Late night two days ago, before retiring to bed, I went to the bathroom, as usual. Suddenly, right there, an idea hit me, which is not as usual.

Moreover, the idea itself is not a usual one for me. It had nothing to do with computers or high-tech, for that matter. It was about the light switch to the bathroom.

You see, I have two kids. One of them is now 4 years old. She feels old enough to go to the bathroom by herself. In fact, she can do the whole procedure herself. Except one thing. Turning the lights on and off. So it happens like this:

I’m half-lying comfortably in our bean bag chair, minding my own business. She comes to me and notifies that she wants to pee. I say “Sure, let’s go”. “No, I’m big enough, I can go myself!”, she replies. I feel lucky that I no longer have to get up from the bean bag chair for this, because it’s quite an exercise, in fact. She feels grown-up.

So she leaves, arrives to the bathroom and calls me from there: “Light!”. Oh, man.

So I had this idea about designing a light switch that usually looks and behaves like a regular one. But, when you have such kids at home, you can pull a rope from there that will allow the them to pull it and turn the lights on and off. There are “pull the rope” switches like that available but I never saw one integrated with a regular light switch, so that both parents and kids could use it. And it should be retractable into the switch when the kids grow, for esthetics.

Yes, I know that kids can stand on a short footstool to make themselves high enough to reach the regular switch. Yet it’s not so comfortable. She needs to carry it between the rooms. Yes, there’s the same problem with her room lights as well.

As far as marketing of this special switch — when the expecting couple comes to the baby store to buy the needed stuff for the upcoming baby, have the seller propose these switches to them along with all the other stuff that they buy. This way they’ll be ready to pull the rope on the first “I can go to bathroom alone”.

And the kid will also feel more empowered since she doesn’t need to ask for your help and spoil her achievement.

So here, take the idea and make a million bucks if you believe it’s worth it. I don’t know anything about designing, manufacturing and selling commodity hardware. I’m just a software guy. Pressing keys on the keyboard is all I know.