“Sensor-operated
taps, automatic flush systems and touch- free soap dispensers
are helping to improve health and hygiene in washrooms everywhere.”
necessary. Tork EasyCube uses sensors in dispensers and on cubicle doors to ‘connect’ all washrooms in a given facility. This enables cleaning staff to monitor visitor traffic and dispenser refill levels remotely via their tablet or smartphone, saving valuable time that would otherwise be spent manually checking washrooms.
Making the washroom easier to access for people who have physical challenges is another good use for technology. Predictably, Japan is leading the way with the installation of new “designer restrooms” at Tokyo’s Narita Airport in preparation for the 2020 Olympic Games. These feature voice-guidance systems to aid the visually-impaired plus a light alert that acts as a signal to the deaf in cases of emergency.
Improving efficiency is another excellent reason for incorporating technology into the washroom. Queues may quickly form in toilets where paper or soap supplies have been allowed to run out. In the past, this could only be monitored manually by deploying a member of staff to visit each washroom and physically check every dispenser.
In environments where numerous washrooms are spread out over a large site, this would result in much of the cleaner’s day spent walking to and from the washrooms in a bid to anticipate and address run-outs.
Thanks to technology, this unsatisfactory situation is no longer
www.tomorrowscleaning.com
Tork EasyCube has already been installed in airports, theme parks, offices and leisure complexes throughout Europe where it is improving efficiency and freeing up cleaners’ time to concentrate on other tasks.
Meanwhile, technology is helping to improve washroom users’ experience in other ways, too. It is even helping them to find a public toilet when they need one via apps that direct them to the nearest public convenience.
For example, the Flush app helps users to locate a clean, wheelchair- accessible washroom anywhere in the world while the Toilet Finder app provides information on more than 120,000 public toilets globally.
Once we have found a washroom, our interaction with technology continues. Many of us now use our smartphones in the loo to send emails, browse the web or to visit social media sites.
Updating one’s status and sharing images are two of the main social media activities, so it is logical to assume that some people are sharing their washroom experiences when visiting venues. Websites bear this out: Instagram is crammed with images of toilets that have been uploaded by people keen to share their observations. There are also countless
internet blogs about the world’s best, worst and weirdest washrooms and many of these encourage visitors to upload loo reviews and images.
While a social media comment about an average washroom experience would make fairly dull reading, a similar observation about a particularly good – or bad – facility could quickly become a talking point and even in some cases go viral. When two women recently decided to publish an online chart of the best and worst washrooms in the UK’s football clubs, it was shared with news channels around the world and gave those clubs, with terrible toilets nowhere to hide (read about it here).
As the use of smartphones increases, so too does ownership of tablets. These have the advantage of offering larger screens on which games can be played more successfully and where videos can be watched more comfortably. While we may not necessarily take these into the washroom with us, they can still be put to use in educating people about the importance of washroom hygiene.
For example, Tork has created a tablet app that encourages pre-school children to wash their hands and explains when they need to do so. Ella’s Hand Washing Adventure – now available on the Apple app store and Google Play Store – uses cartoon characters to educate children about those occasions when hand washing is necessary such as after playing outside and before eating.
Technology is amazing – even for washrooms. It can help you to find a clean, accessible facility anywhere in the world. It can enhance the experience when you get there. And technology can also help improve hygiene by means of automatic systems and by keeping a facility well stocked with soap, hand towels and toilet tissue. It is hard to visualise how tomorrow’s technology will enhance our washroom experience still further, but who knows? Maybe hologram washroom attendants and interactive screens inside each cubicle are just around the corner.
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