I Tried an AI Toilet as a Complete Novice

Conclusion first: This isn't a scam, but buying it now likely means being a test subject for the next generation product.

I saw Kohler's smart toilet with an AI lens last week, claiming it analyzes waste morphology to detect gut health and hydration status. My first reaction was skepticism: a camera pointed inside the toilet, photographing what you excrete daily—who dares trust that data? But curiosity got the better of me. A supplier friend could get a sample unit, so we brought one to an apartment below our office for real-world testing.

Installation on day one was actually simple. No plumbing or electrical changes needed; it's just an external module clipped under the seat ring, featuring a micro-camera and sensor array. App pairing took nearly twenty minutes. Bluetooth wouldn't connect initially until I realized the phone was too close to the toilet—it needs to be half a meter away to recognize it. This detail is interesting, suggesting the product manager didn't anticipate users squatting over the toilet while looking at their phones.

After the first use, the app generated a report in two or three minutes. The interface is clean, showing a chart with dimensions like color, shape, estimated water content, and a gut health score. I stared at the chart for a long time, honestly confused. It said my hydration was low that day and advised drinking more water. The problem was, I had drunk about two liters that day. Isn't that ridiculous?

That evening, a friend reminded me that this thing uses computer vision for image recognition. Poor lighting, wrong angles, or large splashes affect judgment. I then recalled flushing too aggressively during the day, meaning the frames captured were likely blurry. So here's the first pitfall: Data accuracy heavily depends on the usage environment. It's not plug-and-play; you have to adjust angles, brightness, and even your own usage habits.

By day three, I started using it seriously and researched its backend logic. Essentially, it feeds camera footage to an AI model for classification. The training dataset comes from public samples from hospitals and labs. Sounds scientific, but home usage involves variables like flush water quality, toilet cleaner residue, and even dragon fruit consumption. On day three lunch, I ate red-fleshed dragon fruit. That night's report flagged a yellow warning for possible gastrointestinal bleeding. I almost called a taxi to the hospital before realizing it was the fruit.

However, there were surprises. After recording several days of data, it did reveal trends, such as days with insufficient hydration or potential lack of dietary fiber. This is valuable for people with chronic gut issues needing diet management. A colleague with chronic enteritis saw my report and wanted to buy one to log daily status changes, much easier than handwritten diaries.

After a week, here is my assessment.

Brands like Throne Science, TOTO, and Kohler are betting on this direction. The logic holds: sensors are getting cheaper, computer vision accuracy is improving, and aging societies demand better health management. Bathrooms are indeed an overlooked data entry point. But the business is currently stuck on two fronts.

First, data credibility. Unstable image quality in home environments caps AI model accuracy. In my tests, about 70% of reports were reasonable, while 30% involved misjudgments. Using this for medical decisions is risky; but saying it's useless is unfair—it helps establish logging habits.

Second, the business model. Hardware sales are one-time; the real potential lies in data and services. But would users hand over such private data to a toilet company? Most friends reacted: "I'd rather let my insurance know my blood sugar than let a toilet manufacturer know how many times I poop daily."

Another hidden point: TOTO's stock surge is mainly driven by semiconductor ceramic electrostatic chucks, not toilet business—that's core consumables for chip manufacturing. So part of the AI toilet hype is concept-riding, part is real tech; they need to be separated.

My advice: If you have family members with chronic gut conditions requiring long-term tracking, watch this category but wait for the second generation. The first gen still has rough edges in recognition stability and app interaction. Regular users should wait longer.

Summary: Technically, AI analyzing toilets works, but it's not yet worth paying for until there's reliable recognition and a trustworthy data privacy solution.