Welcome to the “Internet of Toilets”…no, seriously

Have you ever had that one moment in your life where you thought “maybe humanity has gone too far this time…”? Or like, that glitch in the simulation because someone made a typo or something like that? Well, today was one of those days for me, when I got a press release from Sunway Pyramid highlighting their brand new “IoT” product, only nobody sent them the memo on what IoT actually stands for.

Yes, they’re introducing something called the “Internet of Toilets”, which apparently will “see the mall advance from a conventional washroom system”. You can’t make this stuff up.

In an effort to further develop the digitalisation of the mall, Sunway Pyramid is partnering with Singapore-based Rigel Technology to implement a new smart toilet system to help optimise performance for both the maintenance staff and the end user.

The goal here is to help the management monitor the quality of the toilets and provide a better overall experience to the visitors at the mall. Sunway Pyramid says that the toilets performance will be monitored through a series of specialised sensors and monitors placed throughout the washroom. This includes the soap dispensers, the toilet paper holders, paper towel dispensers and waste receptacles.

On top of that, the new system will also monitor the toilet’s environment such as air quality, temperature, humidity, and even how many people are in the toilet at any given time. There will also be ammonia sensors that will help the management know when a toilet is beginning to smell rank so that they can prevent these foul smells in the washrooms.

For the end user, the toilets will feature an “interactive feedback panel” that you can interface with to give feedback directly to the management. All of this data will then be transmitted to a cloud server which Sunway Pyramid says can be accessed through a web platform and mobile smart app, so that it’s easy to manage and track.

One additional goal for this move is to improve sustainability and cost savings. With this “IoT”, the management will be able to have a “bird’s eye view” of washroom performance, water consumption and “other valuable data” which will help them identify any faults or anomalies. This should lead to shorter downtime and a better overall consumer experience.

Despite the flashy name, if the system actually accomplishes its goals, it’s definitely a very practical approach to improving a toilet’s experience. And that actually makes me kinda glad because using a mall toilet at peak hour is often just an awful experience. Perhaps one nice feature that I’d like to see as a mall visitor would be to see how congested a toilet is (with people, or otherwise) from an app or something like that so that I can take my business elsewhere.

At first, I was worried that all they were going to do was build some fancy toilet with gold faucets that you’d have to pay through your nose just to use. But this holistic approach to improve the toilet experience across the board is definitely nicer to see. Sunway Pyramid, after all, are no strangers to introducing smart systems like their Licence Plate Recognition parking system.

Just, maybe not call it the “Internet of Toilets”? I’m sure there has to be some other name you could use. Then again, if they didn’t call it the “Internet of Toilets”, I probably wouldn’t have written this article about it. So, fair play, Sunway Pyramid.