Kohler's $600 AI toilet camera analyzes your waste for health insights

[midian182]

WTF?! If anyone's ever said that your photographs look like s**t, point out that Kohler makes a $600 toilet-mounted camera designed solely for photographing human waste. But the device has an important purpose: offering a way of monitoring your body's health, using the power of AI, of course.

Kohler Health, a new division from home products company Kohler, has launched its first product, the Dekoda. The system consists of a sensor/camera device containing a removable battery, a wall-mounted authenticator remote, and a magnetic charging pad.

Dekoda can be mounted to most toilet rims without tools, with the camera located inside the rim and pointing down toward your toilet's contents. If you're worried about any dangly bits being caught on camera, Kohler says the device's "discreet optics" see down the toilet and nowhere else.

Kohler Health says the images it captures, combined with its validated machine-learning algorithms, offer valuable insights into your health and wellness. The optical sensors can, for example, use spectroscopy to observe how light interacts with your waste.

Analyzing your liquid and solid waste can reveal details about gut health, hydration, and more. It can also discreetly notify users if blood is detected in the bowl.

To ensure privacy and peace of mind for guests, there's the option of enabling Bluetooth fingerprint authorization on the remote. This can also be used to differentiate between which house members' waste is being examined.

All encrypted data is shared with the Kohler Health app so users can check everything from the shape, frequency, and consistency of their waste. The results can suggest dietary changes, the need to hydrate more, or the need to be checked out by a doctor.

Health and well-being are undoubtedly important, but $600 is certainly a big investment to make. Moreover, the data collected through the Kohler Health app is accessible only via a Kohler Health membership that costs $6.99 per month or $70 per year for single users. There's also a family plan that covers up to five users and costs $12.99 per month or $130 per year.

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Kohler's $600 AI toilet camera analyzes your waste for health insights

 

[StrikerRocket]

Paying $130 a year to get my poo and my family's anal-ized?...
No-thanks!
Now, a question: how did they get the samples to train the A.I behind this wonder?

 

[Squid Surprise]

Paying $130 a year to get my poo and my family's anal-ized?...
No-thanks!
Now, a question: how did they get the samples to train the A.I behind this wonder?

The price is exorbitant, but I can see how rich elderly people might find it useful… as for how they got the samples, I assume they have a partnership with some private clinics they bribed… I mean… compensated… for their data…

 

[StrikerRocket]

The price is exorbitant, but I can see how rich elderly people might find it useful… as for how they got the samples, I assume they have a partnership with some private clinics they bribed… I mean… compensated… for their data…

I was thinking poo and pee samples, because the AI behind the camera has to be trained to analyze the pictures and deduce useful information related to the health of individuals.
But I can imagine this to become really useful in the future, to detect potential early traces of colon cancer and many other diseases, and trigger early consultation with a doctor. AI, when used correctly had a lot of potential, but as with all human activities, the good comes with the bad...

 

[stewi0001]

Dekoda : "I've seen some s***..."

 

[NumberNine]

Wild times. I tell people this and they either shrug or look at me like I'm from another planet. I can't wake them up. I can't force them to care, so why do I? Let the tablet raise your kids and shape their brains. Let Alexa listen to your home 24/7. Let your doorbell camera share your patterns with cops and anyone who will pay. Let your car tell you where to shop and others where you do. Just give it all away because what were you even worth to begin with?

 

[JMGuy]

So Kohler wants me to mount a camera inside my toilet, feed it intimate biometric data daily, send that to the cloud, and pay them a monthly fee for access to my waste analysis—without any clear ownership or control over my health data?

Sounds like health-surveillance wrapped in a subscription model to me.

The privacy language is textbook vague: “encrypted,” “anonymized,” “shared with third-party service providers.” No hard guarantee of user-owned data. No explicit opt-outs from having my info used for… whatever—AI training, research, or monetization.

And this is what passes for “innovation.”

Sorry, but mining my TV habits is bad enough. I won’t purposely pay to have my health data mined. The US has zero real privacy regulation except when it comes to health data. This sounds like a Trojan horse effort to end-run around the roadblocks to that gold mine. They should be required to be crystal clear about who owns it, who sees it, and whether I can wipe it (pun intended) from their servers completely, at minimum. Better yet, give me absolute control over it or get bent.

As-is, this is not a health product—it’s a $600 biometric data farm in your toilet.

Hard pass.

 

[Alfonso Maruccia]

Well, I have always considered AI to be just a bunch of stinky...

 

[Phylop]

Yet another thing that was once an absurd joke is now real...

 

[netman]

"Kohler's $600 AI toilet camera analyzes your waste for health insights"

"Dekoda can be mounted to most toilet rims without tools, with the camera located inside the rim and pointing down toward your toilet's contents."

Save yourself $600...! There is nothing that your eyes cannot tell you about your poo health by just inspecting it for two seconds before you flush...!

 

[return]

I just check to make sure there are no worms or blood, and it’s all good.

 

[BuckarooBonzaii]

Just eat a lot of fiber, drink plenty of water and your poop will be good.

 

[sdms96825]

Chuck Berry was simply ahead of his time.

 

[OortCloud]

Chuck Berry was simply ahead of his time.

You beat me to it!

 

[mi1400]

Paying $130 a year to get my poo and my family's anal-ized?...
No-thanks!
Now, a question: how did they get the samples to train the A.I behind this wonder?

GERMANs are famous for this good hygienic practice of having a look at ur poo every time for basic visual study .. even their WC/Commode are designed to help by adding a flatter surface before the water cup... its good though expensive...

 

[Squid Surprise]

GERMANs are famous for this good hygienic practice of having a look at ur poo every time for basic visual study .. even their WC/Commode are designed to help by adding a flatter surface before the water cup... its good though expensive...

Japan as well…. Maybe it’s something to do with being defeated in WW2 wanting to make your bathroom experience better?

 

[captaincranky]

Nah, if I was disposed of wasting $12.99 a month for anything, it would likely be Paramount+. Not to mention, that for $5.00 more, I could get Netflix, without ads..! This in spite of the fact they both likely have some crappy programs

Won't "poor" doctors bleed money without the, "send in your poop in a box" scam, to tide then over in hard times?

Although lab technicians will probably rejoice, not having to do gas chromatography on do-do. I can hear them now, "man oh man, that sh!t stinks when you heat it".

it's a shame I'm to old to be a fighter pilot. I could be like "Don the john", and hit that anal surveillance terlet with a guided fecal bomb from 5 miles away and 10,000 feet in the air

(count the puns).

 

[captaincranky]

Dekoda : "I've seen some s***..."

Just look at it on the "bright side". Now the "moon" rises and sets several times a day, and you don't even have to go outside to, "enjoy it".

You just have to wonder if Kohler, on request, will email you jpegs for your family album.