbockGuy95 Jul 06 '26
I do the pretend i'm washing my hands in front of the sensor till it turns on
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u/catstar95 Jul 06 '26
WOW those are some awesome and smooth animations.
Your inspiring me to try to make smooth animations like you, so thank you very much.
I wish you amazing luck on your comic sires and to never give up no matter what happens to you. And don't be afraid to take a little break from your projects from time to time because your mental health matters just as much as your love for making comics. 🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊
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u/andythedrewbear Jul 06 '26
Thank you! Don't worry about my mental health, making these is my favorite thing to do.
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u/TrueMattalias Jul 06 '26
You spend 30 seconds trying to get it to work and then someone else walks up and it works for them immediately
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u/Acrobatic_Tale2200 Jul 07 '26
I go on my knees and offer the faucet some gifts (gold, cinnamon, etc) and worship it into giving me its holy water
and yet it still does nothing…
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u/Armybob112 Jul 05 '26
Wear a high viz west with reflectors, activate faucets from up to two meters!
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u/KitsuneGato Jul 05 '26
I broke this touchless faucet somehow. It wouldn't turn off no matter what.
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u/Overall_Dusty Jul 05 '26
I used to hate those motion faucets. Then I had to wash my hands with a push faucet that someone dropped blood all over. The prospect of contracting a blood-borne pathogen gave me a newfound appreciation for contactless faucets.
Also, apparently people with darker skin have a lot more trouble using them.
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u/LurkingRand Jul 05 '26
They usually aren't motion triggered despite what most think, they are triggered by something being within their sensor area. Constantly moving your hands in fact is more likely to not trigger those, ESPECIALLY the cheap ones.
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u/MintasaurusFresh Jul 05 '26
The men's room on my floor at work has two faucets and almost everyone tries to use the one on the left because it activates easily and runs for a decent amount of time. The one in the right is tricky to activate and runs for less time initially and even less so on the second and, sometimes necessary, third attempt.
I do enjoy seeing people struggle with the right one before going to the left and then I use the left in one go because I know how it works. Makes them look inept. It's petty, but also feels good to clown on them. Insert Dooku's superior look of superiority here.
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u/Finbar9800 Jul 05 '26
The sensors in the toilets are sensitive as hell when you sit down it goes off, you stand up it goes off, you look at it, it goes off, you dont look at it it goes off lol
Why cant they put those sensors in the sinks lol
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u/GlassOnionJohn Jul 05 '26
Put a sticky note on the sensor. It'll go off if you lean forward too much, or if you're shorter.
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u/PM_ME_SOME_YAOI Jul 05 '26
Missed the wash your wrist instead, where the sensor only works so up close that the water hits your wrists and it’s gone by the time you retract your hands
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u/United-Amoeba-8460 Jul 05 '26
Just remember the paper towel dispenser is motion-activated, not emotion-activated.
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u/aCleverGroupofAnts Jul 05 '26
You have to wave at the sensor, I don't think I've ever seen the techniques in this comic and I'm not surprised they don't work lol
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u/oneupsuperman Jul 05 '26
You missed the step where I get frustrated and tap the sensor like it's a button and for some reason that triggers the water
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u/randotd152 Jul 05 '26
In all seriousness, most of these sensors work best by just holding your hands under it until it activates. All the waving around is just making it worse.
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u/Commercial-Royal-988 Jul 05 '26
The worst are the one's with a soap dispenser that works a treat, and then you go to use the faucet and have to cast a 10th level conjuration spell
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u/wellsjc Jul 05 '26
I was in a restroom recently where they had touchless faucets and when I put my hands under one of them, the faucet adjacent to mine came on, but not the faucet I was using.
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u/Faniulh Jul 05 '26
Most touchless faucets aren’t “motion” sensors, they’re “is something there?” sensors. You need to unlearn your habits, just put your hand in front of the sensor and hold it there without waving - the water will come on and stay on while you’re washing. It’s not working when you wave your hands to start because it’s calibrated to *not* turn on when something briefly crosses its path for efficiency.
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u/shawkwardII Jul 05 '26
Yo anyone use those faucets that double as a hand dryer? I fucked up and used one, blew dirty water up into my face, shit crazy.
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u/Zoenobium Jul 05 '26
to me the most amusing part about all of these automated faucets and soap dispensers is that they are not just more annoying to use thanm regular ones, but counterintuitively they are also more prone to allowing bacteria and such to fester within their more complicated mechanics. Making them often less hygenic than their more simple and much easier to properly clean manual counterparts
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u/TapirOfZelph Jul 05 '26
The “turn your hands over to show the back” method is the most reliable in my experience
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u/MrLeureduthe Jul 05 '26
Wear bike riding reflecting jackets. You can activate the faucet from the other side of the room. It's like a super power.
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u/GodSlayerGenesis Jul 05 '26
The pain of those ones the you have to basically touch the filter is agony
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u/Adonis0 Jul 05 '26
What about the “fed up” where you slap it in various places until it gives up water
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u/quirkytorch Jul 05 '26
If you can see the sensor, you can position yourself to block the light it receives. Works every time
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u/tilt-a-whirly-gig Jul 06 '26
Find the sensor. It's usually a black oval that looks plasticky. Grab a paper towel, get it wet. (Easier said than done, I know). Plaster the wet paper towel across the sensor. Enjoy the water.
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u/GlitchedQueen Jul 06 '26
I do the John Cena wave under the faucet rapidly until eventually it works.
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u/omecca_creative Jul 06 '26
I was told the sensor doesn't work as well for darker skin. I don't know anyone to ask if that's true.
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u/ribs0013 Jul 07 '26
This is why I prefer handles. I don't care if the motion sensor is somehow more clean or germ friendly. I want a lever or handle I can pull or lift and move on with. No need to overcomplicate it.
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u/Proud-Nerd00 Jul 08 '26
I usually tap the bottom of it or hit against the black panel which covers the scanner. Just tap-tap-tap until I get water
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u/Phaylz Jul 05 '26
Doctors 🤝 Touchless Faucets
Not paying attention to women's needs regarding their body
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u/Pyrhan Jul 05 '26
I have one of those... in my bathroom.
Gotta learn the exact spot where to place your hand, and even then, it's a pain in the ass...
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u/mellopax Jul 05 '26
I have found that reflective clothing can make them go.
I was wearing one because I was in the warehouse at work and then they triggered just from me walking by.
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u/agentx_64 Jul 05 '26
I prefer to go with the "kung-fu practice" method, where you slowly wave your hand palm-up under the tap until it switches on