I imagine many people take their smartphones into the bathroom.
They want to glance at the screen while brushing their teeth.
There's nothing particularly unusual about that.
The problem is that there's hardly anywhere to put a smartphone in the bathroom.
If there's a flat shelf, you can put it there, but the sink area is usually already cluttered.
It's also worrying to place a smartphone directly in a place prone to getting wet.
But if you hold it, both hands are occupied.
What I first tried was leaning it against the towel rail.
Using a towel as a cushion, I adjusted the angle.
But it fell.
At that moment, I thought,
"It falls because I'm trying to place it forcibly in a place not designed for it."
If I changed my thinking, it would be,
"If I make it so it can be placed on the towel rail, it won't fall."
From there, I started thinking about this stand.
A towel rail is fixed to the wall.
There's a bar, and a wall behind it.
Using these two points, I can hold and support the smartphone.
Instead of placing it on the sink, I can hang it on the bar and lean it against the wall.
That idea is the basic structure of this stand.
After I finished making it and showed this stand to my wife, she said:
"This could be useful for applying makeup.
I can watch makeup tutorials and check my hands."
Honestly, I hadn't thought of that.
The problem I was trying to solve was "a place to put it while brushing my teeth," but there were many more situations where people wanted to place their smartphones in front of the mirror.
When referring to videos while applying makeup, you can't keep holding your smartphone.
If you place it on a shelf, the angle might be off, or there might not be a place to put it in front of the mirror.
If there's a stand on the towel rail, you can fix your smartphone directly in front of the mirror.
What I thought of as a "lazy smartphone holder" could actually be used as a purposeful tool.
The problem I was trying to solve was the structural issue of "nowhere to put it."
But once that's solved, new uses emerge.
It's surprisingly common to discover things after you've created them.
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