Portugal’s TOMI smart city displays go touchless

Portugal-based smart city solutions company TOMI has launched a new way to interact with the smart city digital displays. The user need to read the QR Code on the screens with a smartphone and can explore all the contents (news, events, points of interest, public services, transport) or even take a photo.

The remote control system makes it possible for users to access all the information and functions provided by TOMI, without touching the screens, including browsing content and category listings, textual searches, getting directions, scrolling content, taking pictures and sending emails. For each command received by TOMI, an audio feedback is read in the language selected by the user.

Created to accompany the “new normality” in Portugal, this new form of interactivity will allow everyone to use the device safely, through the use of their personal smartphone to send commands to TOMI.

During the period of state of emergency in Portugal, TOMI has been implementing several functionalities to help in the prevention, alert and awareness of Covid-19.

In addition to sharing preventive measures and recommendations in collaboration with national health authorities, TOMI also implemented an innovative initiative to detect people on the street and activate alerts depending on the number of individuals. As the seriousness of Covid-19 persisted and grew, TOMI’s messages to inform communities evolved to include social distancing reminders and “stay at home” advices.

Using the computer vision module, TOMI can detect the presence of humans on the street, and issue awareness messages according to the number of people detected. It is suggested to stay at home for those who are detected alone. The safety distance is recommended when groups of people are identified.

It is also possible to detect an abnormal number of people on the street and send an alert, identifying the location of the occurrence, to police forces or local authorities.

TOMI also provides dynamic updates in real time, and shows the latest tweets from national health entities in Portugal, Brazil and Chile. This way, people can stay aware of the latest information on the Covid-19 outbreak with trustworthy and authoritative information about this pandemic.