by pSYoniK on 4/13/25, 5:51 AM
Not sure how these are that "new" seeing as Toto (and I'm almost assuming other Japanese brands too) have had designs like the Nautilus for some years. One of the things that stuck with me a lot after a trip to Japan was exactly how thoughtful their toilet designs are. Public toilets with these tall urinals were amazingly clean in even the busiest stations and would allow you to get a good angle and not have splash on to the floor/shoes. Similar designs but scaled down were found in their newer Limited Express trains. Also, that angular design makes no sense, a human being will need to clean it and for anyone whos ever had to clean angular ceramics, they will know that that design will just be a pain to get proper clean...
I guess what I'm saying is, before we start researching new methods, why can't we be bothered to spend even a little bit of time to see what else is out there.
by chasil on 4/13/25, 1:25 AM
So, from the article, instruction placards reduce cleaning costs by 8%.
Obligatory nod to the infamous sign:
"Gents Please Stand A Little Closer, It May Be Shorter Than You Think.
"Ladies Please Remain Seated for The Entire Performance."
by wileydragonfly on 4/13/25, 1:20 AM
We had that contemporary commercial in one office building, but it was slightly elongated. The splash back was horrific and unavoidable. Angle, distance, approach, absolutely nothing prevented it. It was so bad we finally had open conversations about it and many of us went to standing at the regular toilets.
The struggle is real.
by ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 on 4/13/25, 2:04 AM
> We propose novel urinal designs that were generated by solving differential equations derived from the isogonal curve problem to ensure the urine stream impacts at or below this critical angle. Experiments validate that these designs can substantially reduce splashback to only 1.4% of the splash of a common contemporary commercial urinal. The widespread adoption of the urinal designs described in this work would result in considerable conservation of human resources, cost, cleaning chemicals, and water usage, rendering large-scale impacts on modern society by improving sustainability, hygiene, and accessibility.
https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/4/4/pgaf087/80987...
The experiments aren't in real world scenarios or with real urethrae excreting urine.
> A pseudo-urethra nozzle matching the internal geometry of a human urethra was used to “urinate” a controlled jet of dyed water onto urinals and the subsequent splash was caught on a large paper on the floor.
by giantg2 on 4/13/25, 1:24 AM
I hate to break it to you, but most of the urine on rhe floor isn't from splashback. Splashback is mostly solved with existing designs and splash screen/baffle inserts.
by tgsovlerkhgsel on 4/13/25, 2:23 AM
I think the "Cornucopia" model is a great example of "blind" design that works a lot better in theory/fluid dynamics simulations than it would in actual usage. I would expect a significant percentage of users to find the "hole" design... uninviting, and as a result stand way farther back than the simulation assumed. (Exhibit 1:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43669248)
The best way to validate such findings would likely be 3D-printing single use versions of different urinals, mounting them at the student pub for one Friday evening, and monitoring usage amounts + the amount of urine on the floor mats (compared with a regular urinal next to it to account for different inebriation levels). This also avoids identifying models that men prefer/avoid if given the choice.
(Also a great way to advertise that "90% of patrons preferred the new urinals" because you'll get that effect from the novelty value alone).
by BrenBarn on 4/13/25, 1:06 AM
Appropriate that it was published in "PNAS Nexus".
by irrational on 4/13/25, 1:51 AM
> Around 1 million liters (264,172 gallons) of urine are spilled onto the floor and walls of public restrooms each day in the U.S.
Each day?! 165 million males in the USA. So, 16.5 males on average are peeing enough on the walls and floors that if it was collected it would be an entire liter? That seems unlikely.
What percentage of that 16.5 is not using public restrooms? What percentage is babies in diapers? Even if the number was as high as half, 8 men leaving behind a collective 1 liter seems way too high.
by leoh on 4/13/25, 2:02 AM
If only folks at Google’s Bayview Campus could learn to not piss all over the single occupancy bathroom’s toilet seats..
by rr808 on 4/13/25, 1:51 AM
Even those dont solve the drip problem. The only solution is the ones with the grate you stand on.
by pbhjpbhj on 4/13/25, 12:53 PM
The cone over the drain, and/or the spiked mats (both inside the urinal) seem to have stopped all splashing and be widely used in UK without need to change the urinal itself.
What one does find now is dyson-style hands dryers leave a massive area of spray. They seem to spray the water from your hands - and the water retained on the device - up into the air and across a wide area.
