WSO2 Debuts Toilet Middleware

“There is a sound detector to detect air exploding at inhuman levels…”

So WSO2’s launching a new product, and they’ve sent us a press release on it. Read on:

“Mountain View, CA – April 1, 2015 – In today’s connected world, employees increasingly are becoming too connected to the privacy, Wi-Fi and easy mobile access afforded by corporate bathrooms, leading to hundreds of hours in lost productivity each month. To help enterprises stem the tide of bathroom abuse and implement effective “swipe before you wipe” policies, WSO2 today announced the debut of WSO2 Connected Bathroom Manager (WSO2 CBM).

“Enterprises competing in an increasingly connected world realize that the bathroom is the next frontier in optimizing the efficiency of employees and resources,” said Dr. Sanjiva Weerawarana, WSO2 founder, CEO and chief architect. “By harnessing the Internet of Things and the power of event-driven analytics, WSO2 CBM offers an integrated, comprehensive solution for intelligent bathroom management. Now using WSO2 CBM, an enterprise’s Chief Bathroom Officer and Bathroom Operations Group members can monitor usage and take suitable preventive, evasive and corrective action as the situation demands.”

Comprehensive Bathroom Event Monitoring and Analysis

WSO2 CBM goes beyond simple card-swipe bathroom entry systems to provide extensive monitoring of the entire bathroom and usage patterns. These include toilet seat, stall doors, air quality, water usage, sink and soap usage, Wi-Fi bandwidth and mobile data used, audio levels (verbal and other), and time elapsed, among others.

Central to WSO2 CBM is the instrumented toilet stall, which features a variety of sensors to accurately measure all activity. Then, incorporating the functionality of WSO2 Complex Event Processor (WSO2 CEP), WSO2 CBM takes data streamed from the sensors in real time to analyze a particular user’s visit. This data can be compared to typical use patterns as well as analyzed over time. Activities measured and exposed include:

• Time spent in the stall
• Amount of water used and number of flushes—critical for drought-plagued regions, such as California
• Number of toilet paper sheets used
• Volume of liquid and non-liquid matter released

WSO2 CBM allows a company’s Chief Bathroom Officer to monitor utilization of all bathrooms in all facilities via a single integrated dashboard. Automatic alerts will be sent when particular employees violate the Bathroom Optimization General System (BOGS) policies. Supporting open standards, WSO2 CBM is designed to work with industry-leading systems from American Standard, Kohler, Mansfield, and Crane, among others.

Advanced functionality is available via plug-ins to WSO2 CBM:

• Bathroom Count Down (BCD) provides a series of warning beeps when users are 20 seconds from reaching the average bathroom use time, facilitating compliance.
• Wi-Fi Lock (WFL) automatically blocks Wi-Fi access when users exceed the established bathroom usage time.
• Real-Time Urinalysis (RTU) captures a video of the urine stream and applies numerous patent-pending feature detection algorithms to isolate its chemical content, providing truly integrated corporate drug testing.
• Methane Monitor & Mitigation (MMM) measures the presence of methane and, when thresholds are reached, triggers the release of air freshener.

Additionally, Global 1000 companies that monitor high volumes of bathroom events can add the pre-integrated WSO2 Elastic Load Balancer to ensure high performance at all times.

Deeper Insights Via Machine Learning

Significantly, WSO2 CBM incorporates the advanced analytical capabilities of WSO2 Machine Learner, to provide deeper insights into both individual events and those that potentially affect large numbers of employees.

For example, through its machine learning functionality, WSO2 CBM can learn the average “normal day” bathroom utilization behavior of every employee. Then if it detects that some person or persons are using the facilities more often than usual band that those usages legitimate (instead of breaks to play Candy Crush), it will trigger a special event via WSO2 CEP. This event can then be used for deeper analysis of patterns across all users, for example a correlation of registered users who had used ThreeSquare to tag the sandwich shop down the street with unusually long bathroom use times.

