The Rise of the Japanese Toilet

It is nice but the functionality is quite difficult for a person who's not used to this whatsoever. After you're done sh*ing, you grab the handheld sprayer and turn it upside down and reach behind you toward your butt and try as best as you can to aim it into your anus to wash as best as you can. People who have been doing this their whole lives can probably aim with a precision of a Marine Corp Sniper but to us, we look at it as alien technology. It's is quite difficult to use for a first timer and there are factors that worry us.

If its not aimed correctly, where does the splash go? If you're lucky it stays in the toilet boil. However if your aim is off, you can completely miss your anus and either shoot to much under or over which will shoot the water outside of the toilet bowl.

Also when I was using the bathroom in the Doha airport, the handheld sprayer had a soap dispenser next to it. I was curious what it was for so I YouTube'd and searched for instructions on what the soap dispenser was for and (kind-of) to my surprise it was soap to lather and clean your anus with your other free hand. After you lather and clean, you basically rinse your hand with the hose as well.

* Heated seat

* Bidet with warm water

* “Omakase” power-saving setting that learns your schedule and turns off the heat during the times you are typically out or asleep.

* Flush with a button press vs. turning a handle. This sounds minor, but whenever I have to use a toilet with a handle it is noticeably less convenient as you often have to keep the handle turned for a couple of seconds for a proper flush.

* The flush button is also conveniently located on the wall next to the toilet rather than behind the user (good for courtesy flushes). The control panel communicates with the toilet via IR.

* Selectable flush volumes (eco, normal, large)

* Automatically flushes when you stand up

* Non-stick coating to keep the bowl clean. It also releases a bit of water and wets the bowl when you sit down to make the surface less sticky.

* Has a lever to lift up the toilet seat a couple inches from the base to easily be able to clean under the area where the seat sits atop the base.

* Lid and seat hinges are dampened so they never slam shut

Some things which I don’t like/use:

* It has a blow drying function which I almost never use (toilet paper works fine for drying).

* It has an air filter that I need to change once a year at a cost of about ¥2000.

* Haven’t run into this problem yet, but could be a pain in an extended power outage. I think you’re supposed to just pour water into it from a bucket to flush it.

Features which I don’t have but would want on my next toilet:

* Button to automatically raise and lower the lid. Bonus points if it’s motion activated to raise the lid when you enter the bathroom.

Their bidets are surprising effective, and do not require any electricity or hot water, as the water volume needed to be effective is small, and the water has usually been sitting in the pipes in a home's walls at ambient temperature. 10/10, would spritz again.

But often it’s hard to install one in bathrooms that are not designed for it. So a Japanese toilet is a somewhat over the top solution in our house.

Would never go back.

Seat warmers, auto open, night light and auto flush are features no one seems to talk about but these are as incredible as the washlet itself.

I guess it's like going to a place which doesn't use toilet paper?

Update: "washiki" is the name

Do water jets like this not spread worms and other intestinal parasites? I’d be especially worried about hand held jets in public restrooms and hotel bathrooms.

Does anyone have any hard information on that?

In my country I think you can't easily plug into the water source.

- In Islam, Muslims must pray 5 times a day, but you must have 'Wudhu' which means you need to have performed the ritual wash before praying. You have to do it again if you've gone to the toilet. * When you go to the toilet, you must, as a requirement use water * So, most Muslim household bathrooms or public bathrooms in Muslim countries have a hand sprayer or at a minimum, a water container to fill.

I worked in Dubai and Saudi before, and apartments come with hand bidet sprayers.

Regarding Singapore, I wouldn't be surprised if this was influenced by Malaysia (a Muslim country, but they were part of the same country before) although when visited Malaysia I can't remember (ok they probably did) have a similar arrangement. I remember my Chinese friend telling me that her dad went to a Muslim school (a Malay school), so he pretty much uses water like Muslims do (when they go to the bathroom).

Regarding the deadly hand sprayers (pressure wise), usually in modern Mid East apartments: - They are connected to a tap so you can control the pressure - those bathrooms usually have toilet paper too, so you wet the paper to clean first, then you can direct the water on to your hand whilst you clean yourself with your left hand, finally dry with toilet paper. Final step of course, wash your hands! Hence why Muslims only eat or shake someone's right hand, knowing the left hand is on toilet duty.

I've been in corporate bathrooms in the UK, in a cubical, and you hear someone enter, pee (or even more) and exit without washing their hands!!! Not only once either.

The bottom line is, use water. No one can argue it's better to use paper. Some folks dislike of things from the Middle East lead them to argue toilet paper is enough. It isn't. (-_-)

Side note: If you're ever in Dubai and visit one of their big malls, like Dubai Mall, you'll question where the 1st and 3rd worlds are. Clean and maintained luxury rest rooms, you'll be happy to relive yourself in such restrooms, rather than dread using the toilet if you're outside. And they have good baby changing facilities too.

Since then, whenever I search for a new apartment to rent, this became one of the criteria I look for! I simply can't go back to just dry wiping, ever.

Via a tool that I made to auto-redirect to archived links :)

https://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=141&topicid=27...

Lots of people take it for granted. But in many places outside of East Asia. They are not given.

