Throne’s toilet camera takes pictures of your poop | TechCrunch

Throne is an Austin-based health startup. It sells a camera. That clips onto the side of a toilet bowl. It takes pictures of your poop. Currently in beta, the system utilizes artificial intelligence to examine your dookie as a way of determining things like gut health and hydration.

Turns out we have a surprising amount to learn from our logs

Throne calls its underlying technology “artificial gut intelligence.” That AI is “trained by physicians to help you understand what your waste is trying to tell you about your health,” per the company. The doctors are looking for various signs of health found in waste matter, including “nuances” in urine to determine hydration levels.

“We do not access an individual’s data,” Throne adds. “Our team only analyzes anonymized, aggregated data, which means the data can’t be traced back to the original user — to you!”

Few of us expect to get into the toilet camera business. That much can be said about Throne’s founders. CEO Scott Hickle tells TechCrunch that the startup began life as a marketplace for healthcare staffing, only to realize almost immediately that it had entered an already overcrowded field.

If that sounds like you — and you’re able to get past the idea of mounting a camera to your toilet — Throne’s system is up for preorder following a limited beta. The going price for a smart toilet camera is $499, though the company is making it available for $299 if you want to get in on it early.