Currently submitted to: JMIR Formative Research
Date Submitted: Apr 16, 2026
Open Peer Review Period: Apr 17, 2026 - Jun 12, 2026
(currently open for review)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Toilet-Mounted System for Non-invasive Gut Microbiota Estimation from Fecal Odor: A Proof-of-Concept Study
ABSTRACT
Background:
A novel, toilet-mounted system was developed to transform the restroom into a seamless health monitoring platform. This system non-invasively estimates the gut microbiota by analyzing fecal odor.
Objective:
The objective was to develop an end-to-end system for this purpose and to conduct a proof-of-concept study to evaluate its effectiveness as a healthcare service in a real-world setting.
Methods:
The system architecture comprises a self-developed gas sensor device for unobtrusive measurement, a two-stage machine learning framework to estimate fecal gas concentrations and predict the relative abundance of the gut microbiota, and a smartphone application for delivering personalized health insights. Its effectiveness was assessed through a survey evaluating the impact on users’ health awareness, behavioral changes, and perceived health outcomes.
Results:
The results demonstrated strong user acceptance. 90% of the participants indicated that the service was effective. The system was highly successful in increasing users' health awareness (88% agreed) and interest in gut flora (100% agreed).
Conclusions:
This study confirms the feasibility of using the toilet-mounted system for daily and effortless health monitoring. It establishes a foundational methodology for a novel approach to personalized and preventive healthcare.
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