this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2025
1407 points (98.4% liked)

Programmer Humor

22541 readers
1154 users here now

Welcome to Programmer Humor!

This is a place where you can post jokes, memes, humor, etc. related to programming!

For sharing awful code theres also Programming Horror.

Rules

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 52 points 2 weeks ago (48 children)

I mean, you could just use smarter stuff that's open source and has local API, or do what I do and build your own devices where you can ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

[–] [email protected] 38 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (40 children)

Even there though, what is the actual point of a phone app controlled smart toilet, even if you open sourced the whole thing? Unlocking one's phone and tapping the app icon, and then presumably a button on the app, is going to take more time than one press of a lever that one is right next to anyway, and the latter doesn't present as many points of failure.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago (14 children)

Ok maybe the flushing part is a bit overkill and mostly a joke, but a toilet that can deliver notifications like if it's clogged for example before you use it and make it worse would have fantastic utility IMO

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

This makes zero sense. If it's clogged, you'd know beforehand when you look in the bowl. Why the would anyone need a notification for that?

The ONLY utility that I could see here is if the notification logged who did the clogging so you could give them shit.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Toilets can appear to have flushed fully, but still have...material...stuck in the U-bend that hasn't completely evacuated the toilet. A subsequent flush won't work, even though the water in the bowl is clean.

Ask me how I know.

That said, this could almost certainly be better-solved in other ways. Maybe by preventing the tank from refilling if there's still something in the u-bend (then you'd know it needed attention because there'd be no water in it)?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

Let's just say this happens a lot in my house.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

A little display or indicator light somewhere on the toilet itself would be better than connecting it to some IOT app

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

Oh, absolutely. I was responding only to "If it's clogged, you'd know beforehand when you look in the bowl."

An app for a toilet is a stupid idea, full stop.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)
  1. We don't know that the toilet has this sensing capability.
  2. If it does, the actual fix is the same as if it were a regular toilet.

This just isn't an issue that needs technology as a solution.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

125% agreed. I was responding only to "If it's clogged, you'd know beforehand when you look in the bowl." I think there's potentially an engineering solution--a fluid dynamics engineering solution--but definitely not an app.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

But in this scenario don’t the toddlers need phones? Wait do toddlers all have phones now?

load more comments (11 replies)
load more comments (36 replies)
load more comments (43 replies)