Has this high-tech toilet startup solved the public bathroom problem?

It’s a familiar problem: you’re out and about, and you’ve got to go. But you can’t get anywhere, you know, go.

Brentwood, Maryland-based company Throne Labs is trying to solve this problem with portable high-tech public toilets. The company hopes to eliminate the days of hanging out in a park bathroom smelling your breath or trying to find a coffee shop where you can use the restroom.

Instead, Throne users can find a location through the app and use a QR code to unlock the bathroom. Inside, users will find a flush toilet, a no-flush toilet, a sink, a trash can, a strong ventilation system, and a mirror (COO Jessica Heinzelman says people will be taking #ThronSelfies for Instagram). It’s a 180 from the typical portable bathrooms you’d find at a concert or sports game.

The group, which Heinzelman and CEO Fletcher Wilson, along with three other founding members, launched in June 2020, testing the first round of throne toilets in DC last year and recently installing the first permanent throne in Mount Rainier, Maryland this month.

“We started the company thinking that there are many different pockets of people in our cities that could use more and better bathrooms,” said Wilson, who lives in Charlottesville.

Wilson said he always believed technology could solve it. America’s public bathroom shortage–A problem exacerbated by Covid-related shutdowns. The lack of public bathrooms often affects the homeless, parents with young children, mobile workers, and those with medical conditions or disabilities, says Heinzelman (the latter suffers from what Wilson calls “self-diagnosed IBS.” He’s experienced it firsthand). Additionally, trans and Non-binary people often avoid using public bathrooms for fear of harassment, and women often have to wait in long lines for them.

“The cleaning industry is one of the most untouched by innovation and disruption,” says San Francisco-based Heinzelman. “It felt like a place that was really open to creative thinking and really impactful.”

Thrones are solar-powered – although they can be plugged into power if the location doesn’t get direct sunlight – and they don’t need a connection to water or sewage. Like other portable toilets, the waste goes into a storage tank under the system. The toilets are flushed twice and use gray water from hand washing. Sensors help the company know when to clean the bathroom or refill water tanks.

While they currently scan a QR code to find a throne, Throne Labs is considering tapping cards for people without smartphones and hopes to partner with nonprofits that serve the homeless, Heinzelman said.

User IDs are part of Zufan’s accountability system: after using a restroom, you are asked to rate the cleanliness. Meanwhile, each user will earn Uber-like “throne points,” and repeat offenders who misuse the restroom will be banned. Weight sensors monitor if someone is in the bathroom too long. “Very few people cause problems [public] Bathrooms, don’t respect the service, and then screw it up for the masses. “A lot of people really want and value that clean experience and leave the bathroom as soon as they find it,” Heinzelman says, adding that user IDs are a way to “create accountability that’s currently missing in shared bathrooms.”

Throne Labs is also working on an ADA-accessible bathroom, which it hopes to debut in March 2023, and is considering selling menstrual products in the restrooms in the future. The organization He wants to install enough thrones to create a network in the DMV over the next 12-18 months. Long term goal? A nationwide network of thrones – and possibly a global one. After all, “everybody needs a bath,” says Wilson.