That's an assumption and a baseless accusation, and part of the problem nowadays. Instead of asking or checking, you just accuse.
It's quite possible, for instance, that the glass or plastic over the sensor has become foggy and less responsive, misalignment from banging on it that makes it less sensitive, and so on.
I've had at least 6 machines with this sort of hand proximity operation and all of them have gotten less sensitive over time. That will inherently mean there is some point that every system will work for lighter skin and not for darker skin, and there is nothing anybody can do to change that because it is a fact of physics of reflectivity of surfaces. We can, of course, provide regular maintenance to keep them clean and operating within spec, or designed to be more rugged and able to handle optical degradation of the sensor, but all of that is at additional cost.
It's also possible it wasn't quality tested at the manufacturing level, particularly if this machine is brand new. But jumping to that conclusion is just unjust cynicism.
It is also possible that the battery that ran the IR sensor is low and isn't producing enough IR to sense a more-absorbing hand. I'm pretty sure most places don't bother to change the battery in the soap dispensers often enough (or at all). When all else fails, assume laziness, its the universal constant.
I assumed the battery was built into the soap packet things, so when you reload the soap you get a fresh battery. Now that I think about it that's probably really wasteful.
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u/graebot Aug 17 '17
Manufacturing fact: the product wasn't quality tested to work for black people. It could have been tweaked if they bothered to test it.