Charmin’s unconventional toilet products are funny but have potential

4 toilet products that don’t look like that

How many times did you happen to have to go to the bathroom when you’re in the middle of a video call especially now, that many jobs switched to remote work? You could always bring your computer into the bathroom but you would probably be scared to forget to mute the mic if you do that. So, to solve this and most of the problems related to the need of leaving a video call without interruption, the Procter & Gamble Charmin brand has introduced its newest prototype called BRB Bot.

This is a desktop app (currently beta) that through your camera, machine learning, natural language processing, and tone analysis can listen and analyze your video calls to create your digital twin with real-time reactions able to respond while you’re on the call and you step away from the camera. A.I. and machine learning are used to give an appropriate reaction to the digital twin according to comments made by the meeting attendees.

Anyway, it must be said that this innovation would also be beneficial for any other reason a meeting attendee might need to turn attention away from the meeting from taking and making a call, addressing questions or needs of children or others in the household, letting a dog out, answering the front door, etc; it must not be exclusively used when you need to go to the bathroom even though the company focused on that use.

“From video conference calls to gaming to sports, we’ve been forced to adapt to living and working virtually, however, one thing that hasn’t changed is when nature calls, you have to answer, no ifs, ands or ‘butts‘ about it”, said Rob Reinerman, Charmin vice president at Procter & Gamble. “At Charmin, we’re obsessed with delivering a better bathroom experience whether it be providing the best toilet paper or inventing other novel ways to help people ‘Enjoy the Go’. BRB Bot is yet another way Charmin is exploring better bathroom technology that could one day become reality”.

During CES 2020 instead, Charmin presented Rollbot, a toilet-paper robot that brings you toilet paper when you’re on the toilet without a means to wipe. The robot uses a self-balancing system and can be controlled by your smartphone. But it’s not all, Charmin introduced two more interesting technologies: Smellsense and V.I.Pee.

The first one is an electronic sensor monitoring system that allows users to check how the bathroom smells without having to experience it yourself. It’s calibrated to detect carbon dioxide found in farts and poop. So, SmellSense notifies you by a message on a display of the status of the stench to let you know when you can go without smothering.

The other one, instead, is V.I. Pee, a porta-potty that includes an Oculus Riff S VR so you can see the concert you’re missing when you have to go. However, these products are just prototypes and they won’t be sold to the public but technology like SmellSense may have great potential both in our private toilets and public bathrooms.

Source techrepublic.com