A new sensor-studded lavatory navigation light can be installed at the bottom of a toilet seat. It detects approaching footsteps, then casts a red shadow on the toilet if the seat is up and shines green when the seat is down. The Arkon Resources' LavNav night light retails for $30. Missed targets at the toilet in the middle of the night may well be a perennial problem, but a southern California company aims to ease the crisis with the latest in sensory technology.
Arkon Resources, a consumer products maker based in Arcadia, California, just released the latest version of its night light, LavNav. The lavatory-navigation light, which retails for $30, is a sensor-studded light that customers install at the bottom of a toilet seat. The light detects approaching footsteps, then casts a red shadow on the toilet if the seat is up -- a gentle reminder to women that everything is not as it should be. The toilet shines green when the seat is down.
Either way, the lights are bright enough to show the way to the bathroom, eliminating the need to turn on the bathroom light.
"There is a need for this type of product," said Aaron Roth, vice president of marketing and sales for Arkon. "It helps you get back to sleep quickly because you don't have to turn on the bathroom light when you're in there."
Indeed, Arkon has at least one fan: Dave Barry, the syndicated columnist and commentator whose thumbnail bio on the Miami Herald newspaper website says he writes about "major issues relating to the international economy, the future of democracy, the social infrastructure and exploding toilets."
Barry does not own a LavNav, but he said he likes the idea.
"If that doesn't mean that the American economy is back on track, then I don't know what does," he said.
Apparently, some market demand exists for a toilet that will alert users as to whether the seat is up or down.
Arkon bought the patent for the device almost two years ago from a Stanford University graduate student who sold "several thousand" of the units on his own, Roth said.
Fry's Electronics carries an earlier version of the product that Arkon lists on its website as a "top seller." A representative from Fry's declined to comment.
The latest version of the LavNav has a more fashionable, aerodynamic design and a brighter green light, for those who are really asleep. The company currently is selling the LavNav on its website and shopping the product around to electronics, linen and hardware stores, Roth said. And, OK, a gag gift shop is on the list, too.
"We really played up the battle of the sexes in the bathroom," Roth said. "The old 'His 'n Her' light would actually shoot a bull's-eye in the water so that men would have better aim. We are really trying to get away from the gimmicky stuff and make a serious product."
It's a product, said humorist Barry, that could signal relief for millions of Americans -- as well as a full economic recovery for the United States.
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