FAQs
Anti-drowning & pool safety
What is drowning according to ISO 20380?
ISO 20380 describes drowning as a progressive process, not a sudden event: it begins with a phase of immersion/submersion and can rapidly evolve into severe or fatal respiratory impairment if not interrupted. The critical point is the time window in which risk becomes concrete and requires intervention. Aqutron sets detection as a system function aimed at reducing ambiguity and false alarms, supporting human intervention and event traceability.
Is drowning always a sudden event?
No. In operational reality, drowning is often silent and progressive: it is not a “dramatic dive,” but a sequence of signals and conditions that can worsen in a short time. For this reason, early risk detection and the ability to distinguish between voluntary immersions and potentially critical conditions make the difference, reducing false alarms and missed alarms.
Can an anti-drowning system replace the lifeguard?
No. Aqutron is designed as decision and operational support: it increases the ability to intercept risk conditions, reduces cognitive load, and provides traceable evidence, but it does not replace human judgment nor the operator’s organizational responsibility. The objective is to support more timely and proportionate interventions, not to automate responsibility.
Why do many systems generate false alarms?
Because they often have to “estimate” the immersion state with probabilistic (black box) logic, interpreting postures, occlusions, and temporary disappearances as critical events. In crowded contexts this increases false positives and/or missed alarms. Aqutron reduces ambiguity by setting objective criteria: when a visible subject no longer shows any emerged parts above the water level in a persistent way and consistent with other signals, the risk evaluation becomes more verifiable and stable.
Underwater cameras vs aerial systems: what are the trade-offs?
Underwater solutions may require many cameras, continuous maintenance, and introduce privacy perception issues and a lack of environmental context. Purely aerial systems, on the other hand, struggle to reliably determine emergence/immersion without resorting to complex and often poorly explainable estimates. Aqutron avoids submerged sensors and combines a view of the pool area with three-dimensional detection in the air space above the water, with local (edge) processing, to reduce invasiveness and ambiguity.
Preventive safety (hotels & resorts)
Which incidents are most common in hotel and resort pool areas?
Many incidents are not sudden emergencies but derive from conditions and behaviors: improper access outside allowed hours, non-compliant use of areas, abnormal crowding, falls, and slips in perimeter zones. Preventive safety aims to intercept potentially risky conditions before they evolve into incidents, especially when continuous supervision is not present.
Who is responsible if an incident occurs outside operating hours or in the absence of supervision?
Responsibility depends on context, internal rules, signage, preventive measures, and adopted protocols. In practice, what makes the difference is demonstrating a proportionate and documentable approach: clear rules, reasonable preventive measures, and traceability of events and decisions. Aqutron is designed to support this type of governance: it observes, reports anomalous conditions, and documents events and actions.
How can access control to the pool area be managed without worsening the guest experience?
The key is proportionality: the system should not “surveil” people, but detect operational conditions (presence during prohibited hours, improper access, incompatible behaviors, abnormal crowding) and support coherent interventions. The objective is to prevent risky situations without interfering with the guest experience, reducing the operator’s exposure.
Is preventive safety video surveillance?
Not necessarily. A properly designed system operates for safety and prevention purposes with privacy-by-design, minimization, and proportionality principles. Aqutron is designed to operate on-site (edge) and to avoid invasive logic (e.g., biometric recognition), focusing on operational context detection and traceability, not on surveillance of people’s identities.
Energy saving & operations
Why do pools consume energy even with low usage?
Because many facilities are managed with static logic (schedules, fixed setpoints, overstated safety margins) that do not reflect real use. This leads pumps, cycles, and parameters to operate in a poorly adaptive way even when occupancy and organic load are low. Aqutron positions efficiency as the consequence of a system that understands real usage and governs the infrastructure continuously and traceably.
Is it possible to adapt operations (e.g., cycles) to real use without compromising safety and compliance?
Yes, if optimization is governed by clear criteria and constraints: efficiency must not “override” safety, quality, and continuity requirements. Aqutron uses the same operational flow of the platform (detect→understand→evaluate→act→document) to transform consumption from a static parameter into an adaptive variable, while maintaining traceability of decisions.
How can correct behavior be demonstrated during audits/inspections?
Evidence is required: logs of events, decisions, and operational conditions. An approach based on traceability and documentability reduces ambiguity in checks, because it allows you to show “what happened” and “why” certain setpoints or actions were applied. Aqutron is designed to document events and decisions as part of the system flow.
How the system works (edge, AI, sensors)
Does the system operate in the cloud or at the edge?
Aqutron is designed for local (edge) processing, so the primary decision cycle does not depend on the cloud. This is consistent with high-responsibility environments: it reduces external dependencies, improves operational predictability, and supports privacy-by-design. Any management or consultation functions are separate from mission-critical control.
Are submerged sensors or invasive installations required?
No. The approach is designed to function without submerged sensors and without structural interventions on the pool. Devices are installed out of the water and can be integrated into existing facilities, with modular and scalable adoption.
Does the system use facial or biometric recognition?
No. The objective is operational safety and prevention, not identification of people. The architecture favors context detection and objective criteria (e.g., emerged/non-emerged state, temporal persistence) and on-site processing, reducing the risk of invasive processing.
What does a “deterministic approach” to submersion state mean?
It means basing the assessment on verifiable and repeatable conditions, not on opaque probabilistic estimates. In practical terms, when a visible subject no longer shows any emerged parts above the water surface in a persistent manner and consistent with other signals (temporal dynamics, absence of movement), the condition is treated as an objective sensory discrepancy, reducing ambiguity and false alarms.
Mission-critical, auditability & responsibility
Is the system designed for mission-critical contexts?
Yes: the architecture is designed for operational continuity, explainable decisions, and traceability. In high-responsibility environments, “working” is not enough: what matters is being able to demonstrate what was detected, how risk was assessed, and which actions were supported. For this reason, event documentation is an integral part of the system.
Is it possible to reconstruct events afterward?
Yes, because the platform is designed to document events and decisions as part of the operational flow. This supports internal audits, technical evaluations, and stronger governance, reducing the opacity typical of systems based on unexplained alarms.
Privacy, GDPR & AI governance
How is privacy addressed in a sensitive context such as a swimming pool?
A swimming pool is a highly privacy-sensitive environment. A serious system must adopt privacy-by-design, minimization, and proportionality principles, avoiding invasive solutions (e.g., close-up underwater cameras or biometrics). Aqutron operates with edge processing and logic oriented to operational context, reducing exposure and increasing the project’s privacy sustainability.
Is the system “GDPR-compliant”?
Compliance always depends on the context of use and correct configuration (purposes, notices, legal bases, minimization, technical/organizational measures). Aqutron is designed to support a GDPR-friendly setup: on-site processing, reduced dependence on the cloud, no biometrics, traceability of decisions, and support for processing governance.
Installation & usage contexts
Is the system suitable for existing facilities?
Yes. Aqutron is designed for integration into real infrastructures, without invasive interventions on the pool and without modifying the user experience. Adoption is modular: functions can be activated progressively and scaled over time based on the operational context.
Can installation be carried out in phases?
Yes. The system is designed for phased commissioning, reducing downtime and operational impact. The platform allows progressive activation of functions, extensions to new modules, and updates without invasive interventions, consistent with an evolutionary roadmap of the facility.
Do you have a specific case to evaluate?
Review the most relevant context first: