[ChuckMcM]

I chuckled because this same exchanged happened in my head when I read the article, my first thought was "Oh great, everyone stuck at the sink" followed by "Would they stay at the sink in practice?"

I've seen a couple of air-blade installations, and in those they have slowed things down because paper towel dispensers allow you to take a towel, step back, and dry your hands while another person gets a towel. Rolling towels (ones where the towel is on a continuous loop) have the same issue of one user at a time.

On the other hand ever every faucet was also a drying station you've basically upped the number of drying stations tremendously and that is a win for speed.

Side benefits of keeping water off the sink/floor are good.

I wonder if we'll ever see anyone taking this to the extreme of stalls with only water and air tools for washing up (Japanese style toilets for wiping, local air-taps for your hands).

[oh_sigh]

> I've seen a couple of air-blade installations, and in those they have slowed things down because paper towel dispensers allow you to take a towel, step back, and dry your hands while another person gets a towel.

I largely agree with your points, but I wanted to point out that most modern bathrooms(and certainly not bathrooms that may have this device deployed) don't have paper towel dispensers. So it isn't a question of paper towels vs this technology, but this technology vs the hot air fan, or the dyson air blade, or other similar non-dead-tree tech

[jpatokal]

Japanese bathrooms still have toilet paper dispensers, because even those probing little robot arm squirters can only clean so much. The usual protocol is thus to wipe with paper before you enjoy squirty fun time.

[stcredzero]

> Side benefits of keeping water off the sink/floor are good.

What's keeping the air from blowing droplets of water from the sink to my shirt or face?

[ChuckMcM]

Well if you've used one of their airblade systems you can see that they have a 'down shoot' sort of effect. I've never seen an air-tap so I don't know if they achieve the same result but I suspect that the water uses the same path as the air, and so blowing toward the sink would make the most sense. In that case a poor basin design could get you into trouble with water bouncing back I suppose.

[dhughes]

An AirBlade bidet, ouch!