ICT-enhanced Toilet Supporting Active Life
A web site showing the future commercial iToilet products will be online soon.
Scientfic publications are being prepared for Zeitschrift Orthopädie Technik (in print), EFRR Congress 2019 (under review) and ACM CHI2019 conference (paper accepted).
The product concept and iToilet base modules have been presented at the 
conference 2019
for INDEPENDENT LIVING AND POLITICAL PARTICIPATION
20 – 22 February 2019 in Vienna (February 2019).
The final review formed the official end of the project where the results were presented. (January 2019).
The field trial results support the main hypothesis of iToilet: support by an ICT enhanced toilet can help people to stay independent from personal assistance on the toilet, they get a choice. The commercial partners are now working on iToilet product development - stay tuned! (October 2018).
The field trial results have been documented in the final project report at the end of the project. The partners have also prepared the final Business Plan (September 2018).
A final full consortium meeting took place on 21 September 2018 at user partner's site in Budapest focusing on the results of the evalution and the path to a future iToilet project.
First evaluation results of user questionnaires and log data support the main hypotheses of iToilet. Height adjustability, safety measures etc. as prioritised in the functional specification are again ranked high after weeks of real life use by potential users (September 2018).
A video with a user explaining the final iToilet prototype 2 can be downloaded here (MP4 file, with captions in English).
During the last months a small study with iToilet users at CS investigated the topic "Perspectives of Autonomy in the Design of Assistive Technology". Results and derived theories were summarised in a paper to be presented at CHI2019 (September 2018).
Die Presse, a high quality Austrian newspaper, reports about iToilet field trial at MS day care centre at Caritas Socialis. (22 September 2018)
iToilet has been presented with a functional prototype for hands-on experience to the very interested public at the Vienna Research Festival, 14th - 16th September 2018.
More details about this event (in German) to be found here.
Now also the field trials with the final PT2 at the Hungarian test site have been finished. More than 25 primary users have participated. The iToilet field tests thus could be successfully finished. (End August 2018).
The field trials with the final PT2 at the Austrian test site have been finished. More than 20 primary users have participated. The field tests in Hungary are ongoing with 30 users so far (August 2018).
iToilet was presented at the social tech event of the Vienna Business Agency on 19 July 2018.
The field trials with the final PT2 iToilet prototype system at the two test sites are running. The prototypes are used in daily routine by real users (July 2018).
You can view a short video introducing PT2 here.
A full consortium meeting was held on 4 June 2018 at user partner's site in Budapest focusing on finalisation of PT2 for the field trials and on development of final business plan.
Abstracts about iToilet have been accepted for presentation at the AAL Kongress in Karlsruhe, Germany, 10-11 Oct 2018
iToilet was invited by Vienna Business Agency for presentation at the social tech event at 16 July 2018.
A poster about user involvement in iToilet was presented by G. Fazekas at European Congress of Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine (ESPRM), Vilnius, Lithuania.
iToilet was presented at integra fair 2018, Wels, Upper Autria, 25-27 April 2018 on the booth
of GL Projects, a distributor of Santis' motorised lift-toilets and devices for standing up support for Austria and Switzerland.
The second unit of the prototype 2 (PT2) was installed at MS day care centre in Vienna.
The user trials with PT1+ have been completed in Austria.
iToilet was selected for presentation at the Vienna Research Festival, 14th - 16th September 2018
iToilet was presented in a media article at energieleben.at (in German), 6th April 2018
After successfull completion of the user trials with iToilet prototype PT1+ at NIMR in Budapest the prototype was presented at German Altenpflege fair, 06 - 09 Mar 2018, in Hannover, Germany.
The presentation was given on the exhibition booth of Austrian iToilet business partner CareCenter GmbH.
A poster presentation was given on 20 February 2018 at Smarter Lives conference in Innsbruck, Austria, outlining ethics approach in the iToilet project.
A consortium meeting was held on 19 February 2018 at user partner's site in Budapest focusing on preparing the field trials with upcoming PT2. During this meeting the first PT2 was installed.
The consortium is working towards improved and extended versions of the iToilet prototype system.
iToilet consortium was invited to present experiences at the AAL2business seminar in Brussels on 1 Feb 2018.
Hungarian user partner NIMR has received ethics approval of upcoming field trial.
