"75% of men do not lift the toilet seat before urinating in public bathrooms," says Boston-based startup Cleana, "causing the majority of messes." To prevent people peeing on the seat, the company has developed a special hinge that automatically lifts the seat when it's not occupied.

That being the case, the default position of the seat is up. Users must lower the seat by means of what the company describes as "an antimicrobial handle." (To be clear, the entire seat is antimicrobial, so the handle description is accurate but marketing-inflected.) When sat on, the seat remains down; after several seconds of being unoccupied, it automatically raises itself.

The company says it performs this feat without any electricity, i.e. there's no batteries or power required. They also say it will last for "5+ years without servicing or maintenance." So how did they do it? My guess is an internal spring connected to a mechanical timer that ticks down the seconds, then releases the spring.

The product described above is Cleana's commercial offering. They've also designed a domestic version, which works in the opposite way: It automatically lowers the seat and lid when not in use.

This, the company says, is to prevent the following:

Both the commercial and domestic seats are retrofittable to standard toilets.

At press time prices had not been announced.