Nextriv Sense Levellaser level sensor for dispensers

What it is for

The restroom is where visitors judge an entire building most harshly — and an empty dispenser can damage the reputation of a shopping centre, office building or airport more effectively than many a more serious fault. Yet the standard cleaning model is the patrol: staff check every cubicle in turn, whether it is needed or not. Half of those visits are unnecessary, and empty dispensers still happen — because consumption does not follow a schedule.

Nextriv Sense Level turns that model on its head. A miniature laser sensor (time-of-flight light measurement, ToF) just ~12 mm thick sticks inside the dispenser and measures how much supply is actually left — with ±1 cm accuracy and a dead zone of only 1 cm, so it works even in shallow dispensers. Alarm thresholds are set as a percentage of remaining supply, with no converting centimetres into rolls: "notify me when 20% is left" — and the service crew goes exactly where it is needed, exactly when it is needed.

The design is consistently built around the realities of a public restroom. A moisture-protective coating on the electronics withstands steam and humidity, a purpose-designed antenna keeps the device connected even from inside a metal dispenser, and a hibernation mode lets you put the sensor to sleep during the facility's closing hours — say, between 10 p.m. and 9 a.m. in a shopping centre — to extend battery life. The battery itself is an ordinary, widely available coin cell that lasts around 1.9–3.2 years depending on the radio configuration; a tool-free cover makes replacement a thirty-second job for cleaning staff, not a technician. This is an indoor device — it operates from −10 to 60 °C at humidity up to 95%.

Installation is a matter of double-sided adhesive tape — no drilling, no cables, no modifications to the dispenser. A QR code with the device ID on the front speeds up pairing and inventory, so a rollout of hundreds of points wraps up in a single day.

Usage scenarios

• Shopping centre at the weekend: the restrooms near the food court hit peak traffic while those near the offices sit empty. The dashboard shows the supply percentage in every dispenser — the crew refills selectively, and the complaints book stops filling up with "no paper" entries.
• Airport / railway station: hundreds of cubicles and round-the-clock traffic. Percentage-based alerts turn "just in case" patrols into precise interventions — fewer kilometres for staff, zero empty dispensers.
• Class A office building: the facility manager holds the cleaning company accountable for results, not presence. The reading history shows in black and white whether dispensers were refilled on time — an end to discussions based on impressions.
• Hospital / clinic: in a medical facility, a lack of hygiene supplies is not an inconvenience but a sanitary risk. The sensor watches the supply without involving staff who are in short supply anyway.
• Hotel: public restrooms by the lobby and conference rooms serviced just in time. A guest never encounters an empty dispenser, and housekeeping wastes no trips.
• Sports venue: after a match, restroom consumption spikes dozens of times over within an hour. Sensors show live which facilities need immediate restocking before the second half begins.

Key features

• Ultra-slim housing of ~12 mm and ~25 g — fits inside typical paper and towel dispensers from various manufacturers without taking up supply space.
• ToF laser measurement with a dead zone of only 1 cm and a ~25° field of view — it targets the supply, not the housing walls.
• Progressive resolution (1 mm at short distances) — the tail end of the supply, the part that matters most, is measured most precisely.
• Thresholds in percent of remaining supply — configured in the language of the cleaning service, no unit conversions.
• Hibernation mode following facility hours — editable schedule; in 24/7 facilities the feature can be disabled.
• An antenna designed to operate inside metal dispensers — connectivity where typical electronics lose signal.
• Mounted with adhesive tape, no tools; optional magnetic kit for metal dispensers and deployments without adhesive residue.
• Tool-free battery cover plus an ordinary, widely available coin cell — replacement in half a minute.
• QR code with the device ID on the front and NFC configuration — mass rollouts without chaos.

In the Nextriv system

Every dispenser becomes a percentage metric with four thresholds — a warning level for patrol planning and a critical level for immediate intervention. Notifications reach the crew through a channel that works in the field: SMS, push or an audible alarm in the app, while the facility management office gets e-mail or Microsoft Teams; the webhooks integration forwards the event to a ticketing system. Events carry statuses and comments, so the manager can see who refilled the supply and when.

A dashboard with a sensor table shows all of a facility's restrooms on a single screen, while PDF reports and XLSX/CSV exports document the service level for SLA billing. The natural partner in a "smart restroom" is the odour detector Nextriv Sense Gas — together they turn cleaning by timetable into cleaning by need.

Typical deployments

• Office buildings and shopping centres: every dispenser in the facility on one dashboard — solutions for buildings and for retail.
• Hotels and food service: guest areas serviced just in time — solutions for hospitality.
• Healthcare: continuous availability of hygiene supplies in patient areas — solutions for healthcare.
• Schools and public facilities: restrooms with spiky usage under constant control — solutions for schools.