Kohler launches smart toilet camera

https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/19/kohler-unveils-a-camera-for-your-toilet/

by alangibson • 9 months ago

32 69 9 months ago

techcrunch.com

rolph• 9 months ago

a $599 camera.

between $70 and $156 per year for a subscription.

who would do that ?

nevermind its a rule 35 scenario.

spankibalt• 9 months ago

who would do that ?

Discriminating anal-ysts.

JohnFen• 9 months ago

The phrase "more money than sense" comes to mind.

chmod775• 9 months ago

Not a lot of people and presumably they know that, hence the price.

darth_avocado• 9 months ago

I’ve been on the internet long enough to tell you that there is a market.

throwaway48476• 9 months ago

There's a parliament where they kept finding cameras in the bathrooms.

ulf-777232• 9 months ago

Shit just got real

pixelatedindex2• 9 months ago

Sometimes we really oughta ask ourselves if we should do something just because we can.

horsawlarway• 9 months ago

See - I actually think this is a pretty interesting idea. Stool/Urine are fairly solid indicators of personal health in a lot of ways.

But I think this is a product that probably shouldn't be allowed to exist as a standard SaaS/IoT product.

If this was a box I could hook up on my toilet that showed useful info on a screen locally - with zero network access... I'd consider buying.

---

People are really glib about the loss of control relying on someone else's computer brings.

between service enshittification, company death (out of business), privacy concerns, and ownership contention (do I own a device if a company keeps keys to the locks inside it and won't give them to me? I'd argue a solid and resounding "NO")... I don't want anything to do with most modern networked devices in the form of IoT.

allears• 9 months ago

I'd say this was pretty literally enshittification...

pixelatedindex2• 9 months ago

Oh I certainly believe there is merit to the idea. But the execution is… a bit concerning

brewdad2• 9 months ago

Sure. Load the data locally onto an SD card that I can use to share the data with my doctor. Sending the data off to some remote third party via a questionable internet connection is a no-go for me.

mytailorisrich• 9 months ago

From Kohler's website: "Deep dive into Dekoda’s design"

Intentional humour?

4d4m• 9 months ago

Someone saw Smart Pipe and thought it was real?

ToniCipriani• 9 months ago

Came here looking for the Smartpipe reference, left satisfied.

dag11• 9 months ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJklHwoYgBQ

einsteinx2• 9 months ago

Immediately what I thought of as well haha

koakuma-chan2• 9 months ago

I don't see how this is practical unless your toilet has a USB port to provide power.

mikestew3• 9 months ago

From the linked CNET article: "The device has a removable, rechargeable battery and uses a USB connection." Or, if you're willing to spend $600 on a poop camera, you probably already have a bidet with power near the toilet.

koakuma-chan2• 9 months ago

Would you really take it out of the toilet, wash it, wait for it to charge, and put it back on a regular basis? I have enough chores already.

dagmx• 9 months ago

Presumably there’s some power near the toilet, or they’re self selecting for people who do. Beyond that, it has a rechargeable battery for those who do not.

Electric bidets are not uncommon, and are popular depending where you are in the world.

quickthrowman• 9 months ago

I’m not sure there are enough .. well.. fetishists to support this subscription service. I assume there’s a market, but at a lower price point with no subscription.

What a weird product, I don’t want anyone examinining my feces remotely unless I give them a sample myself.

Strangely enough, the Secret Service goes to great lengths to intercept and dispose of the President’s bodily waste (like disconnecting the black water pipe and connecting a temporary tank to collect waste). I believe Putin has his waste collected as well, probably other world leaders too.

fragmede2• 9 months ago

It would be strange to do it for someone unimportant, but for a world leader who's opponents will take it to extract DNA for analysis to try and gain some advantage, it seems entirely reasonable.

bluGill• 9 months ago

If this is medically useful is the question. If it can decect cancer before other tests and thus save my life I'm interested.

IncreasePosts• 9 months ago

Of course it is a company founded by a German inventing a product to help you inspect your poop

ulf-777232• 9 months ago

With Withings there are also some french men trying to do the same for pee with U-Scan, there is even a subscription model tied to it

mikestew3• 9 months ago

Does it have an alcohol mister pointed at that fingerprint sensor? That's probably the last place in my house I'd encourage people to be rubbing their fingers.

gruez• 9 months ago

Given that most people don't have an alcohol mister pointed at the flush button, and that gets touched just as often as the fingerprint sensor, I think the lack of an alcohol mister is fine.

mikestew3• 9 months ago

I was thinking about the proximity to the bowl. The flush handle/button usually isn’t single digit inches from where poop splashes around.

xnx3• 9 months ago

Probably a good idea for toilet user to wash their hands.

eska• 9 months ago

we’ve also written about the toilet camera offered by a startup called Throne

Marketing department working overtime with that name

xnx3• 9 months ago

Product page (but it is 404 right now): https://www.kohlerhealth.com/dekoda/

1-6• 9 months ago

Privacy issues aside, I think having a camera to monitor stools and urine color is an excellent way to gauge health. I hope the folks at Kohler can make this happen.

hopelite3• 9 months ago

I have something called eyes and they come preinstalled and included with my system. I carry them with me everywhere. They are multifunctional for many other applications too. They do not have a subscription model either. They even come with a built in, extremely efficient power plant that produces energy for them endlessly for around 80-something years by simple input of quality biomatter.

