IoT heralds toilet vacancy checker

Japan news August 2016

Kansai-based IT firm, Kobe Digital Labo Inc., announced in June that it had developed an app by which office workers are able to use their computer or smartphone to verify when a toilet in the office is available.

As access to lavatories in office buildings increasingly features security systems, workers are required to use a pass or other form of ID to gain entry. Often a worker will leave their desk only to find all the toilets occupied. And that, the firm says, can be a source of unnecessary stress.

Its solution is to attach a specially developed sensor to each toilet door, and harness it to the Internet of Things, to enable people to check occupancy from their desk or workstation.

The accompanying photo shows a smartphone with a blue stripe across the centre, the symbol of a toilet and the words kushitsu ari (toilet vacant).

After three months of system tests at its office in Kobe’s Chuo Ward, the firm is planning to go public with the app in autumn. Corporate clients will no doubt welcome this high-tech means of relieving congestion.