Simon Sassoon, a former watch designer, has designed a door knob disinfectant that kills germs on the doorknobs of public toilets.

Sassoon, 44, a nephew of the hairdresser Vidal Sassoon, got the inspiration to develop this device when he dreamt that he was standing in a women’s public restroom, which his hygiene-conscious girlfriend had just left. Attached to the door above the knob was a white plastic box which made a gushing sound. Out from the bottom sprayed a fine dry mist, which bathed the metal knob and killed every germ on it.

“I felt I’d found my calling,” Sassoon said last week, very much awake as he demonstrated a prototype, which he said looked exactly like the box in his dream. “There’s a tremendous ‘ick’ factor when it comes to doorknobs.”

It took two years and $250,000 of investment capital to develop the HYSO, an acronym for Cantonese words meaning “happy hands”. It will spray a hospital-grade disinfectant on doorknobs every 15 minutes. The device is already under production and is to be sold for $60. Sassoon says there is tremendous scope for the sanitation device in movie theaters, restaurants, hospitals and where ever there is a public restrooms.