The smart toilet
A shipping revolution
ACO Marine has dedicated itself for more than twelve years to the special challenges of wastewater management and drainage technology on the high seas. It is the only company world-wide to provide complete solutions for black and grey water management from its own production. The patented grease separators with which ACO Marine began, now boast a market share of over 60 per cent. They are on numerous mega yachts and many cruise liners such as the ships of the AIDA fleet.
An example of ACO Marine's peak performance is the new AVT 100 smart toilet. This innovation makes it possible, on cruise liners in particular, to control all toilets electronically, and particularly important, to control them centrally. This technology replaces the underpressure toilets which have been widely used over the last 30 years. To maintain this constant underpressure on a cruise liner with many more than 3,000 cabins (and therefore toilets), located at several levels, previously required all adjustments to be made manually − an enormous logistical as well as human resource effort.
The alternative system from ACO Marine is controlled electronically and contains a microchip. This enables all of the toilets on a large cruise liner to be centrally linked with one another and connected up to any existing software system, or alternatively to be controlled separately via mobile devices. This "remote control" enables just one single crew member to adjust all of the microchips individually without having to go in to any of the cabins themselves. Adjustments include the water pressure, which has to be different at every location on the ship, or changing the volume of water per flush. Being able to make adjustments in this way, on large passenger ships in particular, considerably improves the comfort for passengers. The same applies to the option of remotely controlled repairs. With the new technology, the central control unit is the first to know what is precisely wrong with the toilet and then raises the problem with an alarm. The problem can then be rectified by a simple click without passengers ever being aware of there having been a problem in the first place.
After intensive testing, the ACO AVT 100 smart will be launched on the market in mid 2019. "This technology revolutionises the cruise ship industry," says ACO Marine Managing Director Lukas Kaisler.
