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throne is an Austin-based health startup. She sells the camera. It is installed on the side of the toilet bowl. It takes pictures of your poop. Currently in beta, the system uses artificial intelligence to scan your doc as a way to determine things like gut health and hydration.
It turns out we have a surprising amount to learn from our records.
Thrawn calls its core technology “artificial intestinal intelligence.” The AI is trained by doctors to help you understand what your waste is trying to tell you about your health, according to the company. Doctors look for various health markers found in waste, including “nuances” in urine to determine hydration levels.
The company was quick to note that the images are “anonymous.” TechCrunch reached out to the company to get a better idea of what Throne does to address the inevitable security and privacy red flags that arise when discussing a toilet camera.
At TechCrunch’s request, the company on Friday published a record Privacy and Security page. With an explanation of some of these measures. Undoubtedly at the top of this list are common questions about what exactly Throne records and how it uses those images. The camera was gently trained on the bowl.
“We only take pictures of the contents of your toilet bowl,” Thrawn wrote. “Any other data is irrelevant to our mission and could impact our ability to provide accurate health insights. We use image recognition technology to automatically delete any irrelevant images. This ensures that only toilet-related data is kept.”
Users can request full access to their data to see how Throne collects it. The company will also delete everything upon request. All data is encrypted with TLS 1.2 or higher on the company’s servers.
“We don’t access any individual’s data,” Thrun adds. “Our team only analyzes aggregated and anonymized data, which means the data cannot be traced back to the original user – back to you!”
Few of us expected to get into the toilet cameras business. Much can be said about the founders of the throne. CEO Scott Hinkle told TechCrunch that the startup started life as a marketplace for healthcare employees, but immediately realized it was entering an already crowded field.
Shortly after raising a seed round of $1.2 million from investors, including Night Capital, Rief Ventures, and Hustle Fund, the company found itself at a crossroads.
“Within six weeks, we came to the painful realization that the market was saturated and not a sandbox we wanted to play in, so we pivoted, and our investors were shockingly cool with us on tackling consumer hardware,” Henkel says.
The throne didn’t just rotate, it revolved around a tube. The company focuses on older adults and those with chronic gastrointestinal diseases, including Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, and irritable bowel syndrome.
If that’s you — and you’re able to get past the idea of mounting a camera on your toilet — the Throne system is up for pre-order after a limited beta. The current price for the smart toilet camera is $499, although the company is offering it for $299 if you want to get your hands on it early.
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