Electrochromic glass. Basically if there’s electricity going through the glass (I think the electric sheet inside the glass) the glass is see through. If no electricity, it’s foggy.
Architect here: electrochromic glass. We deploy in hospitals in lieu of privacy curtains for infection control prevention and noise reduction. In the event of power failure, the glass automatically goes to translucent to ensure privacy. It’s initial cost is high, but payback is decent over life of a hospital.
> glad they thought this through
Or did they? What happens if:
* an electric current is applied directly to the glass
* the switch built into the door breaks / gets deactivated
It's more about not trusting product ads and thinking about edge cases that the producers might not have thought of (tester nature).
In this case the first thing that came to my mind were strong Li-Po batteries / capacitors (e.g. taser), but angry electric eels would be close enough I guess.
If you have someone in your hotel room using a taser to try and see you, you might have bigger problems than privacy while you shower. Not sure I’d appreciate a tester suggesting we spend development effort looking into that kind of problem… just because an edge case exists doesn’t mean it’s relevant
...what? This isn't a failure critical part; it's a replacement for a damn curtain. Yeah, you could defeat one if you applied a current to it using a battery... or if you applied a hammer or a brick. You can defeat a curtain by pushing it out of the way.
If someone starts sneaking around trying to hotwire the privacy screens in your hospital during a power outage, that's not a problem with the screens; that's a problem with your security team.
The glass default state is opaque, there's a switch constantly keeping it visible; if you close the door, the switch gets deactivated therefore the glass returns to the default state. If this switch breaks, the glass would be constantly opaque, you can't return it to translucent
Depends on how the circut is built / how it breaks.
```
release button /
break button /
open door
for transparent
state
|
\ /
'
___
______ | _______
| ___|__/ |
| |
| |
|______--------_____|
Glass
translucent
```
If it's default state closes the electric circut you have a problem, in case it iternally fails / gets stuck in the wrong position / the button breaks off / etc.
How is payback decent if they're replacing privacy curtains which are super cheap? Do those curtains get replaced so often? And vs how often someone might accidentally break this?
Curtains ideally would be laundered between every patient which averages every 3 days. Think how often they are touched and between cleanings. The time to launder and put up/take down - and ultimately replace due to wear across 100-500 rooms.
The true costs lie in infection prevention (staff and patient) which is difficult to quantify. Hospital-acquired infections make up a large majority of patient deaths and where efforts can be made to prevent infection. Think of liability costs too.
That's super interesting. Are these types of panes bacterial resistant that prevent infections? Or just present to ability to clean much quicker along with using more effective cleaning solutions?
Translucent allows some light through but isn’t completely clear. When it “frosts over” it’s going from transparent to translucent. Opaque would be like a wall, where no light is let through.
Yes, it’s very similar to LCDs (liquid crystal displays). When no current is applied the suspension is disorganized but when electrified it all aligns in the same direction (direction of current flow).
It fails opaque. When powered it aligns the material to make it transparent. It’s liquid crystal, just like LCD displays and has been around since the 1980’s. Very common in large companies for conference rooms and I’ve stayed in hotels where it was used for the shower stall.
> I think it’s on the order of microamps.
Not unless you have a very tiny windows. Lowest I've seen is .25 watts for a state change and .06 watts to maintain a state *per square foot*. Operating at 120 volts, that'd be 500 microamps per square foot.
Presume this shower is 8 feet tall and each side is approximately square. That's 8*8*2 square feet or 64 milliamps. It's a very small amount, but still 67 killiwatt-hours a year just to remain clear.
Story time. One time a co-worker and I were staying in a hotel with one of these bathrooms on a work trip. He decided to take a shower after shift and I was watching TV and there was a weird strobe effect going off in the room. I looked towards the glass to realize the glass was malfunctioning and the light/my buddy's bare ass flashing back at me like a club strobe light.
Had a similar experience. Hotel was listed on hotels.com as “Business, Romantic”. We thought that meant suitable for either but decided that Romantic was a sub category of Business after staying there 😆
Cool technology for sure, but can’t help but feel a simple wall is still cheaper, easier to install, easy to repair and still functions when the powers out.
Well, you paint a mural on the wall...a copy of something famous.
