The complete guide to finding a touchless water dispenser

Choosing a touchless water dispenser for your office will give you several benefits and advantages. It is also a very cost-effective and eco-friendly way to prioritise the health of your employees.

The main benefits of a touchless water dispenser for the office are:

• Stops the need for bottle storage: First and foremost, it benefits the environment when you don’t need to store your plastic bottles. Plastic is used way too much in general, so when it’s possible to reduce our use of plastic, it will help our environment. Furthermore, this will eliminate the human contact form when bottles are delivered to the office. Even in post-pandemic times, this is to be considered a significant benefit regarding potential health hazards.
  
  
• Minimises potential spread of the virus: Speaking of health hazards. When reducing the number of times you need to touch a water dispenser physically, you will automatically reduce the potential spread of germs. Therefore a touchless water dispenser will help create a healthier environment at the office.
  
  
• Easier and safer cleaning: Today, most touchless water dispensers will have technology that makes the machine self-cleaning. As a result, fewer human resources are required to keep it neat and clean. In addition, most of the surface area is flat and thereby relatively easy to reach with a cleaning device.
  
  
• Longer lifetime than standard dispensers: Generally, a touchless water dispenser will have a longer life than an ordinary one, primarily because there is far less wear on the tap valve. Therefore a touchless water dispenser for the office is a way more cost-effective solution than the ordinary ones.
  
  
• Reduce carbon footprint: As mentioned earlier, reducing the use of plastic comes with many benefits. For example, your company’s carbon footprint will fall since you will reduce your office’s plastic waste and thereby contribute less to pollution and carbon emission.
  
  
• Hard to break: The minimal need for physical contact makes a touchless water dispenser very hard to break. Simply because there are fewer external moving parts than in ordinary ones.
  
  
• Better access for users with disabilities: Since touchless water dispensers don't require pushing or pulling of any sort, touchless water dispensers are more accessible to users with physical disabilities.

If you want to harvest some of the many benefits of having a touchless water dispenser, you’re in great luck because there are many options in the market. But touchless water dispensers come in many different shapes and sizes and have different ways of being touchless.

It’s important to notice that some touchless water dispensers are not entirely ‘touchless’. But they're hands-free, which is the most critical factor to consider when it comes to reducing the risks of spreading germs and bacteria.

The most common types of touchless water dispensers:

• Water dispensers controlled with foot pedals: You can find many touchless water dispensers controlled by either one or two-foot pedals. By pressing the pedals down with your feet, you will activate the water flow in the machine. If the device has one pedal, there will only be one preset temperature available, but if there are two pedals, usually one will operate the cold water and the other one the warm water.
  
  
• Paddle water dispensers: A similar kind of technology is found in paddle water dispensers. Instead of pressing with your feet, you will press with your cup. By pressing your cup into a paddle just below the water tap, you will release the flow of the water. It’s worth noting that this solution is not entirely germ-free since the cup that presses the paddle is not necessarily completely clean.
  
  
• PSD water dispensers: PSD (position sensitive detector) water dispensers offer a completely touch-free solution. For a cup of ‘touch-free water’, you will simply need to hover your finger over the device’s sensor. It will automatically start when it recognises the presence of a finger. Very similar to this kind of solution, there are also models where the sensors are located in the refill zone rather than at the face of the machine. When in the refill zone, you’ll simply put your cup in the zone, and the sensors will activate the water flow.
  
  
• Dispensers controlled by apps and QR-codes: Some of the most modern and innovative touchless water dispensers can be controlled by apps and QR-codes. This is a brilliant and utterly touchless method that only requires your phone to operate. Either you’ll scan the QR-code on the interface screen or use the connected app to generate the water flow.

When deciding what the best water dispenser is for you, there are several things to consider.

We’ve listed some of the factors you should consider before deciding which is the best touchless water dispenser for you.

• Capacity: Capacity is obviously an important thing to consider when choosing the best water dispenser. You want to pick a solution that doesn't need constant refilling. Therefore you should always factor in how big a capacity you need. The smartest solution is probably to pick a touchless water dispenser that is connected to the waterline. In that case, there won’t be any maximum capacity and no need to refill the machine.
  
  
• Energy efficiency: As most water dispensers are switched on more or less constantly, it can be quite energy-consuming if you don’t look for a touchless water dispenser that is sufficiently energy efficient. You can also yourself take some precautions when it comes to saving energy. If your water dispenser has both hot and cold water, you can consider turning the heating function off at some point in the day.
  
  
• Temperature and sparkling features: Speaking of hot and cold water, you should also consider whether you want a touchless water dispenser for your office with temperature features. That will allow you to get almost boiling water as well as ice-cold water. Furthermore, you can consider whether you want a dispenser that can also make both still and sparkling water. Most machines have still water as the only option, but it can be a nice extra feature to offer sparkling water to your employees.
  
  
• Available space: Size matters. At least when it comes to picking the right touchless water dispenser for your office. It may sound obvious, but you need to make sure that a given water dispenser fits into the location where you want to place it.

TopWater is available in two completely touch-free version, with sensors and iPad, and a version that is operated with a simple button-down solution. Our innovative under the counter design saves a lot of space, making it likely to fit in a lot of spaces.

With our app, you can control everything from your personal smartphone, providing many different drink options and a completely touch-free experience.

It’s high tech and innovative, but still extremely simple to operate. It offers a completely plastic-free solution, in which you can get both still and sparkling water. It’s made from recyclable material and can dispense up to 45 litres per hour.

Furthermore, you can use Cloud Management to keep track of the health of your machine and user preferences. See live data directly from each unit and use the analytics tool to deep-dive into various data points. Make informed decisions on ordering and get a range of insights such as drink counts, cleaning reports, fault reports and much more.

You’re not likely to find a more complete system than this.