That Looks Sh*tty: Kohler Launches $600 Toilet Camera to Monitor Your Gut Health

Kohler, the faucet and toilet brand, is expanding into the tech market in a rather innovative and unusual way; by launching Dekoda, a $600 iPhone-connected toilet camera that monitors your waste for various health metrics.

Dekoda apparently can monitor your hydration levels and provide other information about your gut health, as well as detect signs of blood in the toilet bowl. It works by placing the Dekoda device on the rim of your toilet bowl, which peers down into the toilet to observe what’s going on there with “sensors” (cameras of some sort), and then this information is analyzed and reported back to you – the pooper – as results and insight through an iPhone app. The Dekoda device even has a fingerprint reader on it so that multiple users can monitor their toilet activity, without confusing everyone’s bowel movements.

The device costs $600, and, like just about everything else that exists these days, the Dekoda product requires a subscription to utilize, coming in at $6.99/month for a single person, and $12.99/month for up to five people. You can also pay your membership annually, if you’d like to.

Given that the bowel movement analyzing device hangs over the toilet bowl already, it seems like Kohler missed an opportunity to incorporate a bidet, which are also increasingly popular, but maybe that’ll be available on a future version.

Now I’m obviously writing this a bit tongue-in-cheek because there’s some easy humor value here, but in all seriousness, health monitoring and sensing products are increasingly popular, and will continue to advance as tech does too. Many of us already wear an Apple Watch, which can detect and sense all kinds of very personal things, from ovulation, fitness level, activities, to a-fib, so is it really that much of a stretch to imagine people wanting to get even more insight into their health? There are already iPhone-connected scales and body mass devices, insulin pumps, mattresses, blood pressure monitors, and so much more, so why wouldn’t there be iPhone-connected waste sensors in toilets too?

If you’re interested in the Kohler Dekoda product, check out the Kohler Health Dekoda product page here where you can buy one now.

Give a double flush to MacRumors and Theverge for pointing out this amazingly fascinating new product, who would have thought this is what living in the future would bring? Who needs flying cars when we have toilet and bowel movement surveillance?!