Twittering toilet

posted May 5th 2009 9:28am by Caleb Kraft
filed under: arduino hacks, home hacks

wiredup_t

We wouldn’t want to let a week slip by without something new being made to twitter would we? This time it is a toilet. Don’t worry, they are sparing us the graphic details, it pretty much tweets every time it is flushed. As you can see in the picture above, they’re using an Arduino for the toilet/PC connection. If you really want to make something twitter, this might be a good starting point. It’s basically twittering every time a button is pushed. You can download the source code on the site as well as find a tutorial on Arduino basics.

[via astera]

Comments [38]

tagged: arduino, toilet, twitter

Reader Comments

I await the twittering condom

Posted at 9:53 am on May 5th, 2009 by Hackius

Well seeing as how half my “friends” twitter every time they fart or use the bathroom, this seems pretty fitting. I will probably make a ton of money building these for them. glad I don’t use twitter.

Posted at 10:01 am on May 5th, 2009 by ehrichweiss

@I await the twittering condom
Why? So it can remind you that you still haven’t gotten laid? LOL.

Posted at 10:03 am on May 5th, 2009 by DisillusionedDave

Posted at 10:08 am on May 5th, 2009 by anon

heh, the twitter shitter

Posted at 10:16 am on May 5th, 2009 by Matt

I think this sums up twitter pretty well

Posted at 10:21 am on May 5th, 2009 by jesus in techicolour

A bit ago when some blog posted about a twitter chair that tweets farts, I was just saying that I sure hoped nobody made a tweeting toilet.

Posted at 10:27 am on May 5th, 2009 by Mouserz

I was expecting better comments with fodder like this.

Posted at 10:28 am on May 5th, 2009 by Matt Joyce

the twitterings toilet does sum up twitter pretty well. twitter is just a fad it will pass, its like the saying “all that and a bag of chips”, in a year or so everyone will realize how dorky it was.

Posted at 10:31 am on May 5th, 2009 by mike

Ok, so it could be useful to keep tabs on how much water you’re wasting. I am, surprisingly, not doubting the usefulness of the combination. Just the usefulness of using an arduino.

If it’s hooked up to a PC anyway, why not just have the whole program on the pc, watching for the button-push on a, for example, serial port?

Posted at 11:22 am on May 5th, 2009 by cynic

So if this toilet were in Europe you could have a different message depending on which button was pushed.. the “big” button or the “small” one..

Posted at 11:29 am on May 5th, 2009 by martin

Let me be the first to say that this is _way_ to much information. Seriously, __HOW__ is this practical?

Posted at 11:47 am on May 5th, 2009 by Hal Hockersmith

Wait a tick. You can customize the message it sends out. This is Virtual Grafiti.

So now instead of scribbling on the bathroom wall and you make a witty 140 char posting and submit it with a flush. Ingenious.

See you gotta read the article.

Posted at 11:49 am on May 5th, 2009 by Hal Hockersmith

Honestly, after the twittering toaster, dryer, electrical socket, and office chair, I was kind of expecting this. It was only a matter of time.

Posted at 12:17 pm on May 5th, 2009 by pragma

The obvious evolution of this project is to add a webcam for auto updates to both twitpic and http://www.ratemypoo.com.

Posted at 12:17 pm on May 5th, 2009 by Jam

“i’m pooping now.”

Was that under the character limit or do I have space to be more specific?

Posted at 1:10 pm on May 5th, 2009 by BigD145

Honestly, who on earth would ever want somebody to know what they’re doing every second of the day, including every second spent in the bathroom?

The big question is: who wants to know what you do in the bathroom?

Like a joke that has been taken to far, twitter’s gotta stop.

Posted at 1:11 pm on May 5th, 2009 by Paul

Okay this has just past the point of ridiculousness….

lol twitter shitter

Posted at 1:31 pm on May 5th, 2009 by blizzarddemon

Nice.