With the data uploaded to WSO2 Bathroom Cloud (with full anonymity, of course), an enterprise can use information from multiple deployments to instantly detect that there’s a problem with the food quality at a particular food outlet because everyone who went there ended up using the facilities (legitimately) way more than normal. WSO2 CBM can then use the SmartCity Health Reporting API to alert health management authorities that there may be a problem brewing even before customers have reached out to the restaurant to complain.

The machine learning functionality in WSO2 CBM is extended through integration with Connected Cup and its kickstarter data. Advanced machine learning can be used to remember typical patterns in beverage intake versus bathroom visits, predict behavior, and allocate resources accordingly—providing fewer bathrooms while maintaining service-level agreements (SLAs). Empowered by machine learning, enterprises also can offer employees the option to participate in blood pressure monitoring to manage health and stress levels.

Extending Bathroom Management to the Home

WSO2 CBM Home Edition extends bathroom management to the frustrated parents of teenage children who spend hours in the bathroom “getting ready.” Using the affordable cloud version, parents now have a truly effective solution for controlling teens’ mobile devices when extra time with ChocoCrush or Snoopchat prevents the rest of the family from taking their showers.

WSO2 CBM works in concert with WSO2 Enterprise Mobility Manager (WSO2 EMM) to provide complete control over teens’ phones, tablets and laptops in the bathroom. First, a 20-second warning beep will signal that the teenager is approaching the maximum allowable time in the bathroom. If the teen then fails to heed the warning, WSO2 CBM and WSO2 EMM override the mobile device to block any further activity while, as has proven effective in Guantanamo Bay, playing loud music deemed obnoxious by the user. No amount of button pushing or shaking will end the music until the teen leaves the room.

 Significantly, the highly configurable solution combines the functionality of WSO2 Business Rules Server with real time assist from WSO2 CEP and learning by WSO2 Machine Learner to customize and escalate the music selection according to the individual teen and his or her response. For example, is the teen a head banger who hates country? WSO2 CBM Home Edition can start with “Country Roads,” and then progress to “Achy Breaky Heart” and “Get Along Little Doggies.” The possibilities are endless.

Integration With Other Connected Bathroom Products

WSO2 CBM and WSO2 CBM Home Edition are designed to work with other popular connected bathroom products. Now users can:

• Measure the toothbrushing patterns of kids with White Oral-B Pro 6000 Smartseries with Bluetooth (http://www.oralb.co.uk/en-GB/product-detail/new-white-oral-b-pro-6000-smartseries-with-bluetooth).

• Control bathroom lighting with Phillip Hue (http://www2.meethue.com/en-us/).

• Check and record their weight with Fitbit Aria (https://www.fitbit.com/aria#i.1adcxo21dejdzo). 

• Provide music using the iCarta 2 toilet paper holder (http://www.connectedly.com/icarta-2-toilet-paper-holder-boasts-bluetooth-stereo).

• Take pictures with Sensor Mirror.

 Additionally WSO2 CBM and WSO2 CBM Home Edition provide Out of the box support for:

• Pimped Out Toilet
• Unique Automation’s Bathomatic

 Availability and Support

WSO2 Connected Bathroom Manager 1.0 can be pre-ordered today. As with all WSO2 software, the WSO2 CBM software components can run directly on servers or on top of WSO2 Private PaaS, and as a WSO2 Cloud Virtual Machine running on the Amazon Elastic Computing Cloud (EC2), Linux Kernel Virtual Machine (KVM), and VMware ESX. Additionally, customers can choose to have WSO2 host the WSO2 CBM software through the WSO2 Managed Cloud service. WSO2 CBM Home Edition will be available as a cloud service later this spring. As fully open source solutions released under the Apache License 2.0, WSO2 CBM and WSO2 CBM Home Edition do not carry any licensing fees.

WSO2 CBM is backed by a world-class technical team in which the experts that helped create the software provide support, leading to direct and immediate access to the people with in-depth knowledge of the software. WSO2 service and support options include evaluation support, a special QuickStartSM consulting program, development support, and production support.”

Oh, and by the way: April Fool!