News 2022

NGK SPARK PLUG Co., Ltd. is pleased to announce the launch of “SAMPO Touch” on July 5, which encourages your elderly parents to continue walking while enjoying the growth of their grandchildren. Connecting the hearts and lives of three generations of your family, SAMPO Touch will help the senior family members to stay healthy, even when not living together, while deepening family ties.

Features of the Product
“SAMPO Touch" provides a service to bring the joy of Sampo (which means “going for a walk” in Japanese) to elderly parents not living together by sending them the photos and voice messages from their grandchildren through a touch pad and an app.

Before going for a walk, the grandparents can scan their smartphone over the touch pad, and they will hear a voice massage from their grandchildren stored in the app, such as "Have a nice day, grandma."
When they return home, they can scan again their smartphone over the touch pad, and they will receive a voice message such as "welcome home, grandpa" together with some photos and/or videos from their grandchildren stored in the app.

Their son/daughter and grandchildren will receive a notification every time the grandparents start going for a walk and return home, allowing them to casually keep an eye on the daily activities of their senior family members.

Background of the Product
Under the "2030 Long-Term Management Plan NITTOKU BX," NGK SPARK PLUG Co., Ltd. has designated the four focus areas: "Environment and Energy," "Mobility," "Medical," and "Communication." We are working to develop new businesses to solve the challenges facing the world.

In the medical field, we have been contributing to improving the quality of life of the patients with chronic respiratory failures receiving home oxygen therapy for more than 20 years through our oxygen concentrator business.

Currently in Japan, in order to improve the quality of life of middle-aged and elderly people, the psychological connection with distant family members and daily exercises are sought more than ever before, triggered by the trend toward nuclear families and aging population, as well as the behavioral restrictions imposed by the spread of Covid 19.

We developed “SAMPO Touch” for those people to enjoy daily walks triggered by the voices and images of their grandchildren and other family members. We hope that it will help everyone appreciate sound mental and physical health, connections with people, and the changes of seasons outside, to enhance richness in the life.

Our philosophy for this project is "LINK OUR HEARTS, IGNITE YOUR HEARTS." We are committed to rollout solutions and develop more products for daily life to encourage healthy behaviors through human connections. We will continue to make efforts toward the realization of the sustainable society.