In Tokyo, toilets can talk to you, warm your bottom and wash it with a perfectly aimed jet of water. They play sounds of water waves and can close the lid after you leave. But American bathroom giant Kohler has gone one step further. Its new toilet-mounted health tracker, called Dekoda, wants to know what’s going on inside your body by examining what you leave behind. They toilet seat add-on can monitor gut health.
And you don’t need to mail your poop to a laboratory to get the basic information. Dekoda clips onto the toilet bowl, where optical sensors monitor stool consistency, hydration and even signs of blood that might otherwise go unnoticed.
The idea is surprisingly simple. We spend billions on smartwatches and fitness trackers, measuring our sleep, heart rates and daily steps. But what if some of our most useful health information has been going down the toilet all along?
How does Kohler’s smart toilet tracker work?
Developed by Kohler Health and launched in October 2025, Dekoda attaches to the rim of most white toilets using an adjustable clamp. It uses optical sensors and spectroscopy, a technology that studies how light interacts with materials, to examine urine and stool.
The device looks for three main things: digestive patterns, hydration levels and signs of blood. It classifies stool as regular, hard or loose and uses urine measurements to assess whether someone is adequately hydrated. Its sensors can also identify signs of haemoglobin, a protein found in blood.
Related: lidless toilets spread waste droplets with every flush
The data is analysed through the Kohler Health app, where users can follow trends and record information about their diet, exercise, medications and daily routines.
But don’t confuse this with a full gut microbiome test. Dekoda cannot identify the trillions of bacteria living in your digestive system or replace laboratory stool analysis. It is better understood as a bathroom-based wellness tracker that can flag changes worth investigating.
Whose poop is it anyway?
Here’s where things get interesting. In a family bathroom, how does the toilet know whose business it’s examining? Rather than programming the different bottoms that sit on the seat, Kohler has developed a fingerprint scanner that can be mounted on the wall nearby. Each user authenticates before a bathroom visit, keeping their health records separate.
A family plan supports up to six adult accounts, meaning everyone can track their own digestive habits without accidentally claiming somebody else’s results. The system uses a rechargeable magnetic battery and sends information to an accompanying app. The company says the data is encrypted in transit, although it must be decrypted for processing. That makes privacy an important consideration for a product collecting such intimate information.
Could your toilet help you stay healthier?
Kohler sees a market among older adults, people managing chronic digestive illnesses and athletes monitoring hydration. For people living with Crohn’s disease or other digestive conditions, regularly recording bowel habits can be useful when discussing symptoms with a doctor. Older people who struggle to maintain adequate hydration might also benefit from a record of changing patterns.
Kohler Health managing director Nora Tophof explained that subtle biological changes, including microscopic blood and early signs of dehydration, can escape the human eye.
The technology is designed to make these changes easier to notice over time. However, a blood alert is not a diagnosis, and the absence of an alert doesn’t rule out disease. Medical symptoms still require proper investigation.
The bathroom becomes the next health laboratory
The possibilities extend beyond one company’s product. Bathroom technology is beginning to move into territory once reserved for clinics, laboratories and diagnostic centres.
What happens when routine household objects become health-monitoring tools? Could toilets eventually help identify disease earlier, reduce unnecessary testing or give doctors a clearer picture of a patient’s daily health?
Dekoda was introduced at a price of $599, with an additional subscription required to access its health insights. That puts it firmly in the premium wellness market rather than making it an accessible public-health solution.
I saved my father’s life after an incident in the toilet. Could Dekoda eventually be part of a 911 solution?
The toilet is the most important invention in public health, helping communities manage human waste and prevent disease. It’s time we started going one flush further.
