I think the tenacity to deliver a product is great and hope that you get good feedback here. Congratulations on shipping a second version.
I had thought that noise machines were primarily for people who would be listening. For example, therapists put white noise machines in the waiting area, not where the session is occuring.
So, this sound provides the sense of privacy but would be better set up outside the bathroom to those who might hear, uh, human sounds inside.
You and other commenters make it sound obvious, but I'd say the ideal location of the cover-up noise is actually a tricky question. Our brains are exceedingly good at separating different sound sources, but a bathroom is a textbook example of a space that gives a shared acoustic profile to all the sounds within, causing them to be grouped together in our minds, and possibly identified as a single source.
As a thought experiment, imagine that the Loodio is actually playing loud farting/plopping noises. In that case, placing it outside the bathroom would make it easy to distinguish between the "real" and the "fake" noises: the real ones have the bathroom acoustics. Placing it inside would make it impossible to discern.
Now imagine that the Loodio is playing dubstep, which is barely a step removed from "loud farting/plopping noises". What is the ideal location now?
Yeah, there's an interesting effect of people in the shower being unable to hear those outside but those outside can hear those in the shower very well. It's fairly obvious when thought about that the relative amplitude of the noise source is much higher for the person stood next to it than further away.
>> Every Loodio sold after 2025 runs on batteries.
Interesting but rather than wait for 2026, what about the ones sold now? ; - )
Might want to reword it to be something like "Every Loodio sold from 2025 onwards runs on batteries."
And on a more substantial point: isn't Loo primarily a British term? I'd be surprised if it's well understood in most other countries whereas toilet (vulgar as it sounds to certain Brits) is fairly widely understood. Maybe this isn't a big deal but you'd think the name was kind of crucial to getting the purpose of this gadget.
> And on a more substantial point: isn't Loo primarily a British term? I'd be surprised if it's well understood in most other countries whereas toilet (vulgar as it sounds to certain Brits) is fairly widely understood
Well... it's crucial for the portmanteau to work ;)
Having built a similar device, it appears that to give privacy to the person inside the bathroom, it is much better to have the music play outside. With music playing near to the "listener", the sounds coming from inside the room are much better covered.
> Even when I live with others, we aren't worried about bathroom noise.
I think there's a specific target customer that would love this. I'm in the same camp you are... I couldn't care less. When it's just my wife and I at home it's pretty rare that we close the door even.
In university though I had a roommate who was absolutely paranoid about people hearing her in the bathroom. She would generally run the faucet the whole time she was in there to mask the sounds. Sometimes... I think she'd even run the shower; I don't know this for sure, but I'd hear the shower running in the bathroom for a while and she'd come out looking just as un-showered as she had when she went in.
You know darn well you aren't the target market for this device, and you know darn well that there is a target market for it as well as why it exists, so you're being disingenuous when you propose talking to oneself as the only possible reason for it.
How much privacy does this really give? You're still announcing to the world, 'hey everyone I am taking a shit!' because the music is only playing when someone's in the bathroom. It seems like you'd want music constantly playing outside the bathroom if you want to actual privacy.
Besides running on battery and ecosystem woes, why this over a apple homepod which is cheaper and has better engineering and sound?
initially i was thinking this was some groundbreaking technology that would somehow help with privacy via fancy audio engineering - but alas it seems like just a portable speaker with a cute design.
anyway, congrats on the launch of V2 - it's valid if it's a passion project and you had fun building it in any case, just curious about why anybody would choose this over the plethora of other portable speakers
is the killer feature here motion detection ? because that seems like it can also be accomplished via a third party motion sensor + Apple Home integration
Right. The problem is that you are announcing you’re about to do something embarrassing. Loodio always plays no matter intention and is easily paused with one button click.
this again can be done w/ a cheap sensor that integrates with apple home integration and still come under cost of this product - likely with both superior sensor and speakers
Living in a tiny urban apartment, this is a problem I am interested in a solution for. However, I always read that such solutions might block the noise for the toilet-user, but not for those outside of the toilet. I'm curious as to the efficacy of a white noise machine versus this device and, specifically, if either is really effective. It's an interesting solution, OP, an I commend you for your efforts - but I fear $150 is going to be a difficult sell.
How loud is it to cover up the sound of people using the bathroom? Also the FAQ says it produces "sound cancelling sounds", but also has no microphone. Don't you need a microphone to produce the inverse wave and cancel out sound? Or is this using some other kind of "sound cancelling sound" technology?
next black mirror episode will be someone screaming for help as they are trapped in the bathroom while their anti-brown-noise device drowns out their pleas and they are left to die in there
I mean if it's configured to drown me out when I'm having digestive troubles, I think they might need to adjust the bit in the Q&A about it not disturbing my sleeping partner
So, I'll start by saying I love that you have made a thing and shipped. That's great, and the following is intended to be helpful.
