Luxury for your derrières: Japan's Hi-tech Washlets

Disclaimer: This post is about toilets. We realize there may be readers who are uncomfortable with this topic.

Have you ever braced yourself before sitting on a cold toilet seat in winter? Ever wondered if in the 21st century there could exist warm toilet seats? Have you ever wondered if there was an invention that would clean your tushy for you? With warm water? And dry it for you too? Well, wonder no more!

TOTO, a Japanese company solved these problems for you over 4 decades ago.

The Washlet

Washlet® is the brand name of an electronic bidet made by TOTO. More generically, these devices are called Shower Toilets (don't ask me why, it makes as little sense to me as it does to you).

The Washlet is a toilet seat-like device that you attach onto your toilet. Once set up, it acts as a warm toilet seat and at the press of a button, cleans your tushy by spraying warm water.

Higher end models include dryers, deodorizers, remote control, and even speakers that play music to mask your umm... music.

If you look closely, you should see a lot of buttons in the photos above. These buttons enable fine-grained controls like changing the temperature of the seat, water pressure, and patterns in which the Washlet sprays water.

All this probably sounds like overkill to most readers, but this is one of the first things I bought when I moved from Japan to the United States. Once you have experienced a Washlet, not having one feels caveman-ish.

The history of the Washlet

Till 1970, most of Japan used Asian-style squatting toilets. But with changing cultural and technology trends, the majority of the country moved to Western-style "sitting down" toilets by 1977.

Now, this surfaced a problem. Japanese winters are cold and people hated sitting on cold toilet seats.

Enter TOTO.

TOTO is a Japanese ceramics manufacturer that makes bathroom fixtures and fittings, among other things.

In the 1960s TOTO began importing and selling the "Air Seat Dryer" - an American bidet that was designed to clean with warm water. These were sold to hospitals and nursing homes.

While the device was generally well-received, TOTO received complaints it could not ignore. The device's temperature control was unstable and sometimes scalded users. OUCH!

Against the backdrop of increasing demand for Western toilets, people hating cold toilet seats, and people liking the electronic bidet, TOTO needed a product that didn't scald users.

TOTO realized this was an opportunity. It formed a project team and gave them 18 months to launch a product. At this point though, this team only had a vision. They did not have the designs or technology to bring the vision to life.

One of the first issues the team ran into, was that they had no data. They did not know what angle to spray water at, what the right water temperature was, or what speed to spray water at.

To get basic data, they had to convince their colleagues to take part in their experiments. Can you imagine how difficult this conversation must have been?!

Through some miracle of persuasion, the team managed to collect data from ~300 employees. From this data, they learned a lot.

They learned that 43° was the best angle to spray water at. That people liked the toilet seat at 36°C (97 F). And that 38°C (100.5 F) was the "just right" water temperature.

All this work culminated in the first Washlet on the market in 1980–the Washlet G (for "Gorgeous").

In the 4 decades since, Washlets have seen runaway growth and spurred many innovations that transform the toilet from "a place" to "a space".

If you think I am exaggerating how life-altering a Washlet can be, consider this: Tourists to Japan routinely pick up Washlets at airports, on their way back home!

Washlets are generally available on TOTO's site or on Amazon. I highly recommend trying one out if you get the chance.

The "bottom" line? Your bottom will thank you.