Sonia Grego has been thinking for the past 10 years about toilets, and specifically what we put in them. The Duke University researcher professor says that we are laser-focused upon the analysis of stool. This is despite the fact that we have all the self-consciousness of someone who used to talk about bodily functions. There is an amazing opportunity to collect health data that has yet to be discovered. This information isn't being tapped due to the universal fear of having to do anything with your stool.
Grego, co-founder of Coprata is currently working on a toilet using sensors and artificial intelligence to analyze waste. She hopes to have a prototype ready for a pilot study in nine months. She says that the toilet you currently have in your house has not changed in function since its introduction in the second half 19th century. Although there are now heated seats and loos that can wash your genitals, they are still very basic in comparison to Grego's vision. Your electricity, communication, and even your doorbell are all enhanced.
Smart toilets are here and they have a huge market. Anyone who can use a toilet multiple times per day will benefit. Grego says that it is possible to imagine a world where every household has a toilet that does more then flush out feces. Many companies are working to bring that to market. It's a race to bottom, if I may.
The loo is being considered the best health monitoring tool by smart toilet designers. Grego is confident that her product, which analyzes stool samples and transmits the data to an application, will give information about cancer and other chronic diseases. It will give peace of mind to general consumers by setting a healthy baseline. She says it is difficult to determine when to escalate or deescalate treatment. This information can be provided by stool-based biomarkers.
She believes that one day, a smart toilet will be able to make lifestyle recommendations. It could suggest how to eat or what foods caused an upset stomach. Grego says that nutrition science is moving towards personalized nutrition. Because you already know what you eat, our technology can help you obtain the information you need.
Joshua Coons' academic lab has been developing toilet technology that is focused on urine. It is easier to analyse and sample urine. Coon describes himself as a smart-toilet enthusiast and not someone trying to rush to bring a product to market. However, he claims he is currently in discussions with industry leaders. Coon, a professor of biochemistry and chemistry at the University of Wisconsin Madison, said that there are many thousand of small molecules in urine. They give insight into what's happening.
Two people, one of which was Coon, saved every urine sample over a 10-day period in a small study. You can detect compounds that can be used to diagnose exercise [if you've done any]. You can also see when an over-the counter medication enters the system and clears it out. Additionally, you can see molecules that correlate to how well you sleep, how much fat your diet contains, and how many calories you consumed.
He says that the study was not designed to examine long-term health. However, the implications of this are significant. This data can be combined with lifestyle and health records to show that a lot of these molecules could indicate important disease risk factors and help predict the need for intervention. This vision is possible if one has the technical ability to measure these molecules in a bathroom.
At the 2020 Consumer Electronics Show, Numi, a smart toilet by Kohler was on display. Photograph: Steve Marcus/Reuters
Similar developments were made in other countries. A smart toilet that measured body fat and tested urine was launched by Panasonic in China in 2018. Toto, a Japanese manufacturer, announced this year that its wellness toilet is a concept. However, it is still in development. It previously created a toilet that analyzes urine flow. The sensors, which include one for smell, would detect stress and other health conditions. They could also suggest lifestyle changes. The company provided one image showing the toilet sending you recipes for salmon and avocado salad.
Stanford School of Medicine researchers have been developing technology to analyse faeces, including stool dropping times. They also track the velocity and color of urine and can test it. According to the Wall Street Journal, the researchers have partnered up with Izen, a Korean toilet manufacturer. They hope to have prototypes ready by the end of this year. Izen created a scanner to distinguish between users. Your analprint is, just like your fingerprints are, unique.
Vik Kashyap claims we are ready (well, maybe not scanners in Stanfords research of user acceptance, where analprint is the least liked module). Toi Labs, Kashyap's company, has been in the smart toilet industry for over two decades. He has a long-standing interest in gut health and successfully treated his own ulcerative bowel disease by eating parasitic worms. While he has seen many companies fail to create smart toilets, he believes now is the right time. It is now common to monitor our data using wearables like an Apple Watch or Fitbit. We are also less fussy. Kashyap attributes this to the increased interest in and research into the microbiome, our gut health, and poo.
He believes that the pandemic is accelerating matters. The run on loo rolls highlighted the fact people panicked about their bottoms while laboratories tested sewage to track down the virus. The cost of installing sensor-based Internet of Things systems in your home has dropped significantly. Alexa and other products are well-known, and people are realizing that their homes will change over time.
One company imagines that its toilet will send you a recipe to make salmon and avocado salad.
