How to choose between touch and touchless faucets?
(Touch vs Touchless Faucet)
When you plan to update your kitchen or bathroom, electronic faucets may become one of your considerations, which are more convenient, more stylish, and save more water.
However, the question is coming next, how to choose between touchless faucets and touch faucets?
You can tell the main difference between these two types just by their names. With these two faucets, you don’t have to use the handle to turn on or off your faucets anymore. The touch faucet needs to be touched physically to trigger the water flow, while the touchless faucet is activated by only detecting your motions.
How does a touch faucet work?
The touch electric (or touch sensitive/ touch on) faucet can be activated by slight touching from any part of your body, so you could turn on it with your wrist or elbow.
The theory of it is just like the touch panel of a tablet. All the parts of our body have the capacity to store small electrical energy, which we call capacitance. A touch-sensitive faucet also keeps an electrical charge and has a sensor to detect the change of the charge.
When people touch the faucets, the volume of that electrical charge is increased to trigger the solenoid valve on/off inside the faucets, so you can see the water is coming out immediately.
For some models, it also equips the time control function. So even you forget to turn the faucet off, the water stops after a certain minute automatically.
How does a touchless faucet work?
The touchless faucet (or touch-free) also has sensors. The sensor (usually is infrared ray) can detect the motion in front of it within a specific scope, and trigger the solenoid valves to control the water coming out or stopping. The most important feature of it is “no physical touch.” So, you just wave your hand in front of the faucet or move near to the faucet, the water is coming out soon. Turning on a faucet becomes an effortless action.
Moreover, when you leave the sensor area, the water flow just stops. In such a way you could save more water.
What is the comparison between Touch and Touchless Faucet?
- Convenience:
Regarding the convenience of these two types of automatic faucets, both could be turned on and off very easily.
However, talking about the elder-friendly or children-friendly, the touch faucet is better than its touchless brother. The touch faucet gives more control to the users.
The action of touch is always easier, faster, and more accessible than making a motion in front of a specific sensor.
You don’t have to aim at the specific sensor area, just a quick touch, the water flow comes to you immediately. This is the reason why touch electric faucets sometimes are the better choice for families with children and elders.
- Cleanness:
We are all afraid of the germs and viruses accumulated on the surface of the washing device. The touchless faucet is definitely cleaner than the touch-on faucet when you can avoid the physical touch on it.
On the other hand, when you use the touch faucet, you still can prevent transiting the mess on your hand to the faucet by touching them with your elbow or wrist. This is an advantage for people who are busy in the kitchen.
- Water conservation:
No matter touch or touchless faucets, both can save more water than traditional sink faucets. This is because they only provide the water you need in a short time, and then shut off when you don’t need it. For some models, you also can set the amount of water flow or the time water comes out to preserve more.
Water conservation is our environmental responsibility for our planet’s sustainability nowadays.
- Cost:
The price of touch or touchless faucets is higher than the traditional sink faucets for sure. But an automatic faucet could save a considerable amount of water instead.
Saving water means saving more household bills since water tariffs become higher and higher in recent times.
- Applications:
The final factor you should consider is the application. Actually, the application of touch faucets or touchless faucets is quite different.
A touchless faucet is more suitable to be installed in the bathroom or public washrooms rather than in a house kitchen.
Because you have to aim at the sensor’s scope for water flow, it’s not easy to keep your hands right in front of the sensor steady for too long time, unless it has a special design to keep the water continuation regardless of the sensor signal.
Thus, washing your hands in a brief time should be an appropriate application of a touchless faucet. But when you need to wash your dishes or vegetables, the touchless faucet may cause some trouble for you.
On the contrary, a touch faucet is perfect to be applied to a kitchen sink. You could control the water amount and time by yourself, which means even you need to wash a very greasy plate or pot, you can assure you don’t have to suffer from the small quantity of water or intermittent water supply.
As a result, the application absolutely should be your first concern.
