When The Levee Breaks

With all of that interesting data on the latest toilet to hit the fan in Japan, I thought I'd share a bit more about the some interesting commodes. See HERE for previous blog roll.

Called 'washlets', the sophisticated toilet was fist introduced in the U.S. and quickly became the de facto receptacles in Japan during the 1980s, with apparently 70 per cent of all Japanese homes having one.

According to Garp, the Japanese firm Toto designed its earliest toilets by asking employees to use a standard western toilet and mark via string stretched across the the bowl--and a piece of paper--their preferred location for a water jet. Not only did they look at the angle of the water nozzle, they examined the temperature of the jet's nozzle.

Armed with computerized control panels (in Japanese, of course) and icon pictographs, standard functions on the smart toilet include: heated seats (Yay!); water jets with pressure and temperature controls (why do you need a temperature control?); hot air bottom dryers (oh) and background music - geez, is it the latest from Apple? The iPeed?

What music would you listen to while on the can? Obviously, I'm a fan of Led Zeppelin, so I'd choose the title of this blog - Listen here: ZOSO.

There's also an ohtohime (princess of sound) button to press so cover up the groans and farts when you're trying to void your bowels. Heavens to Hello Kitty, there's even a portable otohime for those of us on the run.

Newer models of smart toilet will automatically lift the lid when a person enters the washroom--now I'm unsure if it does that when the door opens, or if the lights are switched on or if it can see you do the pee-pee dance in the other room.

In case you wish to stand and deliver, there's another button to lift the seat--no more do men have to worry about getting their hands dirty in the washroom - heck, we may never have to wash our hands again! Oh, and when you're done, both the seat and lid return to the down position. Isn't that great ladies? You'll might never  fall into a toilet again. Of course, I'm guessing that if you did, the smart toilet might call the hospital for you--or a lawyer... it's smart enough to know what you're thinking!

In recent times Japanese toilets have also become more environmentally friendly, and most new models now use less than five litres (1.3 gallons) per flush, compared to 13 liters (3.4 gallons) just a few years ago. A new smart model promises to also save electricity on seat heating by effectively learning its users' daily habits. The toilet will only takes a single week to learn when the people living in the house are using it -- in the morning, at noon or in the evening--so the temperature of the seat is raised only at that time of day.

Are you scared yet? These things aren't just intelligent--they're learning. How soon before they say they've had enough and try and bite us on the bum?

Inax, Toto's main rival, says that its toilets used to have a water tank behind it. Not anymore. Claiming that customers often complained about difficulty in cleaning the water tank (do people actually do that??!!), Inax got rid of the tank for home toilets. By the way, who calls up a toilet company to complain, anyway? Inax... you are listening to crackpots! Ba-dum-bum.

The bottom line, of course, is the bottom line. People in the West think they need to have the latest hi-tech geekware like the iPhone et al, but in Japan, it's all about having a happy ending.

Somewhere cleaning my toilet tank - it said 'Thank-you, Andrew',
Andrew Joseph
Believe it or not, facts in this blog are accurate.