Chinese company Milesight is using LoRaWan sensing technology to make public toilets smarter to deliver more comfort and create a better experience.

The public toilet is one of the most frequently used facilities in every sector, especially in office buildings. Usually, its overall presentation can leave a lasting impression on visitors, for example the cleanliness of toilet spaces affects the choice of retail venues for shoppers.

Therefore, smart toilet construction is an important indicator of the degree of civilization for a city or even a country, and is related to public health. Due to the increasing concern on public health, Milesight believes it can help with this problem.

The main aspects needed to be addressed of a toilet facility include reduced queues and waiting times, keeping a toilet clean and stocked, ensuring facilities are operating effectively, and monitoring alerts for assistance in disabled facilities.

Milesight has thus put together a package that includes its AM107 ambience monitoring sensor, a proposed AI workplace sensor and smart button, and its LoRaWan gateway.

The use of LoRaWan and sensing technologies creates an opportunity for developing the smart toilet. This consists of LoRaWan devices such as ambience sensors, smart button, gateway and cloud management platform.

The AM107 includes multiple built-in sensors, such as temperature, humidity, activity level (PIR), CO₂, TVOC, barometric pressure and light, which offers real-time monitoring for ambience conditions and use rate of the toilet, while the AI workplace sensor can help to indicate whether a cubicle is occupied.

By installing the smart button, elderly and disabled people can gain instant help when encountering an emergency in the toilet. All sensor data are received by the LoRaWan gateway and sent to Milesight IoT Cloud or other third-party servers.

Benefits include reduced costs on energy and labour, scheduled maintenance, facilitating people in need with a friendly user-experience, and improving space use and cleanness.