This toilet attachment uses AI and a team of physicians to photograph, analyse, and report the full scoop on your poop

A promotional image of Throne, a digital system used to monitor bowel motions — (Image credit: Throne Science)

Having a healthy gut is no laughing matter and as someone with IBS, I get frequent reminders of how delicate our digestive system really is. This is probably why a health tech start-up Throne Science has decided that the best way to monitor the status of your food chute is to sell a camera that you mount to your toilet and have AI servers analyse what it sees in the bowl.

We spotted the down and dirty on the Throne, for that's what's it obviously called, over at TechCrunch and oh boy, is it an eye-opener. Toilets that analyse the contents of a motion aren't a new idea but replacing one's lavatory with a fully specced up 'smart loo' isn't exactly cheap. Throne gets around some of that cost by simply being a camera system that you hook over the rim of the toilet.

Now, if you're worried about people's poop ruining your toilet achievements, then don't worry—the system only activates if it detects a phone with the app installed and an account set up. And you can forget about privacy concerns, too, as the camera only takes snapshots of your bowels' ejecta and nothing else, and all data that's sent to Throne Science is anonymised.

That said, the company only added a privacy and security page to its website "at TechCrunch’s behest," which isn't overly confidence-inspiring.

Nick, gaming, and computers all first met in the early 1980s. After leaving university, he became a physics and IT teacher and started writing about tech in the late 1990s. That resulted in him working with MadOnion to write the help files for 3DMark and PCMark. After a short stint working at Beyond3D.com, Nick joined Futuremark (MadOnion rebranded) full-time, as editor-in-chief for its PC gaming section, YouGamers. After the site shutdown, he became an engineering and computing lecturer for many years, but missed the writing bug. Cue four years at TechSpot.com covering everything and anything to do with tech and PCs. He freely admits to being far too obsessed with GPUs and open-world grindy RPGs, but who isn't these days?