TECHNICAL FIELD

The present disclosure relates to toilets. More particularly, it relates to analytical toilets equipped to provide health and wellness information to the user.

BACKGROUND

The ability to track an individual's health and wellness is currently limited due to the lack of available data related to personal health. Many diagnostic tools are based on examination and testing of excreta, but the high cost of frequent doctor's visits and/or scans make these options available only on a very limited and infrequent basis. Thus, they are not widely available to people interested in tracking their own personal wellbeing.

Toilets present a fertile environment for locating a variety of useful sensors to detect, analyze, and track trends for multiple health conditions. Locating sensors in such a location allows for passive observation and tracking on a regular basis of daily visits without the necessity of visiting a medical clinic for collection of samples and data. Monitoring trends over time of health conditions supports continual wellness monitoring and maintenance rather than waiting for symptoms to appear and become severe enough to motivate a person to seek care. At that point, preventative care may be eliminated as an option leaving only more intrusive and potentially less effective curative treatments. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Just a few examples of smart toilets and other bathroom devices can be seen in the following U.S. patents and Published Applications: U.S. Pat. No. 9,867,513, entitled “Medical Toilet With User Authentication”; U.S. Pat. No. 10,123,784, entitled “In Situ Specimen Collection Receptacle In A Toilet And Being In Communication With A Spectral Analyzer”; U.S. Pat. No. 10,273,674, entitled “Toilet Bowl For Separating Fecal Matter And Urine For Collection And Analysis”; US 2016/0000378, entitled “Human Health Property Monitoring System”; US 2018/0020984, entitled “Method Of Monitoring Health While Using A Toilet”; US 2018/0055488, entitled “Toilet Volatile Organic Compound Analysis System For Urine”; US 2018/0078191, entitled “Medical Toilet For Collecting And Analyzing Multiple Metrics”; US 2018/0140284, entitled “Medical Toilet With User Customized Health Metric Validation System”; US 2018/0165417, entitled “Bathroom Telemedicine Station”; U.S. Pat. No. 9,939,307, entitled “Optical Proximity Sensor Based Toilet With Fill Tube Proximity Level Sensing”; and U.S. Pat. No. 9,927,302, entitled “In-toilet Apparatus For Discrimination Of Urine and Feces.” The disclosures of all these patents and applications are incorporated by reference in their entireties.

SUMMARY

In a first aspect, the disclosure provides a toilet adapted to measure the amount of excreta received by the bowl and then the flush water. A pressure sensor is configured to monitor the pressure exerted by the flush water and any excreta contained therein. Data from monitoring the pressure of the flush water and excreta therein is used to determine the weight or volume of the excreta received by the bowl.

In a second aspect, the disclosure provides a method for determining a urine characteristic from an excreta event. The method includes providing a toilet comprising a bowl and flush water adapted to receive excreta and a pressure sensor configured to monitor the pressure exerted by the flush water and any excrete therein. Additionally, the method includes monitoring the volume of flush water during a period of time that overlaps with an excreta event, analyzing how the volume of flush water changes as a result of excreta being deposited into the bowl, and identifying a volume change feature of the data from the monitoring that corresponds with a urination event. Finally, the method includes using the volume change feature and characteristic from the expert event.

Further aspects and embodiments are provided in the foregoing drawings, detailed description and claims.

