Every morning, my wife tries to be nice and closes the door when she leaves. She does it slowly, softly and quietly.

However, every morning, the latch in the handle passes the strike plate and shoots into the door jamb with a loud "plunk" that wakes me up.

Sure, she could turn the handle, but she doesn't.

It shouldn't be too hard to miniaturize the same hydraulic tube they use on screen doors to have the latch start quickly into the hole in the door jamb, but then softly complete its full extension, thus not waking me up.

Sure, this probably doesn't make sense in cheap doorknobs, but I'm sure there is a niche market for such a product.

Plus they'd be cool, and an innovation in a pretty stagnant doorknob industry.
-- ooglek, Mar 15 2006

Touch Sensitive EM Doorknobs Touch_20Sensitive_20EM_20Doorknobs
My idea is kind of like this HB user, but with hydraulics you don't need a power source. You still need to turn the handle though. [ooglek, Mar 15 2006]

tell her to leave by the window - thoughtless woman.
-- po, Mar 15 2006


"She came in through the bathroom window"; You would expect her to leave the same way.
-- jurist, Mar 15 2006


Blue motion doorknobs.
-- zeno, Mar 15 2006


Instead of a plain steel tongue, the latch should be a roller, which will roll over the edge of the socket, have a much shorter distance over which it can accelerate freely, and the pocket into which it latches should be have a nylon insert. It won't be completely silent, but the difference should be similar to the difference between old "Click" style light switches and new quiet switches.
-- elhigh, Mar 15 2006


A geared mechanism, installed within the door frame, activated by the pressure from the latch rotates a small fan. Air resistance will then slow the latch enough for it to be almost noiseless.
How can we install bluetooth on this thing?
-- methinksnot, Mar 15 2006


[bigsleep], and a bright light for the hearing-impaired.
-- methinksnot, Mar 15 2006


Use friction to slow the latch. The heat generated could power a small Stirling engine to power the speaker unit.
-- spidermother, Mar 16 2006



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