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Beyond the Hype: The Time 2025 Best Inventions Reshaping Health, Home, and Wealth

  • Writer: horizonshiftlab
    horizonshiftlab
  • Dec 4
  • 18 min read

Updated: Dec 5

Robot folding clothes on "TIME" cover, titled "Best Inventions of 2025." Surrounding gadgets showcase innovation. Futuristic and tech-focused.
Image Source: Spencer Lowell for TIME

In this annual episode, Sue and Raakhee dive into Time's Best Inventions of 2025, first checking in on last year's picks: the AI-powered toilet seat (TrueLoo), which is successfully gaining traction in senior living communities, and the commercially available, sold-out Firefly petunias (bioluminescent flowers). The hosts then analyze the 2025 list, noting strong themes in women's health (at-home cervical cancer tests and IVF/fertility insurance) and the pervasive integration of AI across all categories, including climate-proofing commodities and home robotics.


The conversation spotlights two major picks: a real estate startup called Zown, which disrupts traditional real estate commissions by giving a portion back to the buyer , and the Set Point System, a tiny implant that uses neuromodulation on the vagus nerve to calm the immune system, showing great promise for autoimmune diseases.





Every year, the world's most notable inventions serve as powerful indicators of where society is directing its capital, its creativity, and its focus. The 2025 list continues to signal a future where technology is deeply integrated into our most personal spaces—from our bathrooms to our balance sheets.


For professionals grappling with complex career decisions and the quest for wellness, these innovations point toward systemic shifts in health, finance, and quality of life.


The State of Last Year's Signals: AI and Whimsy Persist

Last year’s standout inventions continue to show traction, particularly in niche but critical markets:

  • AI-Powered Health Monitoring: The TrueLoo AI-powered toilet seat, which optically scans stool and urine for health anomalies, has found its footing in senior living communities. Its value lies in providing a ten-times faster turnaround time for analysis, which is crucial for early intervention in the elderly. The company, Toi Labs, has recorded over 3.5 million "toilet sessions" and is actively expanding its presence.

  • Engineered Whimsy: The Firefly Petunia—a plant genetically engineered by Light Bio to glow in the dark—completed its first commercial growing season. The plants, which glow brighter when they are healthy, sold out quickly during their limited release. This signal hints at a growing desire for "life at night" and the intersection of science and aesthetic quality of life.


Breakthroughs in 2025: Women's Health, Equity, and Wellness

The 2025 list features major advancements that address long-standing inequities and seek to fundamentally improve the human experience:


  • Women's Health Redefined: Innovation in women's health is gaining significant momentum. The Teal Wand became the first FDA-approved at-home screening test for cervical cancer. It allows for self-collection via a tampon-like device that is as accurate as an in-clinic Pap smear and overwhelmingly preferred by women. This recognition signals a major shift toward redesigning care to focus on the women's experience and perspective.

  • The Future of Fair Real Estate: The high-commission, traditional real estate model is being challenged. Zown (Z-O-W-N) is a digital real estate platform that addresses the unfairness of high fees, particularly for buyers. The company matches buyers with licensed, salaried agents (not commission-driven) and returns 1.5% of the typical 2.5% commission the agent receives from the seller back to the buyer. This "Down Payment Boost" program has already returned over $3 million to more than 500 home buyers, signaling a move toward a fairer system.

  • Neuroscience for Chronic Illness: A significant health breakthrough is the Set Point System, a tiny implant placed near the neck that delivers a brief electrical signal to the vagus nerve. Its purpose is to calm the immune system, a process known as neuromodulation, offering a non-chemical alternative to drugs. Currently, it is the only FDA-approved device for treating adults with moderately to severely active rheumatoid arthritis (RA). This approach represents a promising step in managing the rising global incidence of autoimmune disorders.


Other Key Themes: AI, Home, and Climate

  • AI in the Home: Robots for domestic tasks, such as cleaning and folding laundry, suggest a coming reprieve from household chores.

  • Security Solutions: While the list was short on data privacy, inventions like Pin Drop Pulse Meetings emerged to detect and flag virtual personas or bots attempting to infiltrate online job interviews.

