"Based on silicone" does not mean "degrades like silicone." It also doesn't mean your coating will behave like the silicone "in the scientific literature." If I toss a silicone spoon in the ocean, it won't be gone in a week. You can make plastic out of wood. That doesn't make it biodegradable. There are different kinds of silicone. Some degrade quickly, some don't. Some is toxic as it degrades. It can accumulate in fish like plastic, etc.

Without knowing how the coating wears off (in chunks when toilet is cleaned, etc), it's hard to compare. Also, if it's not actually silicone, we shouldn't be pretending it acts like it is.

Have any independent environmental assessment been done? What happens when you drink it? What happens when you feed it to fish?

For example, is it 1oz or 20oz? Honestly, it looks like a tiny sprayer - maybe 1oz? How far will it go? Will that 1oz. treat 1 sink/toilet or 10? How long will it last?

I did see that the article says "...researchers also predict the coating could last for about 500 flushes". OK it "could" last 500, or it could last 1. The real question is how long "did" it last when you tested it and what should a normal person expect? Does urine affect it's longevity differently from poop? What happens if you use a toilet brush on it, or use various cleaning chemicals - will that shorten it's usable life?

e.g. from https://www.spotlessmaterials.com/store/p10/Sink_%26_Fixture...:

"Sink & Fixture Coating SKU: S008191114 $15.00 Our Sink & Fixture Coatings are popular amongst our early users. These coatings can be applied to any ceramic surface and are specially formulated for high-touch ceramic surfaces like sinks, toilet exteriors, etc. After application, you’ll feel the difference. Our coatings are ultra smooth to the touch. It’s that same smoothness that makes the surfaces easier to clean. With these coatings, cleaning ceramic surfaces required less time, effort, and cleaning chemicals. Do not apply coating to floors -- it is slippery. This coating can be refreshed with our Maintenance Spray."

I have been dealing with neck/mouth cancer for a while and using a feeding tube for about half of my calories. My movements, depending on the alignment of the stars resemble the mortar used to join cinder blocks together. It is explosive and sticks to the bowl. I can flush ten times and it doesn't budge and I have to manually get in there.

So I am going to try this. It is cheap enough and even if it helps a little will be a huge quality of life improvement.

Three months into chemo it wasn't great dealing with every trip to the bathroom being a chore. And combine that with the fact that my immune system was basically non-existent. Lingering fecal matter was a health risk.

You might want to consider marketing to radiologists, oncologists, and nutritionists. Tons of fellow tubers out there.

Have you tried a space toilet?

And I know you mentioned a feeding tube, can they add fiber in your diet somehow? I used to get similar issues while not eating enough fiber.

Any forums of people with similar conditions that could recommend solutions?

Best of luck.

He was a bit more colorful, but in essence he said: With two liters of water you are not going to move 1kg feces far enough down the pipe, so it starts piling up. That's the reason why they get called there more often.

So no matter how you coat it (pun intended), what problem are you trying to solve? Also re-applying the lubricant after 500 flushes means I have to re-apply it after around four months with two people in a household using the toilet twice per day. With kids or more room mates, even more often? I think I'd pass and rather clean the toilet properly.

But maybe you mean only flushing twice per day, despite using it more frequently, in order to save water? That would beg the question of how this coating material would hold up when subjected for hours per day to the "toilet environment" you produce vs. a clean water environment.

I learned that from a former colleague when I worked as a gardener

Permanent nanohairs sounds very ... permanent, if this doesn't work well without layer 2.

I'm also curious about durability on a car, with windshield wipers and all. How permanent is permanent?

I'll mention:

1) The price and quantity is a little bit off-putting. I'm not sure if that represents real costs (for many business models, the cost is a pennies, but the price goes way up to account for R&D, shipping, marketing, etc.). If this is expensive to produce, keep things as is. If it's dirt cheap, you may consider keeping price fixed, but notching up quantity a bit. If I can coat my whole car (rather than just windshield), or sink+toilet rather than just toilet, or even share with a friend, the economics become very different.

2) You really need online reviews. Few will risk a product like this unseen. Use Amazon or send review copies to someone.

I think it depends on how exactly one applies it. If it’s just pouring something from a bottle over the bowl, it is perfectly practical, as this is already what one usually does when cleaning the toilet.

So why doesn't the coating, if it is made of silicone, similarly degrade in 4-7 days?

My parents use roof water, which is a limited supply so this product would be a great help, but they would be sceptical of any product that could harm the microbiology of the septic tank or that could harm the soil from the overflow.

I imagine they would prefer some sort of scientific facts rather than just marketing blurb (they are quite biologically geeky!)

If not, what are the pros and cons of using LiquiGlide in a toilet vs. yours?

Smaller market but a good niche to start and spread from.

Typical holding tank volume is 20-30 gallons. This is maybe enough for a week? We have a composting head so I'm not sure. Solid waste goes in a dumpster once a month and I think most people end up "peeing in the water". Which is technically illegal and some people think is bad, some don't.

Edit: and bleach?

I think a little bit of silicone is a smart trade off to save a lot of toilet-cleaning chemicals and compared to a toilet brush this is an order of magnitude better.

It would be interesting to know how many hacker-news users actually clean a toilet regularly. I'm guessing not many if any but that is an outrageous assumption. I know you will still have to clean the toilet after a spotLESS application but it will be easier and use less detergent.

Does the silicone lubricant have to come in a spray application or could you license spotLESS lubricant to the likes of Toilet-Duck to incorporate into toilet cleaners? If councils treated their sewers with the nanohair layer would the silicone lubricant floating past keep it lubricated.

It's a shame that the swoosh logo is already taken.

I shared an office with an engineer who's got assigned to research the efficacy of toilets - we had some interesting brainstorming sessions on how to solve some of the experimental problems.

I even started to look at using neural nets to use image recognition to measure how efficient a design was, but as the base hardware cost was over £250,000 that went nowhere, a pity but it would have taken my career in a different direction

How do LESS and SLIPS compare?