The next frontier of health tracking is happening in your toilet

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ZDNET’s key takeaways 

• Withings’ U-Scan is now available to buy in the US. 
• The two U-Scans monitor nutrition and kidney stones. 
• The device sits inside your toilet – and comes at a steep cost.

These days, health trackers aren’t only around wrists or fingers collecting heart rate, sleep duration, and body temperature data. The latest ones are in toilets, sensing urine and monitoring biomarkers like hydration, nutrition, and more. 

Withings on Wednesday launched its U-Scan Nutrio and U-Scan Calci, two toilet urine sensors for nutrition and kidney stone tracking. 

Also: This new Kohler sensor is like a health detective in your toilet – tiny camera and all

The U-Scan attaches to the inside of a toilet bowl (and comes equipped with gloves for insertion and cleaning). Withings builds the device like a miniature urine analysis lab inside the shell-shaped sensor. Unlike its biggest competitor, Kohler Health’s Dekoda, the U-Scan does not include a camera. Only a thermal sensor and interchangeable cartridges of miniaturized biochemical sensors are inside the device. The device takes only a few drops of urine for its sample analysis, Withings says. 

Scheduling your urine analysis

After someone uses the U-Scan, they can view their results, like hydration, nutritional balance, and calcium trends, in the app. Withings+, the required membership activated with the purchase of U-Scan, offers users recommendations and further insights on their urine data. Users have to schedule windows to activate the sensor for a urine analysis. 

Between analyses, the device recharges and cleans itself within three hours. The cartridges last up to three months, but the duration may vary based on frequency of usage. 

Could urine unlock the next frontier in health tracking? Withings and its competitors seem to be betting on it. In a press release announcing the U-Scan, Withings’ founder and chairman Eric Carreel said urine serves as a precise and comprehensive window into a person’s health. Going to the bathroom is also a daily activity that everybody participates in, unlike wrapping a tracker around a wrist or wearing a smart ring to bed. 

Also: The best sleep trackers: These sleep trackers improved my sleep

U-Scan’s premise is simple: People are flushing down critical health information every day. What if a device could continuously monitor and capture this information, then deliver accessible results on an app? 

Those insights and recommendations come at a steep cost. The proactive package, which covers three months of the device, is $380 with renewal costing $100, and its intensive package (which also covers three months of usage) is $450 with renewal costing $180. That’s on top of a Withings+ membership, which costs $100 annually, or $10 a month. 

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