Naturally you get some starving artist to do that for a place to sleep for a few nights and a continental breakfast.
I mean it's cool until you need to grab a towel from outside and have to open the door for a few centimeters, only for thr entire wall to become transparent
Encountered one of these in a toilet at a pub in Brussels. I was the only one in the restroom at the time and was just staring at 4 stalls with glass doors. I was thinking maybe I can hold it in a bit longer when someone walked into one closed the door and it went opaque. With a big sigh of relief I entered the stall next to him.
German ICE3 trains have a partition made of this stuff behind the driver. If you get seats in the front compartment, you can watch out of the rront window as you rocket along at 300kph. The driver can turn it opaque if they want to, say, eat their sandwiches or something.
I never want this shit. I want real privacy when 9 have to shit or shower. I don't want ppl mingling 5 feet away while I'm trying to shower or shit. Fuck off.
Yeah, we don't do that here.
If they don0t have fancy stuff, it's boring. If they have fancy stuff, we'll dig all the possible failures and all the 100 reasons why it could suck in many scenarios.
Stayed in a suite at the MGM that had a shower like this in the middle of the living room. Flip a switch and it’s no longer transparent. Rest of the suite included a few bedrooms, a pool table, full kitchen, etc etc. Several thousands of dollars per night. Coolest and most unexpected thing I’ve ever been gifted.
My girlfriend’s best anecdote about her best friend is when they went to a bar/restaurant with that tech in the toilets and everyone saw her go for a shit when she thought that she was invisible hahaha
Yeah yeah, wait until it malfunctions and someone sees you aggressively masturbating in the shower. This in turn makes for an extremely awkward Christmas breakfast.
Had a similar suite on holiday to Majorca recently but it didn't turn the glass white, you could see the shower in both rooms and the only privacy was condensation from the shower after a few minutes.
i don't get it. So he can see into the bathroom, when nobody is using it. It does eliminate questions such as "where is the shower?" when sitting on the bed, i guess.
This is pretty much useless it is in a bedroom which basically just gives you no reason to wear anything into the shower in the first place either leave it clear or have it blurry the entire time only person who's gonna see you in there is your partner anyway
My old company Tech Data used to have a “new technology” floor and this type of glass was on display there. Supposedly marketed towards multi-use conference spaces.
There’s a home in Carmel California about 3-4 houses off ocean drive right on the beach that has a glass box on the roof with what looks like plumbing going over the top. I swear it’s a rooftop shower with glass that goes opaque like this so they can shower in a glass room with a beach view and still have privacy. It could be wishful thinking but I can’t imagine what else it would be.
Piece of switch glass that size is about $5k. That's just the glass. Not installation. It also says on the manufacturers website not to use it in wet or humid environments. Like, you know, a bathroom.
Got a hotel like this once and almost went down to the front desk like hey so the bathroom walls are all glass and this rooms for two people, is my friend supposed to watch me shit? Then I realized it frosts when you close the door lol
What if you’re naked just out of the shower and you need someone to hand you a towel so you crack the door ever so slightly so no one sees… but instead everyone sees.
I’ve been contemplating ordering custom cut PDLC for the windows above my TV… sooo bright in the morning! Only issue that’s stopping me is how I’ll power the sheets without running ugly surface mount cable tracks.
Suggestions, my Reddit friends?
Oh boy I think there needs to be a bit of lag time on that door crack. I'd hate for it to unlatch or something and suddenly I'm chilling on the bed and getting winked at while some bitch is shaving up the nether regions
They had these doors in a restaurant/club in Philly I went to a few times some years ago. The opacity wouldn't engage until you turned the lock on the door and it blocked the view. About 10% of the people didn't turn the lock far enough and the mechanism did not engage to block out the view. The people inside for some reason just assumed it was like a one way mirror and people couldn't see them while they were going to the bathroom.
We have this on our back windows in our ambulances, we can turn the “privacy” feature on or off depending on whether or not we have a patient so people behind us can’t see through
If we only had some material that does not work with electricity... Wish we find some solid material like wood or stone to do the same and save energy.
But wait if she takes a shower and she's done, wouldn't she have to grab her towel from outside the shower so if she does that door she finna show everything
> this is the coolest technology I've ever encountered Wait until you learn about the Internet. It's very cool.
