Every device is “smart” these days. Sure, a smart lighting system for your house might make sense, but do you really need a smart toothbrush? A smart toaster? A Wi-Fi-enabled salt shaker?


Case in point: the smart toilet. While it may sound enjoyable to have a toilet that will warm up as you approach it, if you’re not careful, things can quickly take a turn for the crappy — by which I mean, the toilet can explode while you’re trying to take a dump.



In a video that’s currently taking over Chinese social media, a man in Xiamen was dropping the kids off at the pool when something began to seem amiss about his toilet. As it turns out, the John he was sitting on had started on fire. “Suddenly a puff of white smoke came out,” says OP, who originally shared the video on Chinese social media site Douyin. He quickly got up and began filming the burning toilet, inadvertently revealing that he takes his pants all the way off to poop (that’s weird, right?).


Anyway, while we don’t know exactly what caused the fire, many are speculating that it occurred after some faulty wiring in his smart toilet caught alight. Others say that the toilet was leaking methane, which was then ignited by an exterior source. No matter what caused it, OddityCentral notes that this wouldn’t be the first time that something like this has happened in the country.



“Similar incidents were reported in August of last year, when a man in Lishui, Zhejiang Province, woke up to the strong smell of smoke to find his smart toilet burning in the bathroom, and in August of this year, in Shibing County, Guizhou, where another man’s smart toilet burst into flames for no apparent reason,” reads the OddityCentral piece.


If you’ve got a smart toilet, watch out — unless you like your buns toasted.