I read this and understand what it is. I then went to the site and it says bathroom privacy, tells me it's version two etc.
What on earth is it! Your very first thing you show me as a new person is to tell me it's got better sound than the unknown previous item. Upgraded sound is a feature that is relevant to
1. The 250 people that bought the first one that didn't like the sound
2. Anyone who would have bought the first one, but didn't because of the sound.
Nobody else.
Assume I've not given up by now, but customers are very quick to leave with even just minor delays. I see a little radio like thing in a CGI setup. (note for later, you do have actual pictures and they don't look the same, so I don't know what I will get and that dramatically lowers my trust)
Is it a privacy device? It's for relaxing? I have to charge it every week?
I genuinely have no idea at this point what problem it is solving.
I have to go down further to figure that out.
Here's the question I have as a potential customer.
Why is my phone not enough? Or a radio? The first I already own, and plays any music I want and has speakers and absolutely has the time and the latter is incredibly cheap.
Looks great! How much optimization (e.g. deep sleep, wake trigger) was needed to get battery life with the ESP32 to where you wanted it? Also curious if the project is running on MicroPython or if you moved to something with less overhead.
Most work was getting the unit power efficient, analog design correct and constructed in a way that’s easily manufactured.
It uses microsamps while inactive and runs on Arduino still. We probably need to rewrite it with esp-idf eventually to get access to lower hardware apis and better memory management.
Do you have to certify compliance with safety / EMC regulations to sell a product like this? The thought of that always put me off imagining a hardware startup.
RF/EMC: definitely. It's an intentional radiator (WiFi) and an unintentional radiator (high-frequency CPU). Using pre-certified COTS modules helps with this quite a bit because they'll, hopefully, pass on their own but they do not relieve you of the certification burden.
Safety: from a legal perspective I don't believe safety certification is mandatory because it runs on low voltage. The wall wart would need to be certified. But... from a liability perspective it might still be necessary. If one of these devices were to catch fire and burn someone's house down the company is going to get sued. Maybe sued by the homeowner, maybe sued by the homeowner's insurance company. The counter to that is to have solid product liability insurance and the insurer may have specific safety certification requirements before they'll even issue an insurance contract, and they may have additional safety certification options that would reduce the premiums.
I got lost investigating the battery claim of a week because this seemed quite low for such minimum specs. But then noticed it has a range of Wifi features? If you're selling a product focused on privacy, isn't it a bit weird that it has WiFi?
The whole story around needing to know the time sounds like feature creep. If I wanted a clock in my bathroom it's trivial to hone, and I'd only have to charge it once a year. If I want a device that detect my literal movements during movements, then I'd really not want it to be hooked up to my Wifi? Worse, be burning power (and increased BoM) to have a wifi-radio and screen to do so.
If this was _just_ a motion detecting device that played nice music it'd likely be an easier sell?
Looks like a very polished (no pun intended) device but I never understood why some people bothered about other people hearing them while on the loo. Natural noises like blowing your nose, sneezing or even farting!
I know what in Japan for example it's an issue and people continuously flushing the toilets so other people can't hear them. Maybe it's cultural.
It is not unheard of (ha) for women to want noisier bathroom fans. Feminine hygiene products, for some reason, are wrapped in the noisiest plastic that exists.
It's not a device that I personally am interested in having, but I am both interested in, and very impressed with, your having made it - well done!
I'd love to read a full write up of how you designed it, what parts you used / how you designed, prototyped, and built any custom parts, etc.
I know that's a big ask, so wouldn't expect you to do it just for me, but in case writing that were something you've been considering... please know that I for one would be a very keen reader, and I'm confident many others would too. (Or to put a spin on it to help encourage you to do so... it would give you an excuse to post about this here again in a month or two, an extra round of marketing for the low price of your time doing the write-up :P)
Feel free to mail me if you'd either like an interested proofreader, or an editor / partial ghost writer (free, haven't done that sort of thing professionally for many years).
Pro-tip: when I am somewhere and I'm gonna drop a massive #2, and/or I got 2-3 litres of liquid in me, I run the faucet on the bathroom sink at 10-15% of its max flow to cover the noise. This also helps if the house has two floors/levels, and the pipes run in the open. So I 'mask' when the 'output' starts and ends.
I could imagine that part of the desire is to make music the default for everyone, no matter what they're doing. Otherwise the person suffering from the embarrassment is going to think "if I turn on my music, they'll know I'm making noises in here."
I feel sorry for you in advance, for when you reach product market fit, start getting decent sales, start getting a return on all that time, energy and resources getting the product to market.
And the market is then flooded with much cheaper Chinese knock-offs.
Kevin O'Leary has been talking about this exact scenario many times recently.
