AI-Powered Toilet Camera Aims to Revolutionize Gut Health Monitoring

AI toilet camera snaps pictures of poop -- here's why you want a...

A Texas startup named Throne is making waves in scatological circles after devising a camera that attaches to your toilet and photographs your poop. "Throne uses a downward facing camera that securely captures video during each bathroom visit," the Austin-based tech firm writes while describing the crappy camera, simply dubbed Throne, on their site. They're not filming bowel movements for s-ts and giggles, however. This seemingly voyeuristic tech is used to lift the lid on the user's gut health. The downward-facing device simply clips onto the toilet rim and snaps videos of your stool. Afterward, doctor-trained artificial intelligence analyzes the stool and provides insight into the user's daily "digestive and hydration status." This doody data, along with tailored health recs, is then made available via an accompanying Smartphone application. Throne is specifically searching for health markers in excrement as well as "nuances" in the urine to determine the pooper's level of hydration, TechCrunch reported. On a larger scale, "monitoring bowel movements can provide valuable insights into digestive health and nutrient absorption, as well as serve as an early warning sign for various conditions like gastrointestinal bleeding," the site describes. "It's a cost-effective, non-invasive way to keep tabs on overall health," they add. "And for individuals with chronic gastrointestinal diseases, it's an essential part of ongoing management." Of course, these fecal photo-ops do raise some privacy concerns -- as myriad Airbnb horror stories have proven, there are few things more violating than a cam in the bathroom, let alone the john. However, Throne assures prospective users on the site that they understand that this health info is "incredibly personal." To protect users' privacy, the digital doo-cumenter only records the "contents of your toilet bowl," per the site "Any other data is irrelevant to our mission and could compromise our ability to provide accurate health insights," Throne declares. "We use image recognition technology to automatically delete any non-relevant images. This ensures that only toilet-related data is retained." Users can also request complete access to the data they collected while the company will delete any info upon demand (no need to worry that it's being hacked and sent to the fecal fetish industry). Best of all, all the data is "anonymized," meaning the data can't be traced back to the original user. The toilet cam sets users back $499, though the company is selling it for $299 for those who want to get in early.

This Toilet Attachment Takes Pictures of Your Poop (for a Good Reason)

A company called Throne wants to take pictures of your poop, before having a combination of artificial intelligence and human physicians analyze it. While this may seem to be a combination of gross, creepy, and unnecessary, there is some serious science behind the idea. Throne Wants to Use AI to Analyze Your Poop Throne is selling a camera that attaches to your toilet seat in order to take pictures of your poop. Those images are then sent via Bluetooth to an app, as well as to Throne's servers for analysis. First, what Throne calls "artificial gut intelligence" will take a look. This has been "trained by physicians to help you understand what your waste is trying to tell you about your health." Then, Throne's "team of physicians manually review anonymized images to classify poop as healthy or unhealthy, spot the nuances in urine color for hydration levels, and identify other health indicators in your waste." There are some obvious privacy and security concerns here, and Throne only added a page addressing these issues after TechCrunch inquired about them. However, the company promises to "only capture images of the contents of your toilet bowl." So, that's OK then. Currently in beta, the toilet attachment costs $299, though the version to follow has an MSRP of $499. Upon general release, the app will cost $96/year, but anyone pre-ordering Throne gets access throughout the beta, plus one year free. Gut Health Is Important, But Questions Remain The fact is, gut health is important, and there is currently a lot of research being done to determine quite how important it is to your overall health. Humans inherently know that the state of their stools can indicate other issues, which is why many of us take a look before flushing. However, regardless of all that, how many of us will want someone else looking at our waste products anywhere other than in a lab? And how many people will be comfortable having a camera sitting inside their toilet bowl? If Throne can convince enough people that this is all fine, then it may be onto something. But I suspect that, regardless of how involved AI is getting in healthcare, most of us will continue to peer inside the bowl as and when necessary, and consult a doctor when something seems off.

