Smart Washroom | SAPO System

Conquering COVID-19

As all of us are going through the pandemic with lots of constraints, inconvenience and annoyance, the technology sector has always been striving to cope with the difficulties. It is also a golden opportunity for the technology industry to further implement their idea and solutions. The facility management and property management sector is one of the most crucial parties to maintain public environment hygiene. Citizens will travel to different buildings or property throughout the day, no matter they are residential buildings, government centres, commercial areas etc., these are places with numerous visitors. The question is that how we can lower the risk of these places during such times and try to keep the areas in a COVID-free condition.

Let us take the case of washrooms — The facilities that we can easily access in the above-mentioned properties. Through digital integration of IoT (Internet of Things), there is a clear increasing trend in the renovation of washrooms. We might notice that number of malls had equipped certain digital integrations devices or facilities in the renovated washrooms, such as cubicle vacancies indicator light, fully automatic toilet seat, soap dispenser and tap etc. All these implementations can greatly minimise the time of users from touching surfaces on different objects. Besides bringing convenience to the public, such tiny enhancements already help a lot when conquering COVID-19.

Utilising IoT devices to execute the "SMART" idea

The idea of smart washrooms has been gaining an uprising awareness, let's dig deeper to practically understand how these tiny devices could enhance our daily environment.

1. Proximity Sensor

Nano S-P sensor is a proximity sensor with high versatility and operated by a battery. The small-form-factor and lightweight sensor will fit into almost all toilet dispenser containers such as jumbo-roll, M-fold towels, soap dispensers or bins, to provide real-time monitoring to acknowledge the usage level of different consumables. The sensors alongside our online portal will be able to generate alerts automatically when a refill is required. By emerging into smart washrooms, workers are only required to do refill work when receiving alerts, this could lower the exposure to germs and viruses. Other than that, the workflow efficiency can be greatly enhanced.
Power consumption is also one of the greatest concerns among users since changing batteries might be a new workload for frontline staff. If implementing a new technology would create an underlying workload, it is certainly not attractive to users. The sensor can last 1 year which means frequent battery replacements are not necessary.

2. Door open close sensor

By implementing a cost-effective magnetic detector on the cubicle door inside the washrooms, enabling a live-time detection of the overall vacancies. Also by integrating with digital signage as well as the cloud system, properties can enhance the washroom traffic and save visitors time by the digital signage. Visitors can know the vacancies without going inside the washroom.

3. Occupancy Sensor

By a simple installation work - stick and use, the sensor can be effortlessly attached to the ceiling to monitor the real-time occupancy status, without any concerns about privacy issues. To utilise data, users might integrate with a digital signage solution to display real-time cubicle occupancy status and visualise the data through the signage. Visitors can greatly reduce the times from visiting a packed, unavailable washroom.

4. iAQ Sensor

Indoor Air Quality sensors can provide data visualization to easily let the public know whether the area is safe and desirable enough to stay. The senso8 iAQ sensor can widely cover different scenarios for different user groups. By placing an iAQ sensor in the washroom, end-users can acknowledge the real-time NH3, H2S.

The emergence from conventional to a smart approach

With the helping hand of IoT sensors, it is known that there is an increasing demand for smart washroom solutions. The Property Management sector, properties developers as well as some government bodies from worldwide are trying to step into the game in order to provide a better environment for the public. The rapid expedition of IoT ideas are not only formed by business competitions but is driven by the raised awareness of hygienic solution and digital transformation.

There are lots of other devices which can be favourable when applied in smart washrooms. SAPO online portal is capable to handle various types of sensors, in order to Sense, Analyse, Prevent and Organise for our customers, also to participate in the emergence.