This shows how bad is Toto (and other companies in the market in Japan) at exporting their products even though they are remarkably better across the board. Even if they don't make it in every home overseas you could imagine they at least tap in a kind of premium market, but no, they are close to doing nothing and don't have partnerships in most countries. Truly incompetent.

> even though they are remarkably better across the board

I think you're pinning on incompetence a lot that has more to do with cultural mores. This doesn't seem remarkably better across the board to me. It seems neat to the technologist in me, but it also feels extraordinarily fussy, an accommodation for the weak or incapable.

I recognise we should probably move to bidets, but I wouldn't look forward to the sidelong "is he a bit weird?" glances from guests. Warmed seats is a bit like fuzzy earmuffs: probably an improvement but something I feel like I shouldn't need. In some sense, I think trying to improve a toilet at all feels weirdly epicurean.

I find this vaguely embarrassing to write, I'm not a particularly macho person and I don't like to acknowledge that sense of masculinity circumscribing my actions. But I think it would take a hell of a marketer to get me past that, especially at a steep price point, nevermind people who are openly manly.

They should introduce refrigerated toilet seats for macho men, that clean your bottom with a vigorous squirt of icy water, then dry it with a refreshing blast of cold air.

I’d buy that!

How about a bidet with a retractable nozzle that sprays mouthwash to freshen your breath after you puke?

Toto sells porcelain products in the USA, it just hasn't focused on marketing the Washlet until fairly recently. Whether that's due to negligence on their part, or American revulsion to the idea of toilets squirting you with water[0] is unknown.

[0] Japanese toilets were long the butt of stand-up comics' jokes. I remember one such comic ending with the punchline "I'm being raped by a toilet!"

I think a big obstacle to adoption here is that most US bathrooms don't have an electric outlet in the right place for a Washlet. Now the already expensive toilet needs electrical work too, which may not even be possible if you're a renter.

If I ever own a place I'm definitely getting one though.

I rent an apartment, and I just ran a 25 foot white-colored extension cord around my bathroom wall along the top of the floorboard molding, with the cord tacked in place with coax cable clips. It then plugs into my GDFI outlet on the other side of the restroom. It looks tidy enough, and it gets the job done!

It has a heated water tank, heated seat (although I never use it), a blow dryer, and a night light.

I haven't needed to use a single square of toilet paper ever since I got my bidet. No regrets!

> heated seat (although I never use it)

Really? After living for some years in Japan, I feel almost traumatized when I go to Europe in winter and I have to sit in a cold toilet.

Many bathrooms will have a light switch nearby though. Replace it with one of these: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Leviton-15-Amp-125-Volt-Combo-Se...

This is the reason I have only bought the bidet attachments. One day, I will run power to my toilet area and start with a bidet seat, then eventually I will get the full toilet.

Yeah, I'm in the same position.

I've spent significant time in Japan and everytime I return back to US, I never go "Gee...I wish we had one of them Japanese toilets". It's fine. Not great, but it does the job. Although I think bidets are great, we should get that going in the USA.

To counter your anecdote with my own, Japan is a common holiday destination for my circle of friends, and every single time anyone comes back, they either: go "Gee...I wish we had one of them Japanese toilet seats", or actually buy one, or they already have one and say nothing.

My brother has one of these in his new condo. let's just say this toilet paper binge that we're on in the US isn't really impacting his life at all right now.

I LOL'd. I was really wondering what was behind this link.

Do those toilets come with an UPS in case there is a power loss?

Also since they might have a microcontroller or CPU running some software, I hope they aren't connected to the Internet since that might expose the user to DOS attacks.

A Dave Barry column from 22 years ago[1], describing how 3.5-gallon-per-flush toilets were banned in the US, makes me wonder if some kind of import restriction or regulation about what can be installed in certain places applies. Though there are people in this thread saying they've got one in the US, so that's a point against that theory.

[1] https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1998-11-01-19983051...

Cleaning after defecation really requires the skillful application of wet paper towel, then dry paper towel, followed by a shower with a removable shower head set to the laser setting, with soap and disposable rag.

Having spent time in Japan, I found that a Toto washlet is inferior to the shower method. However, washlets are clearly better than only dry paper towel.

My process for American public restrooms involves wetting paper towels, preferably after defecating to maintain absorption of water in the clumped paper towels. It’s odd to me that bathroom stalls don’t offer the facility to wet paper towels. It must be obvious to all that dry paper towel (without soap nor water) cannot possibly clean fecal matter sufficiently, yet this seems to be the cultural norm.

Perhaps someone will invent a kind of washlet that works better than the current offering. I personally don’t need heating and gizmos, just a high quality and reliable cleaning on par with the shower method.

Okay imagine this. You finish taking a shit. And then there's a hole in the wall that you stick your ass in. Then your ass sealing the hole creates a vaccum where it can then flood the hole by violently shooting warm soapy water at your ass. It does this for 3 cycles with new recycled soapy water each time. Then it switches to the dryer mode and completely dries your behind.

Engineering details, what's the seal pressure reachable before rectal prolapse?

Yup.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groom_of_the_Stool

That reminds me. This would never work since everyone has different sized asses.

With a warning sticker that says: "DO NOT PUT REMAINING EYE OVER HOLE"

Where’s the Kickstarter

Most people don't want to shower every time they poop. That would require rebuilding most office buildings with several times the bathroom space.

