This Puck Tess Your Nutrition and Cycle Right From Your Toilet

You know that excessive paranoia you could have about dropping your favourite machine in the bathroom? Withings needs you to neglect all that for its newest health-tracking machine, 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 stress cuff round your higher arm. That’s why medical doctors 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 analysis.

Urine assessments that may be carried out at dwelling aren’t a brand new concept, however the data they supply is usually restricted. Pharmacies promote strips that can be utilized to check for urinary tract infections, whereas urine assessments stay the most cost effective and best option to verify a being pregnant with out a 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 dangle it within the entrance of a bathroom bowl, the place you then intentionally urinate on it. The U-Scan’s easy, 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 pulls the pattern inside and thru a “microfluidic circuit.” While a consumer is urinating, a “low-energy radar sensor embedded into the machine” also can acknowledge and distinguish between a number of customers by detecting their “distinctive urine stream signature” by a characteristic Withings calls Stream ID.

Inside the U-Scan is a replaceable cartridge, good for about three months, crammed 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 are 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 machine itself is cleaned throughout each flush, though you continue to may need to attain for a pair of gloves when swapping cartridges or giving it a cost, which you’ll have to do each three months.

The outcomes of the U-Scan’s assessments are shared over wifi to Withings’ non-public servers and made obtainable by the corporate’s accompanying cellular 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 might be obtainable within the United States—Withings remains 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 yr for €499.95 (about US $530) and can embrace one among two completely different three-month cartridges, with the choice to purchase extra by a subscription plan or standalone.

The U-Scan Nutri Balance cartridge and app will present info on a consumer’s pH, vitamin C, carb steadiness, and ketone ranges to assist “monitor their metabolic consumption to optimize their each day hydration and vitamins” and advocate “exercises, dietary solutions, and recipes to attain recognized targets.”

The U-Scan Nutri Balance cartridge and app is as an alternative designed particularly for “cycle monitoring, teaching, and journaling” and gives info on “cycle predictions and ovulation window based mostly on hormonal detection alongside key hydration and dietary biomarkers.” The consumer also can doc different signs the U-Scan can’t detect, together with interval circulation, 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.