I am not worried about bathroom noise privacy, but if I was I have old kitchen radio there that plays music/news with one dial for the volume (doubling as an off switch) and changes music/news with a dial. I need to swap batteries once every few years.
Now every digital radio I ever had is worse in terms of the simplicity of the interface. A radio like this one simply asks two questions: (1) How loud? (2) Should it be something else?
And this is your direct competitor. Your devices interface looks more complicated than that so getting people to grok it is motion activated is probably the key piece of information you need to deliver. The weather and time is a nice touch, but may be a thing most people don't need/want while driving the price up.
If we go to the question style of object-human interaction let me impersonate your device from the perspective of a guest:
O: Oh hi, it looks like you plan to shit, here is some music you didn't ask for [plays music]
H: Thsts weird I want to switch you off
O: Let's play a game where you need to find which of my 12 button-look-alikes switch me off, oh and by the way did I tell you I am battery powered?
(This is ofc humourous exaggeration, but there is some truth in there)
It has a large button on top of the unit with lit up text that says ”Stop Music” which pauses music.
The other buttons are Volume Up, Volume Down and Next Song.
There used to be an ad on Dutch television back in the 80's from a loo paper manufacturer with the punchline Koning, Keizer, Admiraal - ${brand_of_loo_paper} kennen ze allemaal which translates to King, Emperor, Admiral - they all know this brand of loo paper. We (i.e. my father whom we naturally followed in this respect) turned this into Koning Keizer Admiraal, schijten moeten ze allemaal or ...they all have to shit.
Everybody shits, farts, burps... device or no device. I´d say those who feel the need for a device like this are guilty by association of farting and burping even louder than average, why otherwise get something to mask their clearly obnoxious and dare I say noxious emanations in the privy?
> I´d say those who feel the need for a device like this are guilty by association of farting and burping even louder than average, why otherwise get something to mask their clearly obnoxious and dare I say noxious emanations in the privy?
This seems like a jump. Social etiquette is important. A desire for visitors (or others) not to be subjected to the various sounds emanating from the bathroom is a form of politeness, not cover-up of something more sinister.
How about you just don't listen to those sounds? Even in small apartments the bathroom tends to be separated from the living room/kitchen/bedroom/etc_room so it tends to be quite easy to ignore those sounds by just not hanging around the bathroom door.
Nope, this is taking social sensitivity far too far. By all means keep those farts out of polite company but once you're in the loo feel free to let it fly without feeling ashamed. Everyone farts, everyone pees, everyone does it.
> According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the loudest fart ever recorded was a fart of 113 decibels, by Herkimer Chort of Ripley, NY USA, on October 11th, 1972.
What's the audio output of your device? Asking for a friend.
I had thought that noise machines were primarily for people who would be listening. For example, therapists put white noise machines in the waiting area, not where the session is occuring.
So, this sound provides the sense of privacy but would be better set up outside the bathroom to those who might hear, uh, human sounds inside.
As a thought experiment, imagine that the Loodio is actually playing loud farting/plopping noises. In that case, placing it outside the bathroom would make it easy to distinguish between the "real" and the "fake" noises: the real ones have the bathroom acoustics. Placing it inside would make it impossible to discern.
Now imagine that the Loodio is playing dubstep, which is barely a step removed from "loud farting/plopping noises". What is the ideal location now?
>> Yes!
>> Every Loodio sold after 2025 runs on batteries.
Interesting but rather than wait for 2026, what about the ones sold now? ; - )
Might want to reword it to be something like "Every Loodio sold from 2025 onwards runs on batteries."
And on a more substantial point: isn't Loo primarily a British term? I'd be surprised if it's well understood in most other countries whereas toilet (vulgar as it sounds to certain Brits) is fairly widely understood. Maybe this isn't a big deal but you'd think the name was kind of crucial to getting the purpose of this gadget.
The name was based on something 1) easy to say in most languages 2) I could get the domain for and is short and 3) wasn’t trademarked.
Well... it's crucial for the portmanteau to work ;)
Congrats for the realisation nevertheless!
Even when I live with others, we aren't worried about bathroom noise.
I guess if you have a habit of talking to yourself while using the bathroom or showering and need to drown it out this is cool.
However, I'd love this as a general device. I get home and it auto plays music , etc
I think there's a specific target customer that would love this. I'm in the same camp you are... I couldn't care less. When it's just my wife and I at home it's pretty rare that we close the door even.
In university though I had a roommate who was absolutely paranoid about people hearing her in the bathroom. She would generally run the faucet the whole time she was in there to mask the sounds. Sometimes... I think she'd even run the shower; I don't know this for sure, but I'd hear the shower running in the bathroom for a while and she'd come out looking just as un-showered as she had when she went in.
You can do this with most home automation systems today.