  • Quality of Life and Whimsy: Inventions like the Ninja Creami Swirl ice cream maker and the non-browning banana peel remind us that innovation is not just about solving major crises, but also about improving daily pleasure and food sustainability.


The inventions of 2025 confirm that the future will be a balanced mix of high-tech solutions for major global and personal challenges, combined with a persistent, human-driven focus on wellness, quality of life, and transparency.





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Episode Transcript:

Sue: (00:00)

Hello and welcome back to Signal Shift is Sue. I'm here with Raakhee. And if you tuned in last year, you might remember our deep dive into time's best inventions of 2024. It was from AI powered toilet seats that turned every bathroom visit into a health check to bioluminescent petunias that turned gardens into nightscapes.


We asked, you what do these innovations tell us about the future? And they provided some really great signals and plenty of discussion Well, today we're talking about the 2025 list. And instead of just spotlighting the picks that we had, today we're actually gonna ask what happened to last year's signals? What happened since then? And yeah, what are our general impressions of this year's list? And we'll finish up with each of our picks, although, Raakhee, I don't know about you, but I had a really tough time this year. we want to know how are these things really reshaping how we work, live and play. Raakhee, I think before we jump into the 2025 list, you know, we made some picks around 2024.


So I'm really curious what happened with those. Raakhee, can you remind us, what did you pick last year and what did you find since then?


Raakhee: (01:12)

No guesses. Mine was the AI powered toilet seat and I was quite excited about it last year and I remain excited about it this year. So the company was called TOI Toi Labs and that toilet seat specifically is known as TrueLoo.


And I checked up on them and yeah, they still are out there. The product is available. What is interesting, and I think they did allude to this last year, but I don't know if they've really zoned in or honed in on this particular market, but senior living communities. And they really seem to be angling for getting the toilet seat into senior living communities. And it really helps with all kinds of samples collection and urine collection and analysis in these places. Where it makes a lot of sense because the truth is that you know with the elderly you don't always have time for like big turnaround time, like go take a test and we'll figure it out it can often be too late.

So it's the perfect type of system and I think they said it's ten times faster turnaround time with knowing when something is wrong with them so from you know what I understand from the company itself and their information. It looks like they're really well in senior communities. yeah, 3.5 million plus of these toilet sessions or whatever you want to call them recorded. So they are in a couple of senior facilities. And I think that's again, where they are pushing forward to grow.


I was happy to see that they're still around and they haven't just failed and fall into the wayside. And I think the senior community makes a lot of sense. I was actually thinking about where else would it make sense to have them. And I was thinking, what about little kids as well?


And analysis either for the elderly or for little ones who are like, you know, it's really hard for them to, you know, give urine for a test or anything like that. So to make it simpler for those audiences, right, because it seems to be working really well for the elderly. So I'm curious to see where they're going to go next and to what extent these, you know, monitoring toilets are going to be a part of all of our homes in the future. And I'm sure they're going to be in a couple of years.


Sue: (03:28)

Super interesting. And yeah, that makes sense for the elderly where they would go. I was also thinking, yeah, just even having that data, you're always maybe looking for public health data about what's the latest virus going around. Well, you don't have to wait. Especially you can have community data. You don't have to wait for government sources to kind of figure that out for you. So that could be another way to get really useful real time information.


It's no surprise that I chose the gardening feature and the bioluminescent petunias. So these Firefly petunias, you know, they seemed like just such a whimsy to have, but they are more expensive. And, you know, at least last year we're talking about the possibilities of creating a moonlight garden. You know, someone had even created... petunia garden in their room for extra kind of peace and health.


Anyway, this last year was the first growing season where they were commercially available and they sold out very quickly. I just saw coverage of it in the Detroit Free Press for the Metro Detroit area. There was one garden nursery that said, you know, they're kind of expensive, but we'll see how they do. They created a post, I think on Facebook, it went viral and they sold out in the first day.


So I guess they'll bring it back a second year. But the next season will be really interesting if they become more mainstream, if this is kind of the first hybridized version of bioluminescence. You could see gardens with many different types of plants with this kind of feature and with more colors and sort of all of these things. But it was really fun to see images of this greenhouse that just had rows and rows of these firefly petunias in the dark, just glowing green. It was pretty cool. But also I thought, hey, this is a really great incentive for people to care for their gardens because the bioluminescent is only really working if the plants are healthy.


