I was driving in Salem, Oregon a few weeks ago and it was raining. No surprise there. The rented van had good windshield wipers but with the ever changing weather it was very difficult to keep the little intermittent knob that adjusts the speed set right.
Later on the same day I was washing my hands in a restaurant bathroom that had a automatic faucet and I had a minor epiphany: put one of the faucet type sensors in the car so that with a flick of your hand you could make the windshield wipers operate.
This idea is so good and so simple that it almost certainly will be incorporated into high-end cars within a few years. Can I as the inventor make any money on it? Probably not. It would require some investment and lots of work to patent it and sell the patent to a car accessory company. It may already be patented and we just don’t know about it.
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Simon, the inventor of the intermittent wiper figured out how to make the wipers work on a timed circuit by himself. He was then immediately and completely ripped off by the Ford Motor Company (if I remember correctly). They took his idea and didn’t pay him his due.
As for better wipers now, it may already exist, but not like your idea. Most companies use a light refractory sensor mounted on the inside of the windshield. When water covers it it measures how quickly the light is refracted following each wipe and adjusted the wiper speed accordingly . No Jedi hand motions required.
Good point Frank. The Ford Story was made into a movie.
I have limited experience with the water sensor
wipers but so far they haven’t worked that well on the Hyundai and the Lexus.
I like the power of
the Jedi flick of the hand to make the wipers go.
I actually like the idea. Think of using gesture control for a whole bunch of other controls … It is faster, less distracting and a lot more effective. Central gesture control devices are coming. Your application is definitely worth studying.