19 August 2010

Dornbracht re-imagines the air switch

Back in the dark ages, the switch to operate a disposer was either a light switch on the wall somewhere near the sink or a light switch under the sink itself. Using a light switch to turn on the disposer, especially while I had wet hands always bothered me.


Well along came the first Air Switches. An Air Switch is a button mounted on the counter near the sink. Underneath that button is a bellows. When you depress the button, the bellows forces air into a tube and the tube's connected to a power pack that plug into an outlet under the sink. What this means is that no electricity ever comes near the button itself. Air Switches made it possible to operate a disposer with wet hands in total safety.

But, there's always a but. But Air Switches were made by InSinkErator and despite InSinkErator's sterling reputation as a manufacturer of disposers and hot water dispensers, there were only a few finishes available for the Air Switch buttons. The Air Switch button's finish never matched exactly the faucet sitting right next to it.

Enter Dornbracht.

Dornbracht is a 50-year-old German company whose kitchen and bath fixtures pretty much define the cutting edge. Exceptional design and exceptional quality back up every one of those cutting edge fixtures by the way. Dornbracht is not just another pretty face.


Well, Dornbracht just changed all that. Dornbracht now has coordinating Air Switch buttons for their free standing faucets and you can even integrate one into their Universal and Preparing Water Zones.


Good job Dornbracht, it's great to see them blazing yet another trail.

2 comments:

  1. That's nice. I'll have to keep it in mind for future projects.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Me too. I never thought about how run-of-the-mill the standard button covers looked until I saw these the other day.

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