So this might spark, well, what's wrong with my plant? If it's not doing this, maybe we have to change the soil. So maybe you become a more expert gardener. as a result. it's just one of those things we continue to talk about is, you know, life at night, right? What will that look like? And so now you'll have these beautiful gardens in the morning. And like we were talking about with our guest, Stephanie Vermillion, a while ago, you just experience things differently at night. So even popular tourist spots of gardens, what if they had something like this and more bioluminescent plants that might change how people attend and visit some of these places?


Raakhee: (06:07)

Sue we have these kind of night exhibitions that are very popular in LA, like in the gardens, in the botanical gardens. But they're not plants, they're light installations. But they're very, very popular here and there's always a couple and it's so stunning. I can only imagine to see these flowers. And I had those two questions, which was one, just remind me, and you may have mentioned it, but.


Were these like genetically engineered to become like that or they're naturally occurring plant? And then two, where do we get them?


Sue: (06:39)

Yeah, interesting. So your first question is no, they've been hybridized. So they've been engineered to take the bioluminescence from, was it fireflies or something like that? I think that must be why they call it the firefly petunia. And they take that characteristic and they put them into the petunias and they've created this play. I think it was 10 years in the making to actually create this thing, right?


You just gotta wait to see where they'll be stocked in stores next year. But yeah, just check their website. You can go to light.bio, that's where they are, But yeah, that brings us fast forwarding to 2025. We've got the Times Best Inventions list for this year.


Raakhee, are there any big themes that jumped out right away about this list?


Raakhee: (07:24)

Yeah, women's health featured quite a bit in this year's list as it was last year But two standout ones when it came to women's health was one, we actually spoke about a couple of months back where we had the episode about are we going to need a gynae anymore? And it was about the at home test for cervical cancer called the teal wand and how simple and easy and much more user friendly, it seemed to be able to take a test like that at home for yourself without having to do the very sort of invasive, know, Paps with your gynae every year that I, you know, most of us dread. another one that was really interesting, which was IVF and fertility insurance.


A good percentage of women have to go through this process when they want to conceive. And it's become very natural for women to have kids at an older age now. It's beyond their 30s and fertility is in different ranges for everybody from that point onwards. And you really can't expect women to be having kids early. it makes a lot of sense to start saving up for that kind of insurance. And if we had all known that.


You know, sooner we'd have been saving for that, right, from high school. But again, it's one of those things you're not educated on or we didn't know that's where society was headed. And a company that is now kind of set up to help women with that, with saving up for that and having that kind of IVF slash fertility insurance,


Sue: (08:50)

It's really interesting just to see how some of the things that we've talked about in previous episodes are making it onto the list.


Some of the things I was excited to see, again, just because we think it is so important, is the climate proofing of some of our commodities that we consume. So there was an invention about future proofing coffee. There were some other climate controlled agricultural products as well. another one was like the AI robotic assistant at home assistant who's doing your laundry and stuff like that.


Maybe a year ago, I would have been like, what? That's crazy. But this year I'm like, yeah, of course. you could see AI in pretty much every single category they had. So I thought that was also just what a difference a year makes in that they had especially a lot of AI related apps in the learning space. And then I think the one that I was personally just warmed my heart to see this was the Copenhagen tourism incentive to be sustainable is called Copenpay,


They launched the Copen - Pay system during the height of tourist season during the summer. So if you, for instance, if you have incentive not to go by plane and by rail, they'll have like a meal ready for you when you land, you know, when you arrive at the train station or things like that. You know, if you go by bicycle, you get other incentives. So it's still a work in progress, but they're gonna be launching it next season.


Think the last thing I guess I was just surprised by was that there weren't more winners in the data privacy and security area. It was a very short list. And I think, I was just expecting in this day and age with deep fakes and all of those things, like if there was just going to be many, many more kind of solutions around managing our data and privacy. And then for me, disappointment was just the sustainability inventions still seemed pretty piecemeal and not systemic. Anything to add there before we move on?


