First up it was watches now Withings, is expanding with the launch of a unique toilet offering at CES 2023 that measures your urine via a pebble shaped device.
Withings claim that urine contains thousands of metabolites that are indicative of your general health.
But unlike heart rate monitoring or general skin care, we don’t actively analyse urine unless a doctor tells us to do so.
How it works is that the pebble-shaped device dangles on the toilet bowl a bit like toilet cleaners and scans your urine for a bunch of issues including biomarkers such as hydration and ketone levels.
The device will perform chemical analysis of urine and shares the results with a connected smartphone app over Wi-Fi.
Unlike a fitness wearable like the Apple Watch Series 8 or Oura Ring, the U-Scan device can identify different users and accordingly catalogue urine test results.
Medical experts at CES claim that the Withings U-Scan sounds quite promising, and it fills a critical gap in healthcare, especially for folks that need frequent urine testing but don’t want the costs of visiting a GP each and every time.
At the heart of the puck-shaped “Home Urine Lab” are replaceable cartridges, which are essentially miniaturized kits tasked with studying the chemical composition of urine. Each cartridge is good enough for three months’ worth of urine analysis.
Currently there are two kinds of cartridges — one for period cycle tracking, and the other one for general body wellness stats like hydration levels and vitamin C concentration, among others.
It studies the hormone samples in urine to predict the phases of an individual’s menstrual cycle, determines the ovulation window, and also informs about hydration levels.
The second cartridge is the U-Scan Nutri Balance.
It tells you about your body’s water balance, how acidic or alkaline your diet is, ketone levels that are directly linked to body metabolism, and vitamin C levels.
The interesting part is whether the device will be approved for the Australian market.
