🔗 Share this article

You can purchase a wearable ring to track your sleep patterns or a wrist device to measure your heart rate, so maybe that medical innovation's newest advancement has come for your toilet. Meet Dekoda, a novel stool imaging device from a major company. Not the sort of toilet monitoring equipment: this one exclusively takes images directly below at what's within the basin, sending the snapshots to an mobile program that examines fecal matter and rates your digestive wellness. The Dekoda is available for nearly $600, plus an yearly membership cost.

Competition in the Sector

The company's recent release enters the market alongside Throne, a around $320 product from a Texas company. "This device documents stool and hydration patterns, without manual input," the device summary notes. "Detect variations earlier, fine-tune daily choices, and experience greater assurance, daily."

What Type of Person Needs This?

You might wonder: What audience needs this? An influential Slovenian thinker previously noted that classic European restrooms have "stool platforms", where "digestive byproducts is initially presented for us to review for signs of disease", while French toilets have a rear opening, to make feces "exit promptly". Somewhere in between are US models, "a basin full of water, so that the excrement floats in it, observable, but not to be inspected".

People think waste is something you discard, but it really contains a lot of data about us

Obviously this thinker has not spent enough time on social media; in an metrics-focused world, waste examination has become almost as common as sleep-tracking or step measurement. Users post their "poop logs" on platforms, recording every time they visit the bathroom each calendar month. "My digestive system has processed 329 days this year," one person stated in a recent social media post. "Waste typically measures ¼[lb] to 1lb. So if you calculate using ¼, that's about 131 pounds that I pooped this year."

Clinical Background

The Bristol stool scale, a medical evaluation method created by physicians to classify samples into seven different categories – with classification three ("comparable to processed meat with texture variations") and type four ("like a sausage or snake, smooth and soft") being the ideal benchmark – often shows up on gut health influencers' online profiles.

The chart assists physicians identify IBS, which was once a diagnosis one might keep private. No longer: in 2022, a famous periodical declared "We're Beginning an Period of Gut Health Advocacy," with more doctors investigating the disorder, and women rallying around the theory that "attractive individuals have gut concerns".

Functionality

"Many believe waste is something you flush away, but it actually holds a lot of information about us," says the leader of the wellness branch. "It actually originates from us, and now we can analyze it in a way that eliminates the need for you to touch it."

The unit starts working as soon as a user decides to "begin the process", with the touch of their fingerprint. "Immediately as your liquid waste reaches the water level of the toilet, the device will begin illuminating its LED light," the executive says. The pictures then get sent to the brand's server network and are analyzed through "exclusive formulas" which require approximately several minutes to process before the outcomes are shown on the user's app.

Data Protection Issues

Although the manufacturer says the camera includes "security-oriented elements" such as biometric verification and comprehensive data protection, it's reasonable that several would not feel secure with a toilet-tracking cam.

It's understandable that these devices could lead users to become preoccupied with pursuing the 'perfect digestive system'

A university instructor who researches medical information networks says that the concept of a stool imaging device is "less intrusive" than a fitness tracker or digital timepiece, which collects more data. "This manufacturer is not a healthcare institution, so they are not regulated under health data protection statutes," she adds. "This concern that arises frequently with programs that are healthcare-related."

"The apprehension for me stems from what metrics [the device] gathers," the specialist adds. "Who owns all this data, and what could they potentially do with it?"

"We acknowledge that this is a highly private area, and we've approached this thoughtfully in how we engineered for security," the spokesperson says. While the device distributes non-personal waste metrics with certain corporate allies, it will not provide the content with a doctor or relatives. Presently, the product does not connect its metrics with common medical interfaces, but the CEO says that could develop "based on consumer demand".

Expert Opinions

A food specialist practicing in California is not exactly surprised that fecal analysis tools exist. "In my opinion particularly due to the increase in colon cancer among young people, there are increased discussions about genuinely examining what is contained in the restroom basin," she says, mentioning the significant rise of the condition in people below fifty, which many experts link to highly modified nutrition. "This provides an additional approach [for companies] to benefit from that."

She voices apprehension that too much attention placed on a poop's appearance could be detrimental. "There exists a concept in digestive wellness that you're pursuing this big, beautiful, smooth, snake-like poop continuously, when that's simply not achievable," she says. "It's understandable that such products could make people obsessed with chasing the 'optimal intestinal health'."

An additional nutrition expert comments that the bacteria in stool changes within two days of a nutritional adjustment, which could reduce the significance of immediate stool information. "What practical value does it have to know about the microorganisms in your waste when it could entirely shift within two days?" she inquired.