As a seller it's none of your business what end users do with your device as long as it's not a safety hazard.
initially i was thinking this was some groundbreaking technology that would somehow help with privacy via fancy audio engineering - but alas it seems like just a portable speaker with a cute design.
anyway, congrats on the launch of V2 - it's valid if it's a passion project and you had fun building it in any case, just curious about why anybody would choose this over the plethora of other portable speakers
is the killer feature here motion detection ? because that seems like it can also be accomplished via a third party motion sensor + Apple Home integration
But I gotta ask: how much **** noise are you lot making in the toilet? What on earth are you all doing in there...!?
The speaker starts blasting “Eye of the Tiger” into the foyer.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/47/79/c0/4779c078d42b9faf8dda...
I read this and understand what it is. I then went to the site and it says bathroom privacy, tells me it's version two etc.
What on earth is it! Your very first thing you show me as a new person is to tell me it's got better sound than the unknown previous item. Upgraded sound is a feature that is relevant to
1. The 250 people that bought the first one that didn't like the sound
2. Anyone who would have bought the first one, but didn't because of the sound.
Nobody else.
Assume I've not given up by now, but customers are very quick to leave with even just minor delays. I see a little radio like thing in a CGI setup. (note for later, you do have actual pictures and they don't look the same, so I don't know what I will get and that dramatically lowers my trust)
Is it a privacy device? It's for relaxing? I have to charge it every week?
I genuinely have no idea at this point what problem it is solving.
I have to go down further to figure that out.
Here's the question I have as a potential customer.
Why is my phone not enough? Or a radio? The first I already own, and plays any music I want and has speakers and absolutely has the time and the latter is incredibly cheap.
When you use your phone you are announcing that you’re going to do something embarrassing. Loodio always plays no matter the intention of the visit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dR1m29cNVsc
Do you have to certify compliance with safety / EMC regulations to sell a product like this? The thought of that always put me off imagining a hardware startup.
RF/EMC: definitely. It's an intentional radiator (WiFi) and an unintentional radiator (high-frequency CPU). Using pre-certified COTS modules helps with this quite a bit because they'll, hopefully, pass on their own but they do not relieve you of the certification burden.
Safety: from a legal perspective I don't believe safety certification is mandatory because it runs on low voltage. The wall wart would need to be certified. But... from a liability perspective it might still be necessary. If one of these devices were to catch fire and burn someone's house down the company is going to get sued. Maybe sued by the homeowner, maybe sued by the homeowner's insurance company. The counter to that is to have solid product liability insurance and the insurer may have specific safety certification requirements before they'll even issue an insurance contract, and they may have additional safety certification options that would reduce the premiums.
The whole story around needing to know the time sounds like feature creep. If I wanted a clock in my bathroom it's trivial to hone, and I'd only have to charge it once a year. If I want a device that detect my literal movements during movements, then I'd really not want it to be hooked up to my Wifi? Worse, be burning power (and increased BoM) to have a wifi-radio and screen to do so.
If this was _just_ a motion detecting device that played nice music it'd likely be an easier sell?
I'd love to read a full write up of how you designed it, what parts you used / how you designed, prototyped, and built any custom parts, etc.
I know that's a big ask, so wouldn't expect you to do it just for me, but in case writing that were something you've been considering... please know that I for one would be a very keen reader, and I'm confident many others would too. (Or to put a spin on it to help encourage you to do so... it would give you an excuse to post about this here again in a month or two, an extra round of marketing for the low price of your time doing the write-up :P)
And the market is then flooded with much cheaper Chinese knock-offs.
Kevin O'Leary has been talking about this exact scenario many times recently.
Now every digital radio I ever had is worse in terms of the simplicity of the interface. A radio like this one simply asks two questions: (1) How loud? (2) Should it be something else?
And this is your direct competitor. Your devices interface looks more complicated than that so getting people to grok it is motion activated is probably the key piece of information you need to deliver. The weather and time is a nice touch, but may be a thing most people don't need/want while driving the price up.
If we go to the question style of object-human interaction let me impersonate your device from the perspective of a guest:
(This is ofc humourous exaggeration, but there is some truth in there)Everybody shits, farts, burps... device or no device. I´d say those who feel the need for a device like this are guilty by association of farting and burping even louder than average, why otherwise get something to mask their clearly obnoxious and dare I say noxious emanations in the privy?
This seems like a jump. Social etiquette is important. A desire for visitors (or others) not to be subjected to the various sounds emanating from the bathroom is a form of politeness, not cover-up of something more sinister.
Nope, this is taking social sensitivity far too far. By all means keep those farts out of polite company but once you're in the loo feel free to let it fly without feeling ashamed. Everyone farts, everyone pees, everyone does it.
What's the audio output of your device? Asking for a friend.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilets_in_Japan#The_Sound_Pri...