This Toilet Seat Has a Camera for Taking Pictures of Your Poop

The seat's camera uses "artificial gut intelligence" to help identify any potential digestive health issues. I've been uncomfortable ever since I learned (via TechCrunch) about this toilet seat with a camera that takes pictures of your poop. Courtesy of an Austin-based health startup, Throne, this seat is currently available to preorder for $299 or $499 if you purchase it after the preorder period ends. It's in beta mode at the moment. The concept is to photograph your feces so the seat can provide feedback on your gut health and hydration levels. It's powered by an AI model that Throne calls "artificial gut intelligence." According to the company, the AI is "trained by physicians to help you understand what your waste is trying to tell you about your health." This makes the seat suitable for folks with gut health issues but could also help perfectly healthy people. Of course, the biggest concern here is privacy, which Throne has tried its best to defend. It has a dedicated privacy and security page on the site that outlines everything it's done to ensure it. First, it promises the images to strictly capture the toilet bowl and nothing else, adding, "We use image recognition technology to automatically delete any non-relevant images" and "Any other data is irrelevant to our mission and could compromise our ability to provide accurate health insights." It also mentions that you can contact the company here at any time to request access to your information or demand an account deletion. Throne clarifies that the images are all anonymized and not shared with third parties. Despite the many security measures, I'm unsure how I'd feel about this incredibly invasive tech clipping onto my toilet seat. As someone with no gut health issues, I don't have much reason to go for it, but it'd be interesting to show this to my perpetually constipated sister and see if it's something she'd ever consider. TechCrunch mentions that Throne started as a healthcare staffing marketplace but soon realized the space was overly saturated. It then pivoted to producing consumer tech and chose a camera-installed toilet seat as its debut. Toilet seats can really do it all these days. I recently checked out Toto's new washlet that does a ridiculous number of things for you, including auto-opening and closing, pre-misting the bowl before use, heating up, washing and drying your butt and the seat, deodorizing the air when you're done with your business, among many other functions. So maybe a toilet that'll tell you if your poop is healthy doesn't seem too much of a stretch.

This toilet attachment uses AI and a team of physicians to photograph, analyse, and report the full scoop on your poop

If you're keen on logging your logs, then the Throne might be just up your alley. Having a healthy gut is no laughing matter and as someone with IBS, I get frequent reminders of how delicate our digestive system really is. This is probably why a health tech start-up Throne Science has decided that the best way to monitor the status of your food chute is to sell a camera that you mount to your toilet and have AI servers analyse what it sees in the bowl. We spotted the down and dirty on the Throne, for that's what's it obviously called, over at TechCrunch and oh boy, is it an eye-opener. Toilets that analyse the contents of a motion aren't a new idea but replacing one's lavatory with a fully specced up 'smart loo' isn't exactly cheap. Throne gets around some of that cost by simply being a camera system that you hook over the rim of the toilet. It has a Bluetooth transmitter that sends the results to your phone, where the required app then keeps track of everything it observes and the outcome of the analysis performed by Throne Science's servers. These computers use AI to correctly determine what the images are showing (so no throwing a rubber ducky down the pan to mess with the data) and based on the shape, size, and structure of one's stools, it logs how your daily motions are going. Now, if you're worried about people's poop ruining your toilet achievements, then don't worry -- the system only activates if it detects a phone with the app installed and an account set up. And you can forget about privacy concerns, too, as the camera only takes snapshots of your bowels' ejecta and nothing else, and all data that's sent to Throne Science is anonymised. That said, the company only added a privacy and security page to its website "at TechCrunch's behest," which isn't overly confidence-inspiring. What's a little more disconcerting for me is that while AI is used to figure out if a poop is a poop, the final, verified images are all "manually review[ed]" by Throne Science's "team of physicians," using the Bristol Stool Scale as a means to feed the results back to you in an easily digestible format. I think I'd prefer to ask my own doctor about such things if I'm honest. But perhaps that's a minor price to pay for peace of mind, knowing that someone is constantly tracking your stools, and giving you the lowdown on your gut health, dietary habits, and so on. Speaking of price, the Throne costs $299 if you buy one now, although the company does state that this is a beta version. What may put you off, other than the mental image of a server filling up with millions of images of poop, is that the app requires a subscription. While free during the beta period of the Throne and you get a further 12 months if you buy one now, once in full production, the Throne's app will set you back $96 per year. Or you could just eat healthily and take a good look at your prize logs before you flush. One doesn't a piece of tech to determine whether you should have eaten that week-old meal you left hiding in the back of the fridge.