Sounds a little like Shit Happens project:
http://laboratorio.us/projects/shithappens/

Posted at 2:18 pm on May 5th, 2009 by malungo

Or better yet, twitter the Steampunk Vibrator

Posted at 2:49 pm on May 5th, 2009 by bryan

A better experiment would be to electronically control the flush from a client watching for the toilet twitter to show up on the user’s twitter page.

then users would always get a first-hand, very tangible picture of what the current internet lag was like to the location…

Posted at 3:34 pm on May 5th, 2009 by Dan Fruzzetti

It seriously needs a camera triggered by the flush

Posted at 4:11 pm on May 5th, 2009 by rasz

Add RFID to identify the person.
Add a pressure sensor to check if they sat down.
Add the gas sensor and find out if they did #1 or #2.
If it’s #2, you could have a web cam trigger after the person gets up and takes a picture and sends it to ratemypoo.com

How would you detect if they just flushed something down the toilet?

How about that toilet that could diagnose things?
Hell, lets get a toilet that breaks everything down to figure out everything you ate, drank, smoked, etc..

Posted at 7:12 pm on May 5th, 2009 by ellisgl

I will not go into another one of my signature rants about how much twitter blows, because I’m sure you’ve all heard it by now. But seriously. Every time something like this gets posted — which sadly happens almost every week, if not more — I loose a little more of my sliver of remaining hope for the fate of humanity. All I can say is that I really, really hope this pitiful fad ends very soon. For the sake of everyone.

Posted at 9:38 pm on May 5th, 2009 by punmaster

just needs a methane sensor, then it can tell how smelly it was

Posted at 3:02 am on May 6th, 2009 by iduno

Needs some sort of spark ignitor in the bowl!

Suprise!!!!!!!

Posted at 3:49 am on May 6th, 2009 by Simon

…does anybody remember 1996 (or earlier?) One of the first live webcams installed in a stall of the ladies bathroom on floor x of the Empire State Building… and how many ladies do you think worked in that IT company? I don’t think I saw anyone except the cleaning lady…

Aren’t most technological experiments of dubiously useful nature?

Posted at 4:31 am on May 6th, 2009 by darkpoet

Where’s the obligatory Penny Arcade link?

Posted at 4:58 am on May 6th, 2009 by PocketBrain

This needs to be tied in to a weight sensor. Everyone wants to twitter the mass of their bowel movement!

Posted at 7:29 am on May 6th, 2009 by mw

they should twitter or tweet when someone doesnt wash their hands… people get quite cozy at the office… rucky “Try the duck, it is most succulent!”

Posted at 9:03 am on May 6th, 2009 by kyle007

Hmmm that would be a nasty thing to find out.

Posted at 9:50 am on May 6th, 2009 by mic

So… does it record a log-file, and if something goes wrong does it dump core?

Yes, those are crap jokes and I have nothing of use to add really. Just like most Twitter entries :)

I am actually curious why they have ethernet in their bathroom though.

Posted at 11:36 am on May 6th, 2009 by James

James, they have ethernet in their bathroom for the laser-cutter control computer. Obviously.

Posted at 12:10 pm on May 6th, 2009 by brian

Oblig: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/4/23/

Posted at 1:38 pm on May 6th, 2009 by Robo

Actually, “I just pooped” Would be more accurate anyway.

Posted at 2:17 pm on May 6th, 2009 by J

Well I used to think that there was nothing hackers did that was totally useless to anyone, I stand (sit) corrected.

Posted at 2:52 pm on May 6th, 2009 by Hirudinea

Arg! Give up with the stupid twitter stuff already!

Posted at 4:23 pm on May 6th, 2009 by Edd

OK if i were to expand on this it would have to twitter as follows

Captains Log:
(Date)
(Time)
(Name)
(Number[1/2])
(Duration)
(Flushed?)
(Washed?)

we could have a weekly competion to see how much time each of us spent on the crapper

Posted at 4:16 am on May 7th, 2009 by Jack

Twittering toilet

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