Kohler’s New Gadget Is Watching You…While You Go
The Dekoda. (Kohler Health)
Kohler is known for its bathroom fixtures, but now the company is turning the restroom into a hub for personal health monitoring. Its new device, the Dekoda, attaches under the toilet seat and analyzes the contents of your toilet bowl with your health in mind. While The Guardian dubbed it a “$600 poop cam,” Kohler describes the device more delicately, saying it uses “discreet optics” to track the frequency, consistency, and shape of waste, detect blood, and even assess hydration levels based on urine.
To make sure the data corresponds to the right person, the Dekoda features a fingerprint sensor for sign-in, according to CNET. Users can then view their health trends and daily summaries through the Kohler Health app. The Verge notes that access to this data requires a Kohler Health membership, which costs $70 a year for an individual or $130 annually for up to five family members or roommates. Kohler reassures users that “Dekoda’s sensors see down into your toilet and nowhere else.”
However, privacy experts caution that the device isn’t bound by medical privacy laws. Joana Gaia, a health data system researcher at the University at Buffalo, told The Guardian, “Kohler is not a medical organization, so they are not covered by HIPAA [the US law on medical privacy]. This is something that comes up a lot with apps that are healthcare-related.”
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