Many people dread the thoughts of using a public restroom; touching anything and worse yet sitting on the toilet seat can frighten people who take cleanliness and personal hygiene seriously. Although you may enter a public restroom frees of any viruses; that does not mean that you will leave the same. It is so easy to pick up a virus off any surface; the flush handle of the toilet and the toilet seats are notorious for harboring viruses.
Prior to the advent of electronics there was little that could be done to overcome these issues. Sure, concerned building owners provided paper towels and paper toilet seat covers but neither were that good at overcoming the problems. The paper toilet seat cover usually fell in the toilet when you went to sit and paper towel litter piled up quickly and became unsanitary in its own right.
In the 1980s electronics engineers began to work in cooperation with architects and building designers to see if these problems could be addressed, the objective was to develop restroom fixtures that would take no human touch, eliminating the possibility of picking up a virus from a contaminated knob or handle. The first electronic toilet fixtures to be perfected were urinals, toilets and sinks, the secret was infrared. The urinal and toilet was set to flush the moment the beam was broken and the sinks were set to turn on the water when the faucet was approached and to turn off after a preset period of time. These two developments allowed patrons to use the facilities and then wash their hands without ever touching a surface.
Over time, the infrared technology that was the driving force behind these developments continued to develop as did the fixtures themselves. The early technology often resulted in many unnecessary toilet flushes as people moved in and out of range of the beam, today touch-less fixtures are much more discriminating as the electronics are far superior.
The Japanese have taken toilet technology to an all new level, they have developed toilets which open and close the cover automatically and then flush. The seats are warmed, they deodorize after each use and a built in bidet.
Although these toilets have yet to reach these shores, perhaps something more importantly has been developed by Brill, a sanitary electronic toilet seat cover that ensures every user is provided with a germ free, perfectly clean seat surface.