This Puck Tess Your Nutrition and Cycle Right From Your Toilet

You know that excessive paranoia you may have about dropping your favourite system in the bathroom? Withings needs you to neglect all that for its newest health-tracking system, the U-Scan, which isn’t solely particularly designed for use in a bathroom bowl, however to be urinated on as effectively. Stick with us; it’s not as gross because it sounds.

There’s solely a lot well being info that may be collected from strapping a smartwatch to your wrist, clipping a pulse oximeter to your finger, or wrapping an inflatable blood strain cuff round your higher arm. That’s why docs will usually order blood samples to be taken or request that sufferers pee in a cup for detailed urine evaluation at a lab earlier than making a prognosis.

Urine assessments that may be carried out at house aren’t a brand new thought, however the information they supply is commonly restricted. Pharmacies promote strips that can be utilized to check for urinary tract infections, whereas urine assessments stay the most cost effective and best solution to verify a being pregnant with no journey to the physician. With the U-Scan, Withings is increasing the well being info that may be gleaned from urine with out sending it off to a lab, whereas additionally making the gathering course of utterly hands-off.

The {hardware} is paying homage to Google’s Chromecast dongle, however as an alternative of plugging right into a TV’s HDMI port, you hold it within the entrance of a bathroom bowl, the place you then intentionally urinate on it. The U-Scan’s clean, pebble-shaped design funnels urine alongside its floor down into a set inlet on the backside, the place a thermal sensor detects the presence of the fluid and prompts a pump, which attracts the pattern inside and thru a “microfluidic circuit.” While a consumer is urinating, a “low-energy radar sensor embedded into the device” can even acknowledge and distinguish between a number of customers by detecting their “unique urine stream signature” via a characteristic Withings calls Stream ID.

Inside the U-Scan is a replaceable cartridge, good for about three months, stuffed with dozens of check pods into which urine is injected. Chemical reactions then happen when one or a number of biomarkers are detected, producing particular colours which might be analyzed by an optical sensor. After the check is full, the remaining fluids are pumped out of the U-Scan and again into the bathroom. The system itself is cleaned throughout each flush, though you continue to would possibly need to attain for a pair of gloves when swapping cartridges or giving it a cost, which you’ll must do each three months.

The outcomes of the U-Scan’s assessments are shared over wifi to Withings’ non-public servers and made obtainable via the corporate’s accompanying cell apps, which permits the outcomes and every consumer’s private well being knowledge to be tracked over time. There’s no timeline for when U-Scan shall be obtainable within the United States—Withings continues to be creating it for the US market and it’ll require FDA clearance first—however the starter equipment will go on sale in Europe subsequent 12 months for €499.95 (about US $530) and can embrace one among two completely different three-month cartridges, with the choice to purchase extra via a subscription plan or standalone.

The U-Scan Nutri Balance cartridge and app will present info on a consumer’s pH, vitamin C, carb stability, and ketone ranges to assist “monitor their metabolic intake to optimize their daily hydration and nutrients” and suggest “workouts, dietary suggestions, and recipes to achieve identified goals.”

The U-Scan Nutri Balance cartridge and app is as an alternative designed particularly for “cycle tracking, coaching, and journaling” and offers info on “cycle predictions and ovulation window based on hormonal detection alongside key hydration and dietary biomarkers.” The consumer can even doc different signs the U-Scan can’t detect, together with interval circulate, temper, meals and water consumption, and cervical fluids. The hope is that, collectively, the U-Scan and the journaling will present extra correct predictions and insights right into a consumer cycle than apps that depend on journaling and self-collected knowledge alone.