Engadget:
Japanese toilets have long been a mainstay in Asian households, but the concept is still something of a curiosity in much of the Western world. Toto, Japan’s biggest toilet maker, has attempted to market its high-tech commodes to American audiences for decades with little success. The company is trying to change all this with a brand new “experiential” showroom that launched this week in San Francisco. It’s called Concept 190, and it’s equipped with four sensor-laden bathrooms where visitors are invited to pee, poo and have a toilet experience unlike anything they’ve had before.
I experienced Toto toilets in Tokyo. Mindblowing tech for something so “simple”.
I was in Japan about 15 years ago and was peeing in a public men’s room at deer park in Nara. I noticed a button on the wall, different from the lever used to flush the toilet. I had no idea what it was; there was no iconography describing its function. I decided to push it to see and when I did I hear the sound of running water but in fact, no water was running.
Seemed odd to me. When I joined my American friends who were living and doing research in Japan, they told me about the button and it’s been a fun story ever since.
In American men’s rooms many times men will flush the toilet as they’re peeing as well as afterwards. Why? Get things flowing, cover up a fart sound, use your imagination.
In Japan fresh water is a bit scarcer but Japanese men were doing this so someone came up with the brilliant idea to give them the sound without the waste of water. So, they digitized the sound of a flush and that button will play that sound which one can use to….
It’s actually brilliant and after noticing that I looked for similar instances of ingenuity all over, and I found many.
I wonder if the Toto toilet has something like this.
I’ve had Toto toilets for over 15 years. But just standard ones, no buttons or features. I love them.
We bought one about that long ago for a past apartment. The selling point for us was Toto’s larger diameter “throat” between the tank and the bowl, which gives a stronger flushing flow with actually less water.
I like to imagine that this headline is actually about the band Toto.
The reason for this lack of acceptance of Japanese toilets is clear.
Cost.
Yeah, I can get a good American Standard or Kohler For $150-$300 depending on profile etc. I’m not going to spend too much more for cool factor – it’s a toilet.
We’re just not willing to flush that kind of money down the…well, you get the idea.
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