Raakhee: (10:50)

Yeah, yeah. cybersecurity, there were two that I recall. One was, I think it was called Pin Drop Pulse Meetings. It's because they are virtual personas popping up onto online interviews. And I didn't realize it was as big a problem as it is. So you know, an entity or a person can fake being somebody else or being something and pitching onto an actual online job interview, which is it's crazy, right? But I mean, of course it's possible now. So I think PinDrop Pulse detects that and immediately kind of notifies you and says this is a fake person. This is a fake account or a bot or whatever.


And I think there was another one that was also deep fake detection, but literally on your mobile. Because I think that's also the challenge is getting that kind of technology to work with all our applications, right? Because it's everywhere. And I think this one was going to help with mobile applications and just seeing these things on your mobile and knowing this video is fake. But you're right. I think those were the only two that I've seen. And considering what we are facing in this space, I am almost certain next year's List is going to have a couple of more in that space.


And then I have to mention this other category that for me was interesting, and you kind of did as well, which was like the robot cleaner for the house, which I loved. And this maybe doesn't deserve, you somebody would question whether this deserved to be on the list, but I'm very passionate. I should be an ambassador for the product, but it's the ninja the creamy but this is the swirl one that does the ice cream and as you know I exclusively can only have these ice creams because I don't do dairy, don't do sugar. So I make all my ice creams at home and I have the normal creamy but I still want to get the swirl. I was just really happy to see it on the list. So that was really cool to see and just a few other things around home cleaning and the robots and... maybe we really will get some reprieve in a couple of years and, you know, some hands in our house chores and work, which would be wonderful.


Sue: (12:50)

Yeah, that's great. Yeah. Oh, I saw that the ice cream maker was that I love that part about the list too, that it's not. It's also about quality of life and still having some whimsy. There's a whole section on toys and play. I love seeing some of those as well.


Yeah, I was curious what drew you to your pick. What is it? And yeah, maybe what is the potential of what you're seeing?


Raakhee: (13:14)

My pick was one which I think is pronounced as zown, z-o-w-n. So like when you own something, but now you zown something. It's in a real estate realm.


This one stuck out to me because of my own frustration with this And we've actually spoken about this entire industry a long time ago, we spoke about real estate and that entire industry and just how archaic it is and how much there needs to change. And we've seen some massive changes this year with the Realtors Association having some shakeups, rules going to change, know, the housing market's completely different this year. And I think we're to just see more of that next year where things are truly shifting because they're not sustainable and they're not right. And neither is how realty simply continues to operate the way it always has. But one of the things that I just feel is really unfair and is, a point of frustration for me is the fees that as a buyer, you've got to, pay your agent.


And the reason I say that is that in today's times, your agent really doesn't have to do that much because the truth is we are all, you're on Realtor, you're on Zillow, you're looking for houses yourself, you're very clear about what you want, you're running your own analysis, you're running your own comparisons, right? Of course, there's some things they can educate you on, but the truth is that you're doing 98 % of all of that stuff, right? Even going to open houses and that you can typically do all of that on your own.


So they play a very small role And they take a very big commission. Now, the seller typically does pay that. the buyer's agent's commission.


And I guess that's what they're playing on here. So they're a small startup and basically what their premise is, you can sign up with the agents to buy who are all registered licensed agents, but they're salaried,


If I only need an hour or two hours of this much work from you, that's how much you get paid, number one, first and foremost, right? It doesn't have to be anything additional. It feels fairer. And then second, that typical commission that you would pay. And now they say 2.5 % on their website and standard. I think it depends on the state and that can go up, right? But if you're looking at 2.5 % for this commission, what they basically say is they give you 1.5 % back.


So the seller will still pay them that, but they will give you 1.5 % back and they'll only have, you know, 1%. And you can use this 1.5 % for additional costs, whatever you need to do with the house renovation, put it wherever you want In essence, bringing down that commission amount based on everything I just mentioned earlier, feels a lot more fair.


I don't know if this is the entirety of the solution. But I was really excited to see a company like this on the list and the fact that this is exactly where real estate and that industry is moving and how things are going to shift and change for people buying and selling homes that I think are going to be fairer, and the kind of selling sunset days may be coming to an end.