I got one at a garage sale for $20. Hooked it up and tried it. Quite a marvel of features. Remote control (with config LCD menu on the back), heated seat, 2D aimable spray with separate male/female settings, warm water reservoir and what all. Every single feature worked, but:

It dripped water. I caught all that with a container and a towel while experimenting. Then removed it again and hunted for the drip, only to find that this is simply not built to western plumbing standards. The water inlet is just a friction-fit plug with an O-ring gasket, held in by a clip. Plastic on plastic. I replaced the O-ring with a new one, tried again... only for some other degraded o-ring inside to have been jarred loose in the process and water now leaking from somewhere inside.

Service manual? Spare parts? Nada. You can, however (from the US at least - I'm in Canada) ship this back to Toto and they'll recondition it to new for a reasonable flat rate fee. That's the only repair option.

After which it would probably not leak. But friction fit plastic-on-o-ring is fine for toilet environments that are tiled, "wet" areas with a floor drain. Mine, however, is upstairs straddling the kitchen/family room boundary in a house built out of sticks and drywall. Major leaks are simply no go. Would I leave something like this pressurized, hoping only that some friction fit o-ring-on-plastic interface is not going to start leaking unexpectedly? Nope. The same thing equally applies to the new ones, which are about $600 at Costco, or were at the time I looked.

So the "experimental" toilet moved on to another tinkerer friend who, maybe, will replace all the o-rings or have Toto fix it some day. I'm a gadgeteer, so I thought I could make a solenoid valve box to go in series with the thing's inlet, whereby you push a button and the wondertoilet gets water pressure for the next 5 minutes, after which it times out and turns off again. Just to remove the "come home to unexpected flood damage" factor.

Aside from that... "testing" of course under real world conditions. But... a nice warm water spray after the #2 business... shall we say does ... smell a bit. And didn't quite get things to the point where no toilet paper was needed afterward, nevermind the heated blow dry (which this thing also had). I'll stick to western toilets.

While searching for a house to rent (and buy), that is always one of the criteria (in Lisbon - center of Portugal - they are not that common anymore).

It just seems so weird and unclean not to be able to wash ourselves after using the bathroom. I guess it's a cultural thing.

https://www.homedepot.com/b/Bath-Bidets-Handheld-Bidets/N-5y...

These deliver 90% of the benefits for under 10% of the cost, and less maintenance. It’s like a small metal garden hose with gun shaped valve at the end, you attach between the wall spigot and hose to the toilet with an adjustable wrench. Takes maybe 10 mins.

Would never go back to the dirty butt lifestyle. ;-)

For two decades I lived in a fancy flat with all the amenities in a large city.

Now I do it in two 100L plastic barrels in my stables that also have an outhouse, each barrel corresponds to one of my needs.

I neutralize number 1 with Corega tabs in the warmer months, I neutralize number 2 with a scoop of peat or sawdust.

I also wash myself (in number 1) after number 2 using soap and a 10L-bidon with a shower hose attachment that I carry with me like a briefcase from the house during the colder months.

The barrels are emptied regularly in a hole in the woods, in summer the dung beetles take care of everything. There's virtually no smell, actually less than in a modern bathroom with mechanical ventilation. It's always drafty in the outhouse and I usually leave the door open anyway.

I can wax poetic about sitting in the outhouse on a sunny day with the door open watching the blue sky and hearing the wind in the trees with the birds chirping vis-à-vis doing it a concrete box surrounded by high-tech plumbing and equipment, but ironically it just feels better not having any nastiness inside or anywhere near the house I sleep and eat in.

Just think about that for a second.

I've been to Japan and I actually prefer my way.

I think technical (smart?) toilets are nasty, nasty to clean and even nastier to repair if they break.

Less is more, if given the choice I'd much prefer a simple (dumb?) toilet with a shower hose next to it.

This is pretty common in most bathrooms in Sweden.

P.S.

Rimfree toilets are the shit.

I’m certain the Japanese couldn’t be the first to find ways to heat seats or provide different settings for washing.

- Plant watering containers.

- Condiment squeezers.

And in a pinch I've seen...

- Dish soap bottles...

I'd recommend ignoring these infomercials.

I just don’t understand how people like to walk around with even a small amount of poop wedged in their crack, irritating the area and coming into contact with their underwear, pants, it’s absolutely disgusting.

I got “stuck” in Asia during COVID for 3 years, when I returned back to my home country (zero bidet society) I forgot all about the lack of bidets as it was just common place. When I went to cleanup I never forget the horror and I had a sinking feeling, as if I was ejected from civilization or something.

A word of warning for female users:

> Habitual use of bidet toilets aggravates vaginal microflora, either by depriving normal microflora or facilitating opportunistic infection of fecal bacteria and other microorganisms.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21058441/

Why do we need something fancier for a toilet?

The main one is diet. Eat enough fiber so it's not a mess in the first place. This has many other benefits too. The next in priority is wet wipes. I strongly prefer them, and they are portable unlike a bidet. They are super useful while away from the toilet as well. After that there's technique. I am confident that the people who complain about paper and wet wipes are simply wiping way too hard causing chafing or even fissures. I don't want to get too graphic, but you also need to "relax" a bit down there for the most thorough job instead of just a surface level wipe. Normal paper first for removal of the "bulk material" and wet wipes for the residue.

That's it folks! If you do all this right, washing your hands afterwards shouldn't need so much effort either.

Bonus tip: why not just carry a little atomizer bottle filled with water so you can make your own wet wipes in a pinch? The spray is gentle enough to not completely saturate and ruin even the thinnest and cheapest toilet paper you find in the wild, and such a spray bottle is again very useful away from the toilet.