The Internet of Things (IoT) has already fundamentally changed the way we live. Ever since Kevin Ashton coined the term in 1999, the excitement around IoT technology has only continued to grow and is turning into widespread deployments. Here is wireless power and how IoT fixtures will power the bathroom of the future.

We hear a lot of talk about smart cars, smart homes, and even smart cities. And the ubiquity of connected devices like Google Home, Amazon Echo, and Samsung’s Smart Things Hub indicates the trend shows no signs of slowing down. Analysts predict there will be more than 64B IoT devices worldwide by 2025.

It seems that much of the conversation has been about connected and smart devices used in residential settings or for personal use. Because of this focus on the consumer IoT marketplace, perhaps the last thing that comes to mind when you think of smart IoT applications are smart devices in a public restroom.

The potential is huge for innovations that increase efficiency and enhance the guest experience in public restrooms.

Implementing IoT technology in a public restroom environment can benefit consumers, facility managers, and maintenance personnel, and how a new technology known as long-range wireless power can enable and accelerate these implementations.

In Search of Better Bathrooms

It’s important for public spaces to have clean bathrooms.

That’s one of the reasons why many commercial bathrooms – the ones you use at airports, hospitals, sports venues, etc. – are loaded with battery-operated devices like touchless faucets, automated soap dispensers, automatic flush valves, and other sensor-operated fixtures.

The sheer number of these devices spread across multiple bathrooms creates maintenance issues for facilities managers.

Consider:

To keep devices and fixtures working, batteries need to be constantly replaced. If batteries last three months on average, and an airport has 500 battery-operated devices, more than five devices on average will need batteries replaced every day. The problem is that facilities managers don’t know exactly which devices these will be.

When a battery runs dead it causes one or more devices to stop working (e.g. no flush, no soap, no water). The inconvenience usually leads to customer frustration, complaints, and in many retail locations, lost business.

Sometimes, especially in hospitals, there are regulations that mandate that these sanitary devices keep working, and outages are unacceptable.

Then, of course, there is the cost of batteries, the man-hours to replace them, and the environmental impact of disposing of used batteries.

These are just a few of the frustrations plaguing maintenance personnel.

Although newly built bathrooms are more likely to have electricity, cables, and wires present their own set of challenges for facilities managers. For instance, when retrofitting existing buildings, it’s often more cost-effective to “cut the cord” and use wireless power.

Rick Szcodronski, senior associate, technology consulting for Environmental Systems Design, Inc. said, “Wireless devices are reliable, secure, and the cheapest way to bring IoT technology to existing buildings.”

As the power consumption needs to increase and the electrical installation costs continue to rise, facility managers and maintenance personnel are looking for environmentally-friendly, cost-effective ways to meet the power consumption needs of the modern restroom.

Read more here

Originally published by:

Yuval Boger is the Chief Marketing Officer of Wi-Charge, a leader in long-range wireless power. Boger has served as CEO, CMO and evangelist for technology companies from seed stage to NASDAQ.

January 25th, 2020