spinning up new tech startup: nah forget it. you don't even have to watch videos
this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2025
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they can always ask chatgpt how to fix the problem
Maybe it needs a connection cause it takes a picture of your feces and sends it to an AI analysis service. If anomalies are detected, it tells you that you should take the stool sample to a laboratory for further study, then lets you flush. Poof, smart toilet. I could see people with too much money buying this.
Edit: Thought about it some more.. why stop at feces images? Why not also have a high resolution camera pointed at your anus taking crowning shots and analyzing those. Tell users if anythings wrong. The future is ~~bright~~ brown boys. The future is brown.
Edit2: You could even have motion based security.. alert if anyone broke in through your bathroom. Cameras in toilets people! What could go wrong?
Edit3: Hear me out. User controlled bidet mode + anus camera. Take out your phone and clean your ass in first person. Score points if you clean your whole ass and compete on an online scoreboard. Tech sure is amazing.
If anomalies are detected, it tells your insurance company so they can increase your rates or drop you before you actually need to go to the hospital and cost them any money.
ftfy
Sorry, Euro defaultism.. my healthcare is affordable. You can always run Tolet Assistant on a raspberry pi at home and let your shit never leave the network.
There is no reason it needs an always on connection for this. Even if there was a camera in the bowl taking pictures of poo (which raises so many privacy questions), the device could easily save hundreds of HD+ quality picture (assuming a toilet camera had that resolution) and send them next time connection is secure.
Always online functionality only makes sense when the function itself is an online task such as a video call or looking up information not saved locally.
Having an always online connection for a toilet suggest it's gathering much more information passively from your home, using voice activated as a cover to always be listening and thus relaying what it records to server/data center to be filtered through for marketable or exploitable data.
Toilet's chipset is only good for network connection and video recording. Business logic is on servers. As I said, users want to know if their shit is good before they flush so they dont lose a sample in case it is bad.
You may have stumbled on multiplayer shitting though. Conference call with random strangers on the internet, biggest splashback, fastest bowel movement... endless possibilities. Yeah I think always online is the best course of action here.
this reminds me of a joke whose punchline revolves around the meaning of the acronym ATR.
Why not just have a small aliquot of each stool deposit diverted into an HPLC/UPLC with AI checking the chromatogram?
Same reason Tesla lost LIDAR and went vision only - ~~its good enough~~ cost.
Making "smart" devices that can't do routine mundane things without an active internet connection is completely fucking stupid.
I'm just boggled by the fact that "a toilet you flush with your phone" ever gof off the stoner couch. who the fuck wants to pull out a phone and press a button every time they take a piss.
Sensors if you move, yeah they're a thing that's given us all a surprise shifting our weight but a fucking app???
who the fuck wants to pull out a phone and press a button every time they take a piss.
There could be a use case in public restrooms or retirement homes, but a usage sensor and timer would do the job better.
I 100% would not pair my phone to a public toilet just to flush it
I would 100% pair my phone, so that I could flush it while others were using it.
stoner couch
Stealing this one!
I mean, obviously a manual handle would be a requirement, but I could possibly see it? Like the idea of an app controlled bidet is not that far fetched because they have a lot of buttons and settings (obviously I want physical buttons too).
Yeah I would expect a "smart" toilet to flush when I stood up or moved away. Why anybody would ever require a phone to turn on a faucet is beyond ridiculous.
"Smart" apparently doesn't mean "it does things on its own" but simply "you can control it over our app"
Has nobody else pointed out this is clearly not real?
I honestly could not tell. It's completely believable that something this stupid would exist. Like I didn't necessarily believe it was but I wasn't confident in either direction.
Yeah, strong Doubt (X) on this one
Yeah first thing I did was search the web for more information. Zero results...
I bet most of these other commenters also complain about boomers eating up fake news.
Telegram messages won't show up search results, but sure we may expect some news article about it. The message is here
Just searching around got me their link: https://t.me/ctobtch , and their channel posted this post a few days ago.
I have become the red shirt from my favorite SMBC comic
However, my feelings regarding smart devices remain intact
Oh we're the idiots. Never saw that coming
Day 3,801 of thanking God I was born a Luddite
Anyone who thought their toilet would be improved by having an internet connection deserves this
I mean, it could be. Imagine getting a push notification when it overflows. The lowest pipe in my house is a toilet. Luckily my wife was nearby but it could've gone worse if we didn't see for a bit.
This is a job for water detectors, which I have no qualms about connecting to the internet. They have the added benefit of detecting leaky pipes as well
I could also see push notifications about adding bleach tablets or whatever to it periodically if that's your thing. I have a smart fridge (probably the dumbest smart fridge you can get feature wise, doesn't do much). I can check and adjust the temperature from my phone and get filter replacement reminders. It can send push notifications if the door isn't shut which would be more useful if I had kids. Just because you don't think you'd have uses for it doesn't mean it can't be useful.
Again, with the huge caveat that the toilet be capable of manually flushing.
I'm not a Luddite, shit just has to be reliable and actually useful without violating my privacy. Wait a minute...
I'm kind of far away fyom being a luddite, senior software developer, codes for fun, builds electronic stuff with wifi etc.
My toilet was built and installed before internet was invented and will not be changed for anything smart, neither is my toaster, dish washer, stove, locks, etc. etc. Ever. Over my dead body (if you want to be disinherited).
Sure but I'm also all for innovating and watching these things fail. Isn't there a value in letting dumb rich people with money waste their wealth on dumb ideas. It keeps them from doing things like buying Twitter
Okay, I get the idea of smart AC for example - be elsewhere, turn it on remotely so that it's comfortable when you get home. Fine. But a toilet? You are physically present there, you can push a button to flush. Or are you telling me that you're shitting remotely now too?
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The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at and repair.
Douglas Adams
Douglas Adams was a huge fan of Apple.
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Why would you ever get a toilet that requires anything but the laws of physics to operate?
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Home assistant everything is a yaml away
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