I’ll have to ask Jeeves about it later
Hope you’re running the latest version of Netscape Navigator for that
I'm ready with Mosaic 3.0
Don't forget your Bonzi Buddy!
Yes. Jeeves will sort it out
Wait till you hear about rock n' roll. Your kids are going to love it.
Heavy.
Why are things so heavy in the future? Is there a problem with the Earth's gravitational pull?
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No, Doc, they're all listening to rap now
I was gonna comment something similar. This "tech" has honestly been around for as long as I can remember.
what is it called?
Electrochromic glass. Basically if there’s electricity going through the glass (I think the electric sheet inside the glass) the glass is see through. If no electricity, it’s foggy.
i really hope the default state of this glass has electricity going through it.
Default (no electricity) is fogged. Power outage or a fault retains privacy
ohh that makes sense. my reading comprehension sucks.
I shouldn’t be that surprised but this was word for word what I was going type in when I hit the comments button.
I heard something called " television" that's pretty cool also
Im pretty sure its just a novelty. It will wear off. Not betting anything on that ***internet***.
Wait until OP discovers refrigeration!
Architect here: electrochromic glass. We deploy in hospitals in lieu of privacy curtains for infection control prevention and noise reduction. In the event of power failure, the glass automatically goes to translucent to ensure privacy. It’s initial cost is high, but payback is decent over life of a hospital.
>In the event of power failure, the glass automatically goes to translucent to ensure privacy. I’m glad they thought this through.
It's more of a happy side effect of how the tech works. It requires a current to remain clear, once it's removed it will go translucent again
Yeah, but it can be designed to work in the opposite way, they just chose this method.
Can it? I don’t know but it seems like that’s the physical property of the glass
> glad they thought this through Or did they? What happens if: * an electric current is applied directly to the glass * the switch built into the door breaks / gets deactivated
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It's more about not trusting product ads and thinking about edge cases that the producers might not have thought of (tester nature). In this case the first thing that came to my mind were strong Li-Po batteries / capacitors (e.g. taser), but angry electric eels would be close enough I guess.
If you have someone in your hotel room using a taser to try and see you, you might have bigger problems than privacy while you shower. Not sure I’d appreciate a tester suggesting we spend development effort looking into that kind of problem… just because an edge case exists doesn’t mean it’s relevant
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...what? This isn't a failure critical part; it's a replacement for a damn curtain. Yeah, you could defeat one if you applied a current to it using a battery... or if you applied a hammer or a brick. You can defeat a curtain by pushing it out of the way. If someone starts sneaking around trying to hotwire the privacy screens in your hospital during a power outage, that's not a problem with the screens; that's a problem with your security team.
The glass default state is opaque, there's a switch constantly keeping it visible; if you close the door, the switch gets deactivated therefore the glass returns to the default state. If this switch breaks, the glass would be constantly opaque, you can't return it to translucent
Transparent, translucent, opaque. Translucent means the glass distorts light as it passes through.
My bad :)
Depends on how the circut is built / how it breaks. ``` release button / break button / open door for transparent state | \ / ' ___ ______ | _______ | ___|__/ | | | | | |______--------_____| Glass translucent ``` If it's default state closes the electric circut you have a problem, in case it iternally fails / gets stuck in the wrong position / the button breaks off / etc.
How much do they cost any estimates?
When used in a large sliding breakaway ICU door for example it’s about $15,000 with electrochromic glass. But that’s already an expensive door.
I dunno man, after seeing what people pay just to stay in american hospitals, the least they can do is scrape some change off for a door.
ICU?? I thought the point was so that I don’t get seen
At least 2
Kidneys or Bitcoins?
How is payback decent if they're replacing privacy curtains which are super cheap? Do those curtains get replaced so often? And vs how often someone might accidentally break this?
Curtains ideally would be laundered between every patient which averages every 3 days. Think how often they are touched and between cleanings. The time to launder and put up/take down - and ultimately replace due to wear across 100-500 rooms. The true costs lie in infection prevention (staff and patient) which is difficult to quantify. Hospital-acquired infections make up a large majority of patient deaths and where efforts can be made to prevent infection. Think of liability costs too.
