Throne Science launches ThroneOne: AI-powered toilet health tracker targeting gut, urinary, and early cancer detection

Summary

Scott Hickle, co-founder and CEO of Throne Science, has launched ThroneOne, a camera and microphone that clips onto the side of a toilet and automatically tracks gut health, hydration, urinary function, and prostate health using computer vision. The device requires no user interaction beyond installation. It identifies users via Bluetooth, detects when someone is at the toilet, and runs roughly a dozen computer vision models in the background. ThroneOne is direct-to-consumer and HSA/FSA eligible.

Hickle's longer-term B2B roadmap includes a provider dashboard, but he wants to build the consumer brand first, arguing that a direct-to-consumer presence gives the company a distribution advantage that a purely clinical sales motion would not.

Cancer detection

Throne Science is developing a separate R&D device that images across nine wavelengths to detect the spectral fingerprint of hemoglobin, targeting microscopic blood markers that are the earliest signs of lower GI and urinary tract cancers. Hickle frames this as the foundation of a continuous cancer screener and cites a 10% lifetime risk of GI or urinary tract cancer diagnosis, with one in six US cancers falling into that category.

Clinical utility

For patients already working with physicians, the case is immediate. Patient-reported gut health outcomes are notoriously unreliable, and automating that tracking removes what patients describe as the humiliation of keeping a bowel movement spreadsheet. The current product lets patients show the app directly to their doctor. A provider dashboard with structured exports is the first planned B2B feature.

Throne is also building an AI gut health coach. Users narrate their diet and lifestyle inputs, and the system correlates those against tracked outputs to identify personal dietary triggers and intolerances. Hickle calls this approach "gastro typing." At 10,000 users, the system could suggest starting points based on what has worked for users with comparable input-output profiles.

Market and competition

Kohler entered the smart toilet category last year. Hickle treats that as validation rather than a threat. The Kohler product requires manual activation every time, which introduces friction into a routine that has not changed since potty training. ThroneOne is fully passive once installed. A new smart toilet can cost thousands of dollars, while ThroneOne clips onto an existing toilet, putting it closer to the Eight Sleep model than a full hardware replacement.

Go-to-market

Hickle wants to replicate the Levels strategy by anchoring to a credible physician communicator before chasing broad consumer spend. Throne's chief of science is Dr. Karan Rajan, a GI doctor with 10 million followers across TikTok, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram, who holds equity in the company. Roughly 5% of early preorders came from celebrities and celebrity entrepreneurs, even when Throne had around 1,000 Instagram followers, which Hickle attributes to the longevity-focused health culture in that group.

Throne was founded three years before launch following a pivot out of nurse staffing after COVID. The original insight came from Hickle's mother, a geriatrician, who confirmed that patients routinely send her photos of their stool because they intuitively understand there is health information in their waste.