Refreeze5224• 9 months ago

What a snarky and terribly useless comment. Do better.

stuckkeys• 9 months ago

lol. What about for those that are colorblind?

fragmede2• 9 months ago

These "eyes". Do they save data to a database? Is that database query able by say, your doctor with actual usefulness? What got logged on March 12th at 2:43 AM, 2003? Can you show it to someone else for them to analyze, or do they have to rely on your expert opinion?

dfxm12• 9 months ago

There are some privacy issues you can't set aside.

The status quo is that I have enough skin in the game when it comes to my health, that if something doesn't feel or look normal (and I didn't just eat a lot of beets), I go to the doctor. It would save me an annual subscription cost, too, and it's a big upfront cost for when Kohler no longer wants to support it (a lot of people have Nest thermostats that are losing all of their useful functionality in a few days).

If this helps people with specific conditions, that's great, but, I'm having a hard time picturing someone who is so out of touch with their body that they will pay for this and follow its recommendations.

jvilalta• 9 months ago

Can't wait for the day I need a subscription to flush my toilet.

rkomorn• 9 months ago

We're almost there, right? Wasn't there a recent story about needing to watch ads in order to get toilet paper somewhere?

maxerickson2• 9 months ago

I buy my flush water from the city by volume.

jeffrallen• 9 months ago

"Sorry, toilet cannot contact AWS. Please try again later."

fuckinpuppers2• 9 months ago

Kind of like the episode of Black Mirror where everything required credits. Like toothpaste!

mmooss• 9 months ago

Is it too much to say that I've thought that we could easily collect valuable health information by collecting data on digestion output. It mostly happens in just a few locations (unlike input), so it's perhaps worthwhile to invest in data collection.

I expect weight to be valuable, simple to collect, precise, and quantified (thus simple to analyze). Assuming excrement and urine have consistent masses, you would have good data on half of the food input/output equation, which could tell you about hydration and nutrition, the efficiency of fluid and solid digestion, etc. (Input is more difficult to measure.)

Density might also help; a sensor in the output pipe below might measure it after a consistent water pressure is applied.

For the OP, I wonder how sophisticated these instruments are. For example, using the empty bowl as baseline, you might automatically collect and quantify color data.

stronglikedan• 9 months ago

Ideal output: half-pound no-wipe solid floater

maxerickson2• 9 months ago

The hydration of stool varies considerably.

Probably tough to do much with just information about the outputs.

kylehotchkiss• 9 months ago

This seems like a theranos type of product where the image analysis will be done by some unfortunate person far away.

flyingminstrel• 9 months ago

Sounds like a shitty job

Integrape• 9 months ago

That's just how trickle-down economics works.

kcplate• 9 months ago

Not hot dog…

supportengineer• 9 months ago

It's easy to laugh, but this product, deployed at scale would collect a treasure trove of data that would be good for humanity.

teeray• 9 months ago

a $599 camera that can be attached to your toilet bowl and take pictures of what’s inside.

This is really the dream of the Cloud to Butt Chrome extension.

madhacker• 9 months ago

Couldn't u just do this yourself?

daft_pink3• 9 months ago

Does everyone in the house need their own toilet for this to work or would a couple need two separate cameras attached to the same bowl? What happens if a guest uses your toilet?

I’m excited about this product, but curious about the practical logistic of using it and it’s not clear to me how it works from the product page.

pekim• 9 months ago

and a fingerprint sensor to identify who’s using the toilet

So it sounds like you would only need one camera for multiple people using the same toilet.

daft_pink3• 9 months ago

thanks i missed it. eseentially you have to put your finger on a shared device in the bathroom everything time you use the loo.

slumberlust• 9 months ago

Aren't sphincters unique like fingerprints? There's already a camera, make it happen Kohler.

xnx3• 9 months ago

Pair this with a U-Scan Nutrio (https://www.withings.com/us/en/u-scan-nutrio) for "Number 1" and you're all set.

Could probably also develop a toilet seat that weighs you and measures body composition.

cactusplant7374• 9 months ago

The measurement bodily stool and fluids is out of control. It borders on a disorder.

Larrikin• 9 months ago

The Withings solution doesn't require a camera and seems like the better solution. It's still expensive and basically a subscription.

https://www.withings.com/us/en/u-scan-nutrio

puppycodes• 9 months ago

Oh yeah this can't go wrong at all...

feels like the onion wrote this.

hellotheretoday• 9 months ago

I don’t know if it was the pod8 or what but the idea that you pay several hundred dollars (or more) for hardware to only need a monthly subscription fee to make it actually function is absurd.

Also this is absolutely insane in the currently climate. I would be interested in data from analysis of my “output” but there is not a chance I would trust any company in the modern age to not sell the resultant data. If I develop signs of colon cancer or something is that going to silently impact my insurance rates because of data brokering?

fuckinpuppers2• 9 months ago

$599 for device (just a “camera” mostly?) and then a yearly subscription? One or the other folks.

Kohler launches smart toilet camera

Related Stories