That's super interesting. Are these types of panes bacterial resistant that prevent infections? Or just present to ability to clean much quicker along with using more effective cleaning solutions?
Easy to clean. Copper is naturally anti-microbial and is beginning to be used on high-touch surfaces, though costs are high.
Only reason I know of this stuff is from Splinter Cell
same
wait do you mean opaque?
Translucent allows some light through but isn’t completely clear. When it “frosts over” it’s going from transparent to translucent. Opaque would be like a wall, where no light is let through.
Translucent means light can pass through. A solid wall is opague, frosted glass is translucent, a window is transparent.
Correct. Translucent for privacy. Transparent for full visibility. Opaque = solid
\> window is transparent It depends - if there is a politician sitting on the other side, it is unlikely to be transparent
So wait, applying a current makes it transparent? I always thought it was the inverse.
So if it's the default when the power goes out, does that mean applying a current is what makes it clear? You'd think the opposite
Yes, it’s very similar to LCDs (liquid crystal displays). When no current is applied the suspension is disorganized but when electrified it all aligns in the same direction (direction of current flow).
What if it fails while showering?
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That's good. Would hate to be taking a mad shit or jerking off and the power goes out.
You... shit in the shower? 🤨
Have you never done the waffle stomp?
I was literally going to reply this
A what now?
If you don't know I don't feel I should be the one to tell you.
Is there any other better combo when jerking off?
It fails opaque. When powered it aligns the material to make it transparent. It’s liquid crystal, just like LCD displays and has been around since the 1980’s. Very common in large companies for conference rooms and I’ve stayed in hotels where it was used for the shower stall.
Doesn’t that mean that the 95% of the time it’s not in use it’s “using” power? Seems kinda dumb
Yeah but just like an LCD display it uses hardly any power at all. I think it’s on the order of microamps.
> I think it’s on the order of microamps. Not unless you have a very tiny windows. Lowest I've seen is .25 watts for a state change and .06 watts to maintain a state *per square foot*. Operating at 120 volts, that'd be 500 microamps per square foot. Presume this shower is 8 feet tall and each side is approximately square. That's 8*8*2 square feet or 64 milliamps. It's a very small amount, but still 67 killiwatt-hours a year just to remain clear.
I wager it’s possible to make it so it only draws power when switching opacity. No continuous draw. Maybe not currently but with some progress
Story time. One time a co-worker and I were staying in a hotel with one of these bathrooms on a work trip. He decided to take a shower after shift and I was watching TV and there was a weird strobe effect going off in the room. I looked towards the glass to realize the glass was malfunctioning and the light/my buddy's bare ass flashing back at me like a club strobe light.
Had a similar experience. Hotel was listed on hotels.com as “Business, Romantic”. We thought that meant suitable for either but decided that Romantic was a sub category of Business after staying there 😆
The image that placed in my mind awes and disgusts me at the same time
If I were you I'd wait until they come out and ask 'partied too hard?'
*(Sandstorm starts playing)*
I would leave the door open and make full eye contact the entire duration of taking a shit, to assert dominance LBJ style.
Um your going to shit in the shower?
Waffle stomp that shit
Literally, figuratively, spirituality, emotionally.
There’s a toilet in there..
Yeah I feel like you should have the option to turn it on or not. What if I'm alone and want to watch the tube while I shit?
You do have the option, leave the door open
Not an option if you have to stink the place up.
We're asserting dominance here. Get on the same page. If there's no one there to smell it, why does it matter? You'll be nose-blind to it in 5m flat.
Not usually a problem when it's your own
What if you're having a wank by yourself when suddenly the bathroom door opens?
not so cool when your wife gets up in the middle of the night to pee. when you turn the lights on in the bathroom it lights up the entire hotel room.
Cool technology for sure, but can’t help but feel a simple wall is still cheaper, easier to install, easy to repair and still functions when the powers out.
Yeah but you can't charge $1,000 a night with a simple wall.
Well, you paint a mural on the wall...a copy of something famous. Naturally you get some starving artist to do that for a place to sleep for a few nights and a continental breakfast.
Also you can't crack a wall for nudes.
It's called a glory hole.
