Water is essential to human life. Two thirds of the human body is made up of water. It is important to get our daily dose of water to stay healthy. Staying hydrated everyday is a huge problem for elderly as well as young children. There needs to be a quick and easy way to inform people whether or not they are hydrated. Current products on the market do not empower users to check their daily hydration levels in a non-invasive and effective way. Based on survey data, approximately 85% of the sample population would drink more water if notified that they are dehydrated. Urine colour is the biggest visible indicator of dehydration. Having a product which analyzes the colour of a user’s urine and presenting it to them in a way that is understandable and easy to read is the optimal solution to this problem. The goal of this product is to provide a solution which allows users to check their daily hydration levels, is non-invasive, and is automated. The system must be able to provide health-feedback to the user via a screen either by mobile phone or heads up display, detect changes in colour concentration of urine consistently as a measure of physical hydration and be able to function within any toilet and/or urinal environment whether public, private or shared.
The proposed solution is to develop a system using a colour sensor to collect colour values of the urine. Using a colour sensor would be the most efficient way to analyze colours as it’s already optimized to collect RGB values. This sensor would be placed inside the toilet. Bluetooth capabilities would also be needed in order to transmit data to the user’s smart device. The goal of the design is to reduce user interaction as much as possible. By incorporating a trigger for data capture with the flush would be a seamless way to integrate both systems.
To get an accurate reading from the colour sensor, it is vital to optimize the amount of light being reflected back to the sensor. In order to do this, Snell’s law is used and the angle of the sensor to the glass panel of its encasing is optimized to increase the light refractive index.
The prototype of this design is simplified to a proof of concept to show the capabilities of urine colour analysis. Testing procedures for the prototype involved collecting large amounts of data and comparing them against standard urine colour values. The RBG values collected by the sensor are constrained, compared against standard values, and provides a hydration level output. Future iterations of this design would involve increasing its capabilities to include results of additional health components through urine analysis.
This product is the solution to dehydration problems across the world.