Urine Luck

No, this is not some clever metaphor for what happened yesterday on the floor of the House of Representatives. This is the future of the commode, a smart toilet, developed by two scientists at the University of Wisconsin. I was all set to write a piece about impeachment this morning. Watching Nancy Pelosi, dressed in mourning black reciting the Pledge of Allegiance was a stunning visual image. Discovering her new-found devotion to the United States Constitution took the concept of stunning to a whole new level. But when I saw this headline—Smart Toilet May Pose Privacy Risk—impeachment will just have to wait.

So, these two scientist have come up with a revolutionary crapper called the smart toilet. They hope it will make a splash with consumers and usher in a new era of personalized medicine. Among its many advantages are its ability to closely monitor your health and check for early signs of diseases like cancer and diabetes.

It is fitted with a camera that takes pictures of your waste, analyzes it and comes back flush with information about everything from what you had for dinner to what medications you are taking and even how well you slept last night. 

With this toilet, users can preemptively detect urinary tract infections, kidney disease, diabetes and other metabolic disorders, before they show symptoms. According to the scientists, frequent samples from a smart toilet could also help monitor how prescription or over-the-counter drugs are being metabolized, and allow users to adjust their dosage as needed.

But, with all this helpful data comes the possibility of it falling into the wrong hands. Suppose an employer uses it to secretly delve into an employee’s drug habits? Would this be a violation of privacy rights, not to mention, kind of gross. And what of the mountains of video of personal waste that this thing would produce and store? Could it be used to blackmail its user? “Whoa there, big guy. Probably shouldn’t have had that second burrito last night, eh?”

Of course, another barrier to wide spread acceptance of smart toilet technology is the cost. Current technology can’t build these toilets for less than $10,000, making it out of reach for all but the number two of the 1%. But considering the health benefits not only of early detection of disease, but the ability to more closely monitor day to day developments of your health, the future of these devices looks bright. I think I smell a government subsidy in the wind.

That’s where marketing comes in. There are many headwinds that must be overcome when selling toilets. But many of them can be solved with a catchy name for this new device. The Japanese already have a smart toilet, although not as advanced. They call theirs the Flowsky. Not bad. But I know we can do better. I mean we have Madison Avenue. Here are just a few candidates I came up with just this morning while using my very dumb toilet...

The Pee-Gazer 2000

The Loo Lab

The Shitbit

Urine Luck