Smart toilets? Welcome to the future of health care

Sunday, November 17, 2019
Smart toilet could help in Healthcare
Scientists developing 'smart toilet' to process urine samples into health data.

For researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, flushing is the future.

In most workplaces, "toilet talk" is frowned upon

"Our toilet, our smart toilet will have a collection container in the front," said University of Wisconsin-Madison student Ben Anderson. "Then we can have pipes coming out the bottom, which will pump the urine away for analysis in our mass spectrometers."

Data from the toilet can show caffeine or alcohol intake, or how your body metabolizes certain medicines.

"The opportunity to revolutionize toilets once again by allowing it to not just dispose of waste, but to give access to your health information."

Scientists are programming the potty to compile the information just like a smart watch would.

Biomolecular chemistry professor Josh Coon said "This way, you could monitor that throughout the course of your life daily, and we think that could really change healthcare and preventative medicine."

The team says they're about three months from a working prototype.