Toyota Touts Toilet Tracking Tech For iOS And Android

In a world of cyber attacks, IT failures and connected industrial machines, Japanese car giant Toyota has embraced connected tech with a different bend.

Toyota has released a navigation app, available on iOS and Android, that helps users find their way to the nearest publicly accessible restroom in Japan.

Designed with motorists caught short on their trips around Japan in mind, the Restroom Finder application will be added to the TC Smartphone Navigation, a free navigation system Toyota provides to help its customers get directions and avoid traffic jams.

Toyota toilet tracker

Given TC Smartphone Navigation provides a suite of information and services, such as being able to find a parking space and reserve it from with in the app, it makes fairly sound logic that a lavatory-locating function would be added into the mix. After all, many of us who drive will no doubt have experienced the minor panic as a call of nature makes itself known and signs for nearby motorway services are nowhere to be seen.

While the Restroom Finder app is currently limited to Japan, it provides information for what Toyota claims to be approximately 19,000 publicly accessible restrooms at a range of locations, varying from highways and general roads to recreational areas and museums.

And Toyota plans to add more functionality, including features that better fit the varied lifestyles of its customers.

While the app might seem like an odd bit of software for Toyota to champion, it serves to highlight how the Internet of Things (IoT) can be used to provide genuinely useful services for average people, rather then simply underpin the idea of digital transformation for large enterprises.

The continued development of more connected services for cars, artificial intelligence systems for smart cites, and the push toward bringing driverless cars into everyday motoring, means we are likely to see more apps that help us make the most of of public information and connected facilities.

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