The smart bathroom: relaxation, cleanliness and self-care

Kohler Co., Toto Ltd. and other companies that manufacture and market bathroom facilities are adding sensors, artificial intelligence devices and smart speakers to their mostly premium products starting with Alexa-integrated toilets and bathroom mats. with sensors that acquire data on a person’s weight and posture, so that they can be analyzed and returned to the user. Of course there is to overcome the question of privacy in data management but, at the level of technologies, the discourse is already very advanced. Every day, people start the day in the bathroom and always end it there: nothing better to collect and connect information and offer it to the user: starting from the weather to the news and traffic and, all, through, in fact, the relationship systems like Alexa. Numi 2.0 KOHLER Konnect is a toilet that offers the freedom to set every detail according to personal preferences, from water temperature to heated seat, from ambient lighting to air humidity. With Amazon Alexa integrated, Numi 2.0 allows you to create the ideal environment with voice commands. Starting with a personalized preset for each person in the family: temperature, water pressure and heated towels every time you enter the bathroom. Including automatic cleaning of the environment which includes UV sanitization, automatic seat closure and control of taps.Another sector of absolute interest for the smart bathroom is that represented by the analysis of people’s health. Urinalysis and stool tests, for example, belong to normal tests to prevent and diagnose gastrointestinal diseases, although the taboos surrounding their collection can make screening complex. Smart toilets could help in this regard: Stanford University researchers have developed a toilet prototype that uses an AI camera to track the shape of stool and monitor urine color and flow. A device integrated in the toilet analyzes the samples for viruses such as Covid-19 and the presence of blood: a sort of digital diary that could help provide valuable health information to facilitate an early and non-invasive diagnosis of various diseases. A linked app would allow users to keep track of their health metrics. The toilet could identify individual users by scanning people’s unique characteristics. The project is reaching its first concrete applications in Korea. Duke University scientists are also developing a toilet that collects and analyzes wastewater. The system, which uses AI-based cameras and biochemical sensors, could allow health authorities to monitor pathogens such as Covid-19 at the building or neighborhood level, explained Sonia Grego, director and founder of Duke Smart. Toilet Lab.