TrueLoo is a toilet seat that Kashyap designed. It can be attached to any existing toilet. The toilet seat recognizes the user using their phone or other physiological parameters. For example, what weight do they have? The seat analyzes excreta by using optical methods. It looks at things such as volume, clarity, consistency and colour. It can detect abnormal patterns in people and provide reports to doctors that can help with the treatment of various conditions.
TrueLoo's current focus is on older adults who are more likely to have gastrointestinal and genitourinary problems. However, Kashyap states that TrueLoo has an eye toward this product being used by everyone with a toilet.
Kashyap thought that he should study biochemistry when he started to think about analysing waste. He says that he has learned a lot about the technology involved in visual analysis over the years. It is also much cheaper. It also comes at a lower cost. It is impossible to tell someone that I am going to replace my $20 toilet seat with a $2,000 or $12,000 toilet seat.
Kashyap believes, although he admits that he is biased, that some form of smart toilet will be the most important home medical product. While wearables have limitations, the toilet will allow for a deeper understanding of a person's health.
Are all these your analprints out there in the world? Is the analysis of your bowel movements a privacy breach too far, or is it just your personal information? Eerke Boiten is a professor at De Montfort University, Leicester. Which organisation holds this data? With whom will they share data? Which data will it be combined with? Is there any transparency as to where the data is going? We don't know the full extent of the risks in this area. This area requires extensive research.
Many people would not, and for very good reasons. For example, cameras pointed up at their bottoms. Phil Booth is the coordinator of MedConfidential which advocates for confidentiality of medical records. However, using smart toilets as medical devices does not pose privacy risks if you have a doctor on your side. It might be interesting to see if data generated by general consumer usage was owned by a company. While you may trust that company, all companies are easily buyable by Amazon, Google, Facebook, or Facebook. What I thought was for my health monitoring became fodder for business models that I don't really understand.
In Hangzhou, east China, smart toilets are being made. Photograph by VCG/Getty Images
Booth says that Fitbits were bought by people thinking they were a new way to track their exercise. But, then, Google purchases them. All that rich data is suddenly absorbed into a company with other agendas. Google bought Fitbits because they were a cool way to track their exercise and, hey presto, Google buys it. It has access to the data of 50 million Americans and 1.6 million NHS patients. Google is interested in your bathroom habits. It patents a toilet seat sensor in 2016, which it also invented.
Booth states that companies are linking together data about your bodily waste. What data are they trying to analyze about you? Profile you for? They are surveillance homes.
The information from your stool and urine could reveal everything you need to know about your health, including your risk of developing a disease or your diet. It also can provide details such as your exercise levels, how much alcohol you consume, and whether you use drugs. Tracking something as simple as how often you go to the toilet each night could help identify conditions like depression and anxiety.
It all ends. Are police and others involved in surveillance able to track you via analprint? This could be done through the public and private smart lavatories that you use. Could you be asked to give a print at a station?
What data do companies link together? What data are they trying to analyze about you? Profile you for? Phil Booth
Imagine a world in which smart toilets at work could tell if employees are pregnant, taking drugs, or at high risk of mental or physical ill-health. This would suggest that they may not be as productive or likely to be absent from work. Booth cites Texas as an example of a state that has recently increased restrictions on abortion. It is possible to tell if someone is pregnant by their poo. However, it does illustrate the danger.
It's not difficult to imagine parents using technology to see if their teenagers are using drugs. Booth says that once you begin to measure something of the body, privacy is no longer an issue. You can't measure the bowel movements of someone if you don't measure them.
Booth laughs, despite this alarming thought. Booth says that it is not like governments will require smart toilets. Booth says that there will always be people who enjoy tracking and measuring themselves. Smart loos that collect medical data are considered medical devices, it is a direct medical breach risk. This is not because the toilet has been turned into a data-generating machine. How are they managing these risks?
Coon is also aware of these issues. Are insurance companies able to see what is in your urine? It is possible to imagine all the problems, but insurance companies can access your urine. This would likely fall under the same risk category, and there is some protection, at least in the US.
Is the smart toilet going to be a standard bathroom fixture? This question applies only to the developed world. Talking about toilet inequality, nearly half of the world's population is without access to safe sanitation. However, smart toilets researchers are optimistic. Coon says that it is about finding a way to make the technology in the lab work on a toilet scale that is affordable and reliable. That is the challenge. It could take 10 or 30 years, but it is something I believe will happen.