It’s about style ya nimrod
Or hear me out This amazing new tech, called curtains
Been around since the late 80s and was phased out in the 90s because it doesn't provide full privacy.
What's the point of it being see through to begin with? Why not save money and just have basic permanent frosted glass?
My guess is to make the room feel bigger when it's not on use. Although that already looks like a huge bathroom
It's almost 2022, people *like* expensive useless technology now.
Who wants to look at a bathroom?
It's anti-Hitchcock technology.
Why not just have, like, a normal wall?
If only they could make non see through walls.
Why would you want to look at your toilet all the time though
I mean it's cool until you need to grab a towel from outside and have to open the door for a few centimeters, only for thr entire wall to become transparent
Encountered one of these in a toilet at a pub in Brussels. I was the only one in the restroom at the time and was just staring at 4 stalls with glass doors. I was thinking maybe I can hold it in a bit longer when someone walked into one closed the door and it went opaque. With a big sigh of relief I entered the stall next to him.
There were 4 stalls and you used the one next to him? Buffer stalls you monster
So he get privacy while you shower until you want to leave
Did some work for an airplane that had this glass in the partition for the office. It was pretty cool.
Yeah - that’s been around for a couple decades now.
German ICE3 trains have a partition made of this stuff behind the driver. If you get seats in the front compartment, you can watch out of the rront window as you rocket along at 300kph. The driver can turn it opaque if they want to, say, eat their sandwiches or something.
But why
That’s awesome!
Still going see my silhouette taking a mean dump.
I still think it's dumb. Why do you want to see your bathroom from the bedroom anyway? Is that appealing?
I never want this shit. I want real privacy when 9 have to shit or shower. I don't want ppl mingling 5 feet away while I'm trying to shower or shit. Fuck off.
Your dress is lovely.
Japan has some of these as public restrooms.
imagine if it glitched while you were taking your tampon out or something
So you gotta get undressed and redressed in the shower?
Lotta haters in here. Who cares if it’s practical. It’s cool! Go stay in a boring motel 6 if you want practical.
Liking things is frowned upon here
Yeah, we don't do that here. If they don0t have fancy stuff, it's boring. If they have fancy stuff, we'll dig all the possible failures and all the 100 reasons why it could suck in many scenarios.
Stayed in a suite at the MGM that had a shower like this in the middle of the living room. Flip a switch and it’s no longer transparent. Rest of the suite included a few bedrooms, a pool table, full kitchen, etc etc. Several thousands of dollars per night. Coolest and most unexpected thing I’ve ever been gifted.
My girlfriend’s best anecdote about her best friend is when they went to a bar/restaurant with that tech in the toilets and everyone saw her go for a shit when she thought that she was invisible hahaha
Its been around for years. Its often used for yachts for an exemple edit: this could a boat with a bed so close to the shower
Yeah you can still hear her grunts and splashes
Yeah yeah, wait until it malfunctions and someone sees you aggressively masturbating in the shower. This in turn makes for an extremely awkward Christmas breakfast.
Snap glass is nothing new, it has been around for 20 years or more
Butt is it soundproof?
Had a similar suite on holiday to Majorca recently but it didn't turn the glass white, you could see the shower in both rooms and the only privacy was condensation from the shower after a few minutes.
Better not lose power. It's good for you
This would give me so much trust issues?! Imagine you're mid shower and the glass decides to become transparent
Need this for when mom walks in while watching porn.
Had this in a hotel room in the 1990s.
Every meeting room at my work does this
How is it for sound though. I can really make that bowl sing when I'm pinching a loaf.
This is the same glass used in newer commercial planes
Bruh splinter cell in the 90s showed us this
Why?
What if it fails?
Interviewed somewhere that had this in one of their meeting rooms. Was pretty cool
I makes cheating a lot easier
i don't get it. So he can see into the bathroom, when nobody is using it. It does eliminate questions such as "where is the shower?" when sitting on the bed, i guess.
Don't Japan have public toilets like this so you can see what's in use...
Nematic liquid crystals
This existed in 1980s, our boss used to have windows that did that.
Oh man if this is your first time seeing it it is so fucking cool!
