This Smart Door Handle Dispenses Sanitizer When It’s Pulled
Good luck asking any germaphobe to grab the door for you. Door handles are a notorious hotbed for all kinds of gunk, so rather than lunging toward the knob in an untainted act of everyday chivalry, your squeaky clean friend is more likely to fumble around her purse for her trusty bottle of hand sanitizer and leave you hangin’. So not smooth, girl. If only the door handle could sanitize itself…
Technology hasn’t quite gotten us there yet. But PullClean offers the next best alternative. It’s a universal pull door handle that releases sanitizer as you open the door. The idea to incorporate two separate actions into one relatively fluid movement is pretty genius, especially when you discover just how life-changing this invention could be.
PullClean was developed to specifically discourage the spread of viruses and infections in hospitals. According to PullClean’s creators, hospital-acquired infections kill 100,000 people in the US each year. By incorporating a sanitizer dispenser into a door handle, sanitizing can seamlessly become a part of doctor and hospital workers’ erratic workdays and our visits — and potentially make hospitals an even safer place.
The design is simple: A tube-shaped cartridge is placed in the center of a large square door handle, which releases a small amount of sanitizer when the blue bottom button is pressed. But these door handles aren’t just savvy, they’re also smart.
Each handle is equipped with monitoring software that records a variety of data, from how much sanitizer is left in the handle to hourly usage stats across wards, shifts and even entire hospitals. According to psfk, pre-production prototypes of PullClean received good reviews after being used in a clinical trial in a leading US hospital — rates in hand sanitizing reportedly rose after the handles were installed, and that’s certainly a promising sign.
Even though PullClean has yet to be released (you can reserve one now for $200 a pop), we’re already imagining just how commonplace this technology could become. Once hospitals are outfitted with the device, why not install them in other germ-ridden, traffic-heavy locations, like airports, museums or even malls? The simple upgrade just might save lives.
What’s your take on PullClean? Would you feel “safer” with these installed in hospitals, or in other public places? Would you use PullClean as intended? Tell us in the comments below.
