Japanese scientists create a washing machine for humans: what it is and how it will work

If fluffy foam, aromatic oil, and even rose petals in your bathtub no longer surprise or delight you, Japanese engineers have created something that will definitely impress you. They call their invention a "washing machine for people."

According to the Daily Mail, the Project Usoyaro device looks like a capsule with a comfortable lounge chair and a large screen inside. While a person rests inside this capsule filled with warm water, the screen shows special videos selected by artificial intelligence for relaxation. At the same time, nozzles located around the body spray the body from all sides with powerful jets of water saturated with a large number of small air bubbles. Due to these bubbles, all dirt is removed from the body.

Project Usoyaro was developed by Science, an Osaka-based technology company that specializes in creating bubble shower and bath heads. It is expected that their development will be ready by 2024, and it is planned to present it to the public for the first time at the Osaka Expo in 2025. The device's specialty will be video projections. According to the developers, they should "wash the mind" in the same way that water washes the body.

The inspiration for the development of such a "washing machine" was an ultrasonic bathtub from Sanyo Electric, which was demonstrated in the Osaka pavilion at the 1970 Osaka Expo. The head of Science, Yasuaki Aoyama, saw it when he was 10 years old and was very impressed. The egg-shaped bathtub was automatically filled with hot water as soon as a person sat down in it, and then 300 massage balls began to massage their body while ultrasonic waves removed all impurities. The person would leave the bath completely dry. The whole bathing process took 15 minutes.

This innovative device did not become a mass-market product because at that time it was not yet common in Japan to have a bathtub at home. However, Sanyo later used the ultrasonic cleaning technology in its washing machines, becoming a pioneer in this market.

Yasuaki Aoyama was also concerned about his colleagues' invention because one of his daughters suffered from skin inflammation due to chlorine in tap water. So about 20 years ago, he asked a friend of his to create a special shower head that could be filled with chemicals that would remove chlorine from the water as it passed through the nozzle. The invention worked, and the daughter of the head of Science got rid of her problem. So Aoyama decided to make this device mass-produced.

The bubbles with a diameter of just three micrometers, which are released by his nozzles, are able to wash away dirt and chlorine from the skin. Since 2007, they have been bought not only for home use but also for use in hospitals.

Science is currently working with former Sanyo Electric engineers and scientists from Osaka University to create a "washing machine for people." They have already equipped the prototype with a heart rate sensor. In this way, Project Usoyaro monitors the state of the human nervous system inside the device and adjusts the choice of images that it sees on the screen in front of it accordingly. Now, artificial intelligence is learning to select the most relaxing content to show to a person taking a bath. The developers hope that their device will be useful in hospitals and nursing homes to improve care for people. They also plan to sell it for home use.