I think they've already helped like plus 500 home buyers with this process. And $3 million have been given back to these people already. And I think they are in Canada and they're in Texas. And I think they are now in California as well.


So they are expanding and they hopefully will be in every state and city soon enough or something like this.


Sue: (16:40)

I'm glad you said selling Sunset because as soon as I was thinking about it, was like, million dollar listing, there we go. But this is, know, there are a lot of different potential disruptions in the market. So that's very interesting to see where this relatively small company will go in the future. Interesting. Yeah. So for me, I wanted to get to maybe an invention that hasn't come up too much or related to a subject that hasn't come up too much in our previous discussion. So I was combing through the list and this caught my eye in the health section and it was called the Set Point System, it's a tiny implant you put near your neck and it gives the vagus nerve. It gives it like a little nudge via electric signal. And the whole aim is to calm the immune system down.


So right now I think they have one of their products for this is really specifically towards rheumatoid arthritis. But it's really interesting because it moves away from immune suppression using drugs to what they're calling neuromodulation and really using that to help your own signaling network in your own body. So I thought that was really, really interesting. And I think for me it was, it was interesting because just if you're treating ultimately rheumatoid arthritis, but other kind of inflammatory or autoimmune disease, that could be a big turning point for people in terms of quality of life.


You know, it's just looking at some of the statistics, I've just heard generally that it seems to be increasing, right? And there has been a global data set that says autoimmune disorders affect one in 10 people globally. And then some sources estimate that's even higher.


And then if you have autoimmune issues, about a third of them have other autoimmune diseases as well. So it's not just one. And then now there's been recent studies that indicate biomarkers of basically autoimmune issues even before you exhibit some symptoms. And so they're calling them preclinical, right? And it's just, there's so many more people. think AARP announced there's just a rising incidence of this of people ages 50 and beyond. again, talking about this longevity thing, this is going to be even more important and there have to be more interventions than just chemical interventions as well.


I was really excited to see the promise of something like that. Again, I'm not a health expert, so I don't know the intricacies of this, but again, just the idea that this is such an important issue that seems to be increasing over time and not enough solutions quite yet.


I'm hoping that this will be promising and that this can be used for other indications as well to kind of treat general inflammation and autoimmune issues in the body. So I was really excited to see that in the health section. again, related to this idea, how do we get to a hundred and beyond and also have thriving lives and not live with chronic illness late into life?


Raakhee: (19:49)

That's awesome, Sue. think that is going to make a lot of people feel very hopeful because I'm certain that number for autoimmune has got to even be higher than what they mentioned.


And I'm so curious to see how things like sound, things like stimulating the vagus nerve. There's this concept called facial maneuvers. it's these techniques that release the fascia around your muscles. they believe that's where trauma and tension is stored. When you release that, you relieve pain.


Sue: (20:18)

And of course, when you add AI in, like who else knows what other kind of solutions will be possible in the future? Yeah, so interesting picks for both of us. They're very different from the ones we picked last year. Yeah, any other thoughts on this list while we close out our episode?


Raakhee: (20:35)

Another one that stuck out to me, but it was they had a non browning banana peel. So I guess it was the modification of the bananas so that it lasts longer. And as we spoke about bananas before, banana crops and my need for having an immense amount of bananas in my life. So just shout out to the longevity of the banana.


Sue: (20:58)

That's great. Well, that's definitely something I can get behind as well. And for those of you watching and listening, I'm so curious when you see the list, what you'll be picking out as well. And it's just been just a great opportunity to look at all the different inventions and just indications of what the future might bring in terms of solutions for a lot of the issues that we have.


Just ways to make our lives better. I, for one, am really excited that there is now a glass and steel version of the coffee AeroPress, which I love. So yeah, just lots of fun things. Yeah, so that's our look at Time's Best Inventions of 2025.


Subscribe to Signal Shift on YouTube or wherever you're listening. And of course, if you can leave us a message or comment, let us know in the YouTube comment section. And yeah, we'll be back next week with more signals. And in the meantime, thanks again and we'll see you soon.

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