What a Crappy Idea!

I must admit I am aghast at the stupidity of anyone thinking that you and I are interested in high-tech toilets that tell us what to do or not to do. Nope, you are not reading that incorrectly … check it out for yourself: Smart Toilet Tech Aims to Make You Flush With Health Data

This week, Personal Tech columnist Nicole Nguyen writes about a $599 smart toilet camera that aims to unlock the mysteries of what lands in the commode. The Dekoda, which started shipping on Oct. 21, analyzes something that smartwatches and other wearables can’t: urine and stool.  

The toilet-mounted gadget, made by Kohler Health, is equipped with sensors to understand waste. The device can help determine hydration levels based on factors such as urine color and stool consistency. It sends data over Wi-Fi to Kohler Health’s secure servers and offers insights in a paired app, which requires a $7 a month subscription.

Oh please, can’t we even have a moment away from our electronic leashes? Plus, can’t you see how slippery this slope is when information like this gets into the wrong hands?

Haven’t we learned anything about informational value propositions? Do you really need a toilet to tell you if you need to drink more water? Do you think anyone will pay $7 a month for this kind of information? Haven’t we learned anything from the frenzy over smart grid data where we thought we could charge customers to see more details about their energy use?

This reminds me of the work we were doing with industrial heat pumps decades ago. This was getting much attention, especially from the equipment manufacturers in Canada. This trade ally technical meeting drew a diverse audience, including Jim Hook, then head of the Canadian Department of Energy. It was a love fest of believers, and that first evening, Jim and my team sat together over dinner.

I thought it would be interesting to hear him talk about his world, so I asked what was going on in his life lately. He was happy to talk about the personal energy-use improvements he made at his house.  Domestic water heating is an important end-use in Canada because the groundwater is so cold, so I wasn’t surprised that he picked that agenda. Nor was I surprised that he wanted to emphasize conservation over efficiency. That is, using less instead of talking about how he heated and stored the hot water he used. But his story has stayed with me ever since. Here it is in his own words:

“When I get home from work, after dinner with my family, I take my bath first and leave the water in the tub for my wife to bathe. Then we bathe the children and finally, we throw some more soap powder in the tub and use it as a prewash for the day’s laundry.”

My colleagues, George Redden and Dick Niess, were sitting with me hearing the story. At a loss for words, it seemed fair of me to ask how much he had saved with this water-saving practice.

Jim was prepared for that question and said that he had done a careful before-and-after analysis that showed he had saved about $79 a year with this conservation plan. I didn’t look to my side where George was sitting, but I did notice he reached into his sports coat, removed his checkbook, and wrote Jim a check for $79 asking him to “Stop doing that.”

You can’t make this stuff up,