I think the application for this is to return some dignity and independence to people who have physical trouble washing themselves. Of course the form factor of the 1970 prototype wouldn’t do that, but that can be fixed.
There was a New Yorker short story I read years ago about an elderly woman in a nursing home, and this wasn't the point of the story at all, but the main thing I remember is how the woman wanted to live with her daughter until her daughter pointed out that assisted/accessible bathing would be impossible in the daughter's tiny apartment shower.