The technical partners of the consortium are working on the integration and technical testing of prototype 2 (PT2) in the laboratory of TUW.
The consortium has submitted the documentation needed for the ethics approval of field trials in Budapest to be carried out in 2018.
The consortium has presented iToilet at Viennese nursing congress Pflegekongress17, 30 Nov - 1 Dec 2017, in Vienna, Austria.
The presentation was done on the exhibition booth of partner CareCenter GmbH and as a poster by partner Caritas Socialis.
iToilet was presented on exhibition booth of CareCenter GmbH at ConSozial, 8-9 Nov 2017, in Nuremberg, Germany.
The consortium meeting on 6 November 2017 in Budapest focussed on preparing the lab trials with the improved prototype PT1+ which was delivered and installed by consortium partners the same day.
The poster about the positive effects of user participation in the iToilet project submitted by the MS day care centre was accepted for presentation as poster for the Viennese nursing congress Pflegekongress17, 30 Nov - 1 Dec 2017
The iToilet protoype PT1+ was presented at Diversity-TU-DAY, 23 October 2017, in Vienna, Austria.
A report can be found here.
Mid of October 2017 an early version of the PT2 has been integrated in the laboratory.
Santis Kft. was awarded the 3rd place of the AAL Exhibtion Award 2017 at AAL Forum in Coimbra, Portugal, 2-4 Oct 2017.
A presentation of the iToilet project was given on the yearly AAL Forum, 2 - 4 Oct 2017, in Coimbra, Portugal. About 750 participants from several European countries participated in this event. Santis presented information about the already available sanitary products on the market and about the extensions currently being prepared in the framework of the iToilet AAL project. Hands-on demo of the standing up support was offered, some components of the iToilet system (e.g. Smart-Com's sensorbox and RFID reader) were presented and the demonstration video of the PT1 lab user trials was shown.
A successfull mid-term review meeting took place on 28 September 2017 at the premises of CS Caritas Socialis in Vienna. Two indepent experts and two representatives of the AAL CMU and NFAs reviewed and discussed achievements and plans with the consortium. See also a report of Carecenter GmbH in German here.
iToilet was invited for prototype presentation on the TU diversity day on October 23rd, 2017 at TU Wien, Austria.
An abstract about iToilet approach has been accepted for poster presentation on the AAL Forum, 2 - 4 Oct 2017, in Coimbra, Portugal.
A radio report about iToilet (in German) produced by the Austrian public broadcaster ORF is available as audio stream. (see publications)
Two presentations about iToilet have been given on the yearly congress of the Hungarian Rehabilitation society, 31 Aug - 2 Sept 2017, in Győr, Hungary. (see publications)
End of July 2017 two further toilet base modules (a chair-like base module for PT1+ and a LiftWC based module for PT2) were delivered to the laboratory in Vienna. Further integration work is being carried out.
A draft business plan has been elaborated by the SME partners led by CareCenter GmbH.
Participatory design activities have been continued to gather user input for development of next prototype.
A paper about iToilet user involvement was presented at the 2017 IEEE 15th International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics ICORR 2017 in London, 17-20 July 2017.
An oral presentation about iToilet (in German) was given at Forum IKT at Johannes Kepler University in Linz, Austria, 4-5 July 2017.
A video recording demonstrating the features of the iToilet prototype 1 was produced. The video (mp4) can be downloaded here (in German with captions in English).
The Austrian Federal Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology produced a brochure (in English and in German) about benefit/AAL. iToilet was selected as one of the project examples. (see publications)
The first laboratory tests with the 1st prototypes have been completed end of June 2017 in Hungary. The trial partners in Budpaest and Vienna are preparing a joint evaluation report including recommendations based on the discussion in the consortium.
A full project meeting (hosted by partner NIMR) took place in Budapest. The findings from user trials with the first prototype were presented and discussed. The planning of the 2nd prototype and the business plan were further important topics.
The iToilet project has been presented orally and on an exhibition booth at uDay XV – Umgebungsunterstütztes Leben in Dornbirn, Austria, on 22 June 2017. About 140 participants, thereof 30 senior citizens (mainly from Germany, Switzerland and Austria) attended the oral presenations and the AAL research and product exhibition.
A new prototype of a hand control unit has been built for the next Participatory Design sessions.
The laboratory user trials with prototype 1 have been completed successfully at MS day care centre of partner CS (beginning of June 2017).