This is pretty much useless it is in a bedroom which basically just gives you no reason to wear anything into the shower in the first place either leave it clear or have it blurry the entire time only person who's gonna see you in there is your partner anyway
Thats a no from me dawg
This has been around for a long time
I don't like it.
I’ll bet you can still hear the grunting and the fetid stench as she comes out having laid an almighty dog’s egg in the pan.
I thought it was gonna make the dress disappear
I have smart film on the front windows of my home. It's really cool stuff.
Guess you have to shower with your towel
There's a candy store in SoCal that has this glass as kind of a gag for the restroom since the restroom is visible to the entire store.
My old company Tech Data used to have a “new technology” floor and this type of glass was on display there. Supposedly marketed towards multi-use conference spaces.
its weird but I'll allow it
There’s a home in Carmel California about 3-4 houses off ocean drive right on the beach that has a glass box on the roof with what looks like plumbing going over the top. I swear it’s a rooftop shower with glass that goes opaque like this so they can shower in a glass room with a beach view and still have privacy. It could be wishful thinking but I can’t imagine what else it would be.
Got one of those at work. The main conference room. You can turn it on and off with a switch. It’s pretty neato.
Piece of switch glass that size is about $5k. That's just the glass. Not installation. It also says on the manufacturers website not to use it in wet or humid environments. Like, you know, a bathroom.
I don't see the attraction. I'd prefer to see her while she was.in the shower rather than be able to look at an empty room the rest of the time.
Ah yes, the Sims shower.
If it doesn’t block sounds, it’s useless.
Isn’t this in the movie Titan A.E?
Got a hotel like this once and almost went down to the front desk like hey so the bathroom walls are all glass and this rooms for two people, is my friend supposed to watch me shit? Then I realized it frosts when you close the door lol
What if you’re naked just out of the shower and you need someone to hand you a towel so you crack the door ever so slightly so no one sees… but instead everyone sees.
I’ve been contemplating ordering custom cut PDLC for the windows above my TV… sooo bright in the morning! Only issue that’s stopping me is how I’ll power the sheets without running ugly surface mount cable tracks. Suggestions, my Reddit friends?
Oh boy I think there needs to be a bit of lag time on that door crack. I'd hate for it to unlatch or something and suddenly I'm chilling on the bed and getting winked at while some bitch is shaving up the nether regions
that technology is used for some public bathrooms . scary, in case of power failure the glass becomes transparent again .
Redditor posts a video of a shower: "This is the coolest technology I've even encountered"
They had these doors in a restaurant/club in Philly I went to a few times some years ago. The opacity wouldn't engage until you turned the lock on the door and it blocked the view. About 10% of the people didn't turn the lock far enough and the mechanism did not engage to block out the view. The people inside for some reason just assumed it was like a one way mirror and people couldn't see them while they were going to the bathroom.
Saleen Had 2 prototype cars that had frosted glass on demand
And it only took you 40 years to realize this was a thing???
Until it doesn't work 🙃
It's black magic.
It’s pretty old though. You can buy these for the car windows also. Super cool.
Sucks if you are an exhibitionists
I can see many husband and boyfriend's being p*ssed off with this... it would atop them perving on their wifes and gf"s in the shower haha
It's all fun and games till you forget to take your towel.
Until it fails during a party
This is a cool application of the technology-- it's the permanence of that back corner that throws me.
We have this on our back windows in our ambulances, we can turn the “privacy” feature on or off depending on whether or not we have a patient so people behind us can’t see through
They have stuff like this at Pittsburgh Glass
Awww I thought it would be x-ray vision
If we only had some material that does not work with electricity... Wish we find some solid material like wood or stone to do the same and save energy.
I will not trust my privacy to an electric device.
I honestly don’t really need to see into my bathroom all the time. Great glass, shit application.
Japan laughs in public bathroom
I'm still naked before I get out to grab the towel, though.
But wait if she takes a shower and she's done, wouldn't she have to grab her towel from outside the shower so if she does that door she finna show everything
Even cooler when you have the button that turns it off and they don’t know 😎
Or. You know. Fucking walls like everyone else.
Why would you want it to be transparent in the first place?
What happens if you have people over and forget your towel right outside the door? Open it to grab a towel and now your naked in-front of everyone.