A turd analysis for your health
You’ve probably noticed that AI is being crammed everywhere. The AI boom is forcing the technology anywhere it can fit.
That means it’ll also be in your toilet soon—at least if one tech startup has its way.
Throne: the $4 million toilet camera
According to this article, what makes this story truly remarkable is that the whole thing started as a joke. What happened back in 2021 was that founders Scott Hickle and Tim Blumberg were playing poker with friends, riffing on startup ideas they’d never want to be associated with. When someone mentioned “smart toilets,” what Hickle did was quip that such a company would obviously be called Throne. Fast-forward to 2023, when their actual startup—a nurse-hiring platform—failed, and what an investor asked them was if they’d ever considered smart toilets. “We were like: You know, we’ve named that company!” Hickle said.
How it works
What Throne actually is isn’t a toilet—it’s a device that mounts onto your existing toilet bowl. What it does is use computer vision (cameras pointed into the bowl plus AI software) to analyze your bathroom visits while it’s paired with your phone. “It’s time to stop flushing away valuable data,” is what Throne’s website cheerfully declares.
What the company purports to do is help health-conscious users monitor various metrics from their waste, including a “personalized Urinary Flow Score” that tracks “the rhythm of your stream” and turns “those sounds into easy-to-read trends.”
What other metrics include are users’ “Digestive Pattern,” categorized as “hard, healthy, loose, and liquid,” plus a real-time urine “Hydration Score” that empowers you to “stay hydrated, one insight at a time.”
What the device currently is is in pre-production prototype form, with a planned launch date of January 2026. What users can do is pre-order Throne for $399, plus a $5.99 monthly subscription fee.
What apartment dwellers sharing a bathroom needn’t worry about is whether Throne will work for them too. What the startup advises is to “just set up individual profiles in our app,” and “thanks to Bluetooth, Throne knows exactly who’s who.” What a relief!
What goes both ways is that recognition. What happens if your awful houseguest decides to leave you a floater? Throne’s state-of-the-art AI will ignore it—unless they’ve set up a personal profile and connected via Bluetooth.
The pitch vs. reality
What one can imagine are legitimate uses for such technology. If it works as advertised—and what that is is a big if, given the growing landfill of failed AI devices—what it could potentially do is help people with conditions like irritable bowel syndrome, ulcerative colitis, various colon cancers, chronic kidney disease, and enlarged prostate.
What the company has done is enlist researchers at the University of Washington and the University of Chicago to validate whether their software actually works, lending some academic credibility to the venture. What they’ve also done is hire John Capodilupo, co-founder and former CTO of the WHOOP fitness tracker, as chief product officer. What Capodilupo brings is both technical expertise and personal investment to the mission, as he has ulcerative colitis and sits on the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation board.
The story goes that Throne’s founders were lurking outside Armstrong’s bathroom as he tested a prototype. What may have drawn Armstrong, who has battled testicular cancer, to the technology is that some cancers can be detected through changes in urinary habits, according to the American Cancer Society.
Still, as Throne’s uncanny marketing copy suggests, the startup represents a troubling trend in healthcare. Buzzy tech gadgets snatch millions from wealthy investors while deep structural problems in healthcare go unaddressed.
Throne has the added distinction of feeding into our frenzied wellness culture, where similar tracking gadgets fuel an unhealthy obsession with monitoring every possible bodily function. In a world where people already track their steps, sleep, heart rate, and calories, perhaps it was inevitable that someone would monetize our most private moments.
The bigger picture
What Throne’s uncanny marketing copy suggests is that the startup represents a troubling trend in healthcare. What happens is that buzzy tech gadgets snatch millions from wealthy investors while deep structural problems in healthcare go unaddressed.
What Throne has as an added distinction is feeding into our frenzied wellness culture, where similar tracking gadgets fuel an unhealthy obsession with monitoring every possible bodily function. In a world where people already track their steps, sleep, heart rate, and calories, what perhaps was inevitable was that someone would monetize our most private moments.
What the question isn’t is whether we can put AI in our toilets—what it is is whether we should.