Do you feel uncomfortable holding the door of a restroom in an office, cafe, or department store where many people's hands come into contact with the door? Don't you feel resistance to grip it? Even though you have washed your hands, viruses adhere to your hands via the handles. What if the virus enters through the mucous membrane when you put your hand on your face and infects you with the flu? Many people have such a problem, don't they?

Aopun" is a tool to open a door without touching the handle. It aims to reduce the risk of infection via the hands.


We go to the bathroom, wash our hands, and open the door in many places, including offices, cafes, grocery stores, and movie theaters. We use various "techniques" to avoid touching the handles directly with our hands. For example, they use a handkerchief. Some use the hem of a T-shirt. Some may use the sleeves of a sweater. But none of these are very good looking. Using a handkerchief may look smart, but some people may not want to wipe their hands with the handkerchief afterwards.


Aopun" is a tool that solves this problem. It allows you to open the door without directly touching the handle. Since it is a handle-specific tool, there is no need to use it like a handkerchief when you need to use it in a different way later.

It is key-shaped and can be used with various types of handles, including lever and flat types. It may also be useful for opening the lid of a shared trash can or opening the lid of a toilet seat.


Small but strong enough. The key-shaped part of the mechanism does not bend or break even when a weight of about 20 kg is hooked on it.


It measures 4.3 cm wide by 6.8 cm high and weighs 5 grams. It can be attached to a key ring and carried in a jeans pocket.


The developer, Aopun, is seeking investors on the crowdfunding site kickstarter to make the "Aopun" commercially available; a $6 investment will get you one "Aopun". Shipping is scheduled for May 2016. The company will also ship to Japan, but additional shipping and other costs will be required.


We would like Aopun to develop a tool that allows people to grip train suspension straps without touching them directly. But what I would like most would be a tool to find people who take off their masks when they sneeze on the train. Those people are like.

"When I sneeze with a mask on, the mask smells bad.

But isn't that the whole point of a mask? I would like to have a tool to judge in advance so that I don't accidentally stand near them, but is that too much to ask?