The project work was presented at CHI conference in Denver, USA, at EFRR conference in Glasgow, UK, and at eHealth conference in Vienna, Austria. (see publications)
The first laboratory tests with the 1st prototypes have been started at the trial sites in Hungary and Austria.
In parallel, the planning for improvements of prototype 1 and for prototype 2 have been started.
After some technical fine tuning the prototype 1 was ready for laboratory trials in a toilet room at MS day care centre of CS (May 2017).
Selected components:
The prototype in a toilet room at rehabilitation clinic NIMR, Budapest.
The prototype during installation in a toilet room at MS day care centre of CS (April 2017).
Some technical challenges have been fixed to make the system ready for user trials in a laboratory setting.
Care experts from Caritas Socialis presented the iToilet poster [PDF in German] at Gerontologiekongress in Vienna. It outlines the involvement of older persons and MS patients in the design and development process.
Some interesting dialogues with the audience were initiated by the poster presentation, e.g. about importance of guiding technical development by expertise from user domain and about necessity for starting early involvement of tertiary users (e.g. funding organisations) into the process in order to support exploitation of future product versions.
A full project meeting took place on March 24th in Budapest (hosted by partner NIMR) after delivery of the first prototype in begin of March. Here the hands-on preparation of the prototype tests, the bug fixing and the preparation of the business plan were the main topics.
A technical integration meeting was held on January 31st in Vienna at partner CS. Exemplary installation in a real toilet room and gathering of hands-on experience of the user partners with the first prototype was done. This helped to plan the upcoming delivery and installation of PT1 at the user sites.
In parallel to the development and integration work the user partners are preparing the test of the first iToilet protoype in spring 2017 (January/February 2017).
Prototype 1 will demonstrate the modular concept around the base unit in form of laboratory (supervised) tests of some fundamental functions.
The modules of the iToilet system:
The specifications are guiding the development of modules for prototype 1 (July - December 2016). Not all features will be implemented already in prototype 1 and the modular concept foresees options which can be added to a base unit. Some features are seen as potential add-ons for a future product.
The approval of the tests in clinical environment at partner NIMR has been received.
Another round of participatory design sessions with users and staff at partner Caritas Socialis was conducted on the topic of hand controls (December 2016).
Different types of hand controls were provided for hands-on assessment. A design with big, clearly marked buttons with tactile feedback on both handrails was selected as the design goal for the iToilet prototypes.
A full project meeting was held at December 1st in Debrecen (hosted by partner Santis). Main topics were the progress of development and the planning of the prototype tests and the ethical assessment by use of the MEESTAR model.
The first of the prototype 1 chair modules (new construction) has been delivered by partner Santis. The control box for the chair functions is now integrated with the iToilet interface to allow communication with other modules. Safety and reliability of the chair functions are assessed and the tranfer to the room for installation during the user tests at partner CS is prepared (November/December 2016).
Aside from ongoing technical development the user partners with their users are co-designing some iToilet components. (October/November 2016)
During such participatory design sessions users and staff at partner Caritas Socialis recently discussed and assessed the drawbacks of current toilet paper dispensers.
The specifications for iToilet prototype 1 have now been fixed along the documented requirements (September 2016).
The data from the requirements collection has been processed (July 2016).
A prioritisation of requirements shows that they are in line with the project plans. Individual adjustments of height and the support for sitting down and standing up are high ranked. Additional qualitative input from the focus group interviews will be incorporated into the specifications.
A full consortium project meeting was held in July 15th in Budapest at NIMR. The prioritisation of user requirements and the transcription into specifications was discussed.
The user partner CS executed the user requirements collection in the user site in Vienna (June 2016).
First user requirements collection was done at the Hungarian test site of partner NIMR in Budapest (May 2016).
34 users, of which 20 primary users, 9 secondary users and 5 tertiary users, have been interviewed.
You can view the presentation given (translated from Hungarian).
The iToilet Kick-off meeting was held in Vienna on April 22, 2016. Representatives from all consortium partners met at Caritas Socialis in Vienna to plan the upcoming work.
The iToilet project website went online on April 1st, 2016
The project started on April 1st, 2016. A press release in German about the project start can be found here and here. Press releases in other languages are currently being prepared.
The iToilet Consortium Agreement entered into force on February 1st, 2016.