“Life Anew” – this TOTO brand message promises a comfortable, enriching lifestyle. This year, TOTO is entering the age of the Internet of Things (IoT), supplementing its overarching “Life Anew” message to create “Life Anew NEXT” – with new smart, connected products for both private and public spaces. The concept enjoyed its European premiere at the TOTO ISH 2019 booth.

First introduced in 2017, TOTO’s global brand message “Life Anew” expressed the company’s long-term aim to use its innovations and progressive technologies to create products that enrich people’s everyday lives, making them more comfortable. TOTO believes that the bathroom is a place where people should relax, recover and escape the stresses of everyday life.

Digital comfort in the bathroom: TOTO enters the age of the Internet of Things (IoT) 
This year, TOTO is entering the age of the Internet of Things (IoT). The company has expanded its global “Life Anew” brand message to create “Life Anew NEXT” – a new core statement that encompasses smart, fully connected bathrooms and sanitary areas. TOTO aims to develop the next generation of IoT-enabled public restrooms and the private bathrooms of the future in collaboration with innovative industries around the world. In its “Life Anew NEXT” concept video at ISH 2019, TOTO showed its expanded vision of enriching experiences for consumers with IoT-enabled bathrooms in the home – and with smart, fully connected public restrooms wherever people travel, whether for business or pleasure.

“Life Anew NEXT”: smart, fully connected public restrooms
TOTO worked with GP PRO – a division of Georgia-Pacific and a leading provider of innovative dispensers for commercial locations – to provide consumers with hygienic, comfortable options when using restrooms. “Improving people’s lives is what inspires every TOTO innovation, and global surveys consistently show that people rank cleanliness as one of the top five qualities that contribute to a high quality of life,” explained Shinya Tamura, CEO of TOTO USA. “Working with GP PRO to develop smart, connected bathrooms is another way we fulfil our commitment to provide consumers with a consistently clean, comfortable restroom experience no matter where they travel, for work or play – and solve real-world business issues for facility managers.”

The toilet of the future – more safety and comfort, lower water consumption
TOTO used GP PRO’s award-winning KOLO Smart Monitoring System to design the bathrooms of the future. This allows for a reliable, customisable and secure monitoring and analysis of connected washroom inventory. Facility managers can track this on a tablet PC or computer to better schedule their employees and dramatically cut costs in the washroom operations. For example, facility managers and their employees will receive real-time updates and notifications regarding:

• The number of toilets and faucets used, and the amount of water they consumed
• Inventory used too frequently, operational issues such as leaks or floods
• Remaining amounts of toilet paper, hand towels and soap to prevent partially used rolls and bottles from being discarded before empty
• User safety, messages to employees to check the disabled restroom
• Optimised cleaning schedules for quantity-based cleaning and sufficient staffing

TOTO installed its proven Self Power faucets and flush valves in its collaboration with GP PRO. These devices generate their own electricity each time the water causes the small inner turbine to turn. This makes it unnecessary to wire them to the building’s power supply or use costly, environmentally damaging disposable batteries. Since TOTO’s Self Power products produce their own electricity, they continue to work without interruption – even in the event of a power outage. If the internet in the building stops working, the products will continue to collect data about their use that is transmitted once the internet connection has been restored. Shinya Tamura from TOTO USA is convinced: “TOTO’s top quality and proven “smart sensor” technology provide an essential basis for this high level of innovation in our collaboration with GP PRO. This represents our first major step in expanding our business in this exciting direction: the connected bathroom.”

Read more about TOTO online: 
gb.toto.com