At our work place there are bench style sinks that spray water everywhere too.
And the sit-down toilets are terrible. I'm not an especially large man but it's almost impossible to use them without unnecessary contact. Sit-down toilets seem to be 'designed' by people who have no idea about their use by men.
by 112233 on 4/13/25, 4:35 AM
I wonder how many pounds of feces and gallons of urine are breathed in because of the Dyson airblade and similar dryers.
(and when I thought that was a peak bottom design, they made blowers integrated in the faucet, to blow around all the yuck from the sink.)
by Thaxll on 4/13/25, 1:14 AM
After 3 pints the design does not matter much...
by kevin_thibedeau on 4/13/25, 2:06 AM
Ants have recently invaded the men's room at my office where the first floor is dug in a meter below ground level. They are loving the section in front of the urinals where the diabetics have left an ample food supply.
by steele on 4/13/25, 3:29 AM
Sitting would be preferable if the savages lifted seats to urinate and more toilet bowls shapes were steeper. A surprise dip in the devil's fondue is enough to make fella want to remove it and leave it there.
by ordersofmag on 4/13/25, 2:17 AM
Do they really use 90% less water cleaning the floors of women's restrooms than men's currently? Cause that's one implication of the 'new design will save cleaning' claim. Places with public restrooms that I'm familiar with seem to get their floors mopped with identical frequency (and similar apparent rigor) regardless of whether they have urinals or not.
by petee on 4/13/25, 11:21 AM
This seems to be an engineered-only solution without real world testing.
A person teetering wildly 3 feet above are still going to miss that narrow design. Or you have to hover and let your pants touch the rim, which also probably puts you closer to the inevitable splash back.
The only clear solution is to direct all splash back to the user so they can take it with them.
by Gud on 4/13/25, 4:44 AM
by notjoemama on 4/13/25, 3:14 AM
I hope when they do their testing they cover a diverse age range. Um, it’s not the same when you get older. ;p
by pilingual on 4/13/25, 1:43 AM
by dustbunny on 4/13/25, 2:08 AM
I've actually made a joke for years that we're gonna put boots on mars before we figure out how to not piss on our pants. I've been trying to ask Elon on Twitter to design a urinal for years as a joke. This is amazing.
by Isamu on 4/13/25, 2:00 AM
Why doesn’t Dyson create a vacuum urinal? We could use that for space stations anyway.
by sebazzz on 4/13/25, 8:33 AM
We have the Fountaine at work, and it works just fine, as long as you don’t aim towards the fly but instead aim towards the drain hole of the water at the bottom.
Funny btw, if you hold the flush button too long, the entire thing overflows.
by zabzonk on 4/13/25, 1:06 AM
Put a grill drain in the floor under the porcelain as the Victorians did.
by jwr on 4/13/25, 1:01 AM
Most urinals in Japan look like the "Nautilus" design already.
by potato3732842 on 4/13/25, 1:28 AM
Why can't we go back to the (what I now know after Googling) is the Kohler Derry or something along those lines?
We had them in middle and high school and while I understand they might not be ideal for the inebriated or exceptionally careless you could piss anywhere in them as hard as you wanted without splash back.
Decades later I encountered one in a maintenance facility nestled in the corner of maintenance shop, obviously not a code compliant install, spare me the hand wringing) and casually mentioned that I didn't know they still made them like that and was told that this is the 3rd facility it has been installed in, the guys like it enough to uninstall it and reinstall it each time.
by GiorgioG on 4/13/25, 1:06 AM
Can I get one at home? Seriously - I just painted our bathroom and it's just disgusting how much splashing winds up splashing out of the bowl and onto other surfaces.
by PessimalDecimal on 4/13/25, 3:15 AM
How would one clean the inside of the "Cornucopia" design?
by modzu on 4/13/25, 1:20 AM
yeah im not putting my dingdong in that cornucopia
by whiddershins on 4/13/25, 1:39 AM
argh, just have the back wall recede away from you as it gets lower. tilt it the other way. you could even use a curve.
by wordofx on 4/13/25, 1:16 AM
Since when is this a new design? Looks the same as a lot of existing designs.
by jtbayly on 4/13/25, 1:30 AM
I love the environmental savings BS.
Cleaning a floor with urine on it uses a certain amount of water, no matter what. You can get away with cleaning it less often, but you can’t get away with using 90% less water!
by upghost on 4/13/25, 12:55 AM
They should've called it the Tesla Cyberinal.