What? Are you doing it with your butt cheek pressed together?

Most of the time I have to wipe few time to be clean.

I am missing something?

I frickin' love the Toto Washlet, but a toilet with only the flushing feature is less likely to break and easier to fix when it does so there's something to be said for its economy of design and lack of scope creep. I believe Toto sells the Washlet as a seat for an ordinary toilet, so that helps.

Focus seems to be in waste removal instead of data collection.

Would large scale stool analysis benefits outweigh the costs of its implementation?

Maybe there can be another 'Ignaz Semmelweis' before another 'Broad Street cholera outbreak' type event.

First thing I'm getting when I can afford to replace a toilet.

There are very simple attachments on Amazon for less than $40 (maybe not currently, but mine was very cheap)

You can get a bidet.

I bought the Luxe Bidet Neo 180 on Amazon for $41 in 2017.

Easy to install and no electricity needed. They are out of stock now, but if you can get one, they are amazing.

How well do these electric Japanese toilets work when there is no electric power? As in a hurricane or earthquake?

I would suggest, in such a scenario where electric power is absent, that the toilet seat would work much like a non-electric toilet seat.

They have 100% parity with "conventional" US toilets in a power outage. As long as there's still water pressure, they can flush.

Just like Mitch Hedberg's joke about escalators:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHopAo_Ohy0

>I like an escalator, man, because an escalator can never break. It can only become stairs.

>There would never be an "Escalator Temporarily Out of Order" sign. Only "Escalator Temporarily Stairs. Sorry For The Convenience."

DonHopkins says >"There would never be an "Escalator Temporarily Out of Order" sign. Only "Escalator Temporarily Stairs. Sorry For The Convenience."<

I've encountered such a sign!

Problem is that stopped escalators cause certain cognitive problems: some unconscious part of the brain anticipates that the escalator _will_ work and attempts to compensate appropriately as you put your foot onto the step. It is not uncommon for someone to stumble or even fall when they take their first step onto a stopped escalator.

A similar sensation can occur as you're scrolling while browsing, when the page hits an upper/lower limit and ceases to scroll. The brain anticipates that the text will continue to scroll but it doesn't, and that causes an "upset" sensation, a dissonance, if you will, that actually hurts somewhat! It feels as if your eyes are crossing!

There are non-electric bidets.

They have a manual flush too.

I ordered and installed one of these Totos last year myself (US). Love it.

Comparing the innovations of the toilet to the rise of the iPhone.

Well perhaps if the innovative electronic toilet was so good it would have, as the author says "diffused" into other countries.

Good grief. Using expensively treated water to flush waste away is crude Victorian technology as it is - adding fusspot electronic detailing hardly improves it.

Composting toilets at urban scale - now that would be tech worthy of the 21st century.

Bidets use less water than it takes to make the toilet paper Americans use to excess.

True, everything is an improvement on the current English-derived norm. Grey water systems would help, but are expensive, particularly to retrofit.

Sanergy has something along those lines http://www.sanergy.com/

However, I don't think that model fits the American mentality well. One more likely scenario would be the electric or gas powered combustion toilets: https://shop.ecojohn.com/products/tinyjohn-waterless-inciner... https://incinolet.com/

You see these in places where fresh water may be scarce or sewage treatment limited, e.g. a small live-aboard boat.

But it's really a question of what you want to optimize for.

As others have said though, a great easy addition to the current American toilet is adding a bidet.

It's one of the more interesting if unsexy engineering problems I guess. You mention small boats - composting toilets are making inroads there too.

I happen to live in the bush with a composter. As I'm also on rainwater, which was damn scarce earlier this summer, flushing toilets make me cringe.

If you then centralize the composters, for efficiency, the you really have something.

I have this strange fascination with pneumatic tube systems (I wish we used them for everything). I think we just found a new use case.

Then you'll just love Brazil!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teufz17PqoY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xNnRBksvOU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuSDdJIcmHU

That could work if everyone reduced fibre intake ;)

(I completely see the steampunkish appeal btw)

This has been posted several times.

$17,300 toilets are great, much better than $80 toilets.

Author should install a $17,300 toilet in his home using money he actually earned himself and THEN write about how he feels that was the right decision.

Bidets are nowhere near that expensive. Really nice, automated, integrated Totos are <$2,000. Replacement toilet seats to retrofit bidet and heating functionality are normally $200-300 (outside of pandemic times).

Hold on a second. This is only for one particular model. The article says that high-tech toilets are present in hotels, restaurants, bus stations, rest stops and around 80% of homes in Japan. Japan is a poorer country than the United States. If Japan can afford this technology, there is no reason the US can't, from a strict affordability standpoint.

Poorer by what metric? I wouldn't agree that life in Japan vs USA is so dissimilar that you can definitively say Japanese people/shop owners are poorer. For example, both countries rank highly on the Human Development Index [1]. In fact, Japan is #3 by inequality-adjusted HDI, whereas USA is #28.

(agree that the user you're responding to is being disingenuous about the price of Japanese toilets btw. The other differences is that public restrooms in Japan are often shared among several nearby shops--like at a train station--meaning a Toto is always within reach even if there's not one in every shop.)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Dev... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_inequalit...

If you're talking about GDP per capita it doesn't really tell you whether the general populace is well off or not.

I paid about $4,000 for a fully integrated model using money I earned myself. It's great.