![urinal](https://www.zdnet.com/a/img/resize/37103e32f5a1037d7b76b5c1ee13db11e282212c/2024/04/25/c2e5d014-7944-46e4-945c-c9e454924a0d/urinal.jpg?auto=webp&width=1280)
Would you pay $2.75 for a checkup every time you want one?
This was the spontaneous experience Shanghai resident Chris Petersen-Clausen had when he visited a public toilet in a shopping mall.
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He positioned himself in front of a urinal. The urinal had a screen offering an on-site urine test.
Like him describe on TwitterX: “I know what you're thinking: a Chinese company – what about privacy? Truth be told, I'm middle-aged and haven't had a checkup in a while .I'm more worried about knowing everything is okay and the convenience can't be beat.
The process seems incredibly simple. You pay your 19.90 yuan (about $2.75) via WeChatoffer a few personal details and – remarkably soon – get details about your chemical innards, such as vitamin C and nitrite levels.
Petersen-Clausen said: “Before I even went down the escalator, I had my results.”
The results showed that he was calcium deficient, but was otherwise a fairly healthy human being.
Petersen-Clausen is a famous independent cameraman and documentary filmmakerr, a Werner Herzog in the making. He once traveled with former NBA great Dennis Rodman to North Korea and famously took photos.
And, full disclaimer here, he worked for me as an art director in New York. So I contacted him to ask for more information about the whole experience.
“I didn't know about these urinals. I came across them by chance in a shopping center and became curious,” he told me.
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But who could get the most out of this service?
“I think the target audience is the chain-smoking forklift driver who never gets checked. I like the idea of them finding out there's something they should see a doctor for and thus may he be saved,” he said.
The psychology of this technology is very compelling. This allows people to monitor their health, rather than having to – in many cases – have the courage to seek medical attention. The simple surprise of discovering the health monitoring device on the urinal is also disarming.
Indeed, Petersen-Clausen was so moved by his first test that he thought he would try again to see if his calcium levels had gone down.
He said: “A few days later I came across another one of these urinals and did another test. Apparently I had already drunk enough milk. The tests also seem quite comprehensive.”
Like more people use Apple Watches to monitor aspects of their healthwe can imagine that this type of technology could be quickly adopted.
“I don't think this will replace a visit to your doctor, but it might very well prompt one. A cardiologist told me that thanks to Apple Watches, he's now seeing more people before they have an attack heart,” Petersen-Clausen said.
Of course, there's always a privacy issue – and it's not a small problem. Some will worry that such public health checks – even if carried out by a private company – could quietly betray their data. Some might also worry that the technology could detect other substances – substances that are not legal or simply frowned upon – that their bodies might contain.
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The fear of betrayed trust is never far away. Does the green light from a machine in a public toilet offer a false sense of well-being?
But we all want to live a little longer and we know we need certain data to do that.
Anything that makes this data easier to discover may seem to many – as it did to Petersen-Clausen – a very good thing.