Walmart is working on a mysterious 'flower pot' device that can monitor your health from afar - here's the full story

• Walmart opened its first Walmart Health clinic in Dallas, Georgia in September, inviting Wall Street analysts to its grand opening.
• At the event, analysts from Jefferies and Barclays were quick to point out a sensor-enabled flower pot device.
• Business Insider has learned that the device is a prototype, intended to be used in the home rather than in a clinic and that it wasn't actually supposed to look like a flower pot. It's designed to measure people's heart rate and walking patterns.
• Flowers were just placed in an opening on the prototype ahead of the event.
• Walmart declined to comment on the device.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

At Walmart's new health clinic, a flower pot outfitted with sensors and a Walmart logo managed to move into the spotlight.

Walmart opened its first Walmart Health clinic in Dallas, Georgia in September, inviting Wall Street analysts to its grand opening to showcase its plans to disrupt healthcare.

One unusual item caught Wall Street's attention. Analysts from Jefferies and Barclays were quick to point out a sensor-enabled flower pot prototype present at the clinic. According to the analysts, Walmart's device can analyze patients' heart rates and how they walk, ideally to get a sense of how they're faring.

Walmart declined to comment on the prototype.

An 'omnipresent detection system'

Read more: Walmart is opening health clinics, but that's just the start. We got the full story from the exec leading its push into the $3.5 trillion US healthcare industry.

"Disguised as a flower pot, the omnipresent detection system can observe bodily movements and functions, such as heart rate, gait, and ultimately the progression of certain diseases, to help prevent negative outcomes that may be costly or worst, fatal," Barclays analysts wrote in a note following the event.

Analysts at Jefferies provided a similar picture of the flower pots and their purpose:

"Walmart is incorporating flower pots with three different sensors near store entrances to capture/measure customer vitals/one's gait for additional analysis," Jefferies analysts wrote.

But according to a source familiar with the device, the plan is to use the device in the home rather than in stores.

It's in line with what other companies have been exploring: using technology in the home to monitor the health of patients.

Best Buy and Amazon are bringing healthcare tech into homes

For instance, Best Buy has been investing in companies that make technology for seniors, including wearables, while Amazon's Alexa assistant made the leap into healthcare skills, including helping patients schedule appointments and track blood sugar levels.

"This management team doesn't do things loosely and lightly," Karen Short, the analyst at Barclays told Business Insider.

After testing and finding the optimal way to go about something - whether that's the clinics or this device - the Walmart team goes for it, she said. Short noted that Walmart was reluctant to provide details about the device, including how the device would get paid for and how much it might cost.

Read more: Amazon's Alexa can now schedule doctor's appointments and give you updates on your prescription drug shipments

Walmart's device isn't meant to be a flower pot

According to photos taken by the analysts and included in their notes, the prototype has the Walmart logo across a black bar on a white canister. Atop is an opening for flowers. Short said that during a tour of the health clinic, she'd been told about the flower pot before seeing it, and it didn't look as much like a flower pot as she had expected.

According to a person familiar with the device, it wasn't meant to be a flower pot. Ahead of the grand opening, the prototype had a hole in the top, which got filled with flowers, the person said.

"The flower pot's ambient sensors can pick up health conditions, which could be revolutionary for a growing elderly population and other at-risk demographics with predispositions for certain conditions, or simply those who live alone," Short wrote in the note.

Ideally, the flower pots could be sold and used at home to monitor people's health, Barclays wrote in its note.

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