Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/04/13/with-this-tech-heavy-premium.html
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bought your last roll of toilet paper ever
Whoever wrote that has never used a bidet, or likes walking around with soggy underwear (also possible!)
Still, you will use a lot less. We’re doing fine with unheated water for now, but I’m actually more concerned about what happens when it’s 120° outside and 150° in the attic, where the water pipes are. I have to run out the tap in our sink for about a minute to not scald my hands…
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People are just going to hoard bidets now, too.
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a toilet paper-free life
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“just $629.”
I don’t see the point of this. Won’t people that actually have over $600 to spend on a bidet find it themselves?
A bidet is a ‘game changer’ quality of life investment regardless of the real world benefit of using dramatically less TP (b/c if used properly, you only need to use about a single wad at the end - no pun intended).
Put it this way:
No one in the world ever has said to themselves while taking a shower and about to wash their butthole: “Woops! Hold on there, gotta save that area and keep it shitty so I can treat myself with 5 or so abrasive wipes with TP after I get out of the shower. It’s traditional!”
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I got a perfectly nice Toto brand bidet seat for far less than this on Amazon about 6 months ago, although I wouldn’t be surprised if prices have gone up since then due to demand. I like the blow dryer function, although it takes a little time to get me completely dry if I want to avoid TP entirely. But there are worse ways to start one’s morning than to sit for a while with a well-placed warm breeze.
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One thing I’ve wondered about bidets – is the water temperature always kept the same?
My faucets/showers’ take anywhere from 10 seconds to 2 minutes’ running before they suddenly turn from very cold to very hot. Neither of which sounds like it would be a pleasant experience. Do all bidets require electricity to keep the spray a comfortable temperature, or is your behind subject to the temperature vagaries of your water heater?
That picture: there are just some rooms that don’t benefit from being large beyond a certain point, and the bathroom is one of them. Who wants to take a dump on a toilet out in the middle of nowhere, out of reach of every other fixture/appliance in the room? What’s good about doing one’s business feeling cold and exposed? Is there really an appeal in hearing one’s plops echo?
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Since this bidet is described as “tech-heavy” I can only assume it comes with an app that will learn your bowel habits and pre-warm the water prior to need.
Of course, this requires it be part of the shitty IOT, and …
Yeah, I know, it was too long a setup for too little payoff. I’ll show myself out.
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Me too, Toto for the win! I bought mine about 10 years ago after a trip to Japan, when they were a lot less common in America, and had to bend over and pay the $650. But it’s 10 years old and works as well as the day it was new, and I have roommates. The thing is a joy to use and is easily worth $650. Just say no to TP! Except for that single “victory wipe” when you’re done.
And one thing to note about these toilets: there’s a range of features, and the price goes up for each one. The baseline feature is heated water (recommended!), then heated toilet seat (easily skipped, but usually included), then wall mountable remote. I super love that last one, it means you can mount the control panel on the wall in an easily used spot, as opposed to being connected to the toilet seat. Lets you get a lot more control and dial in the settings. And there are a lot of settings… And makes it a lot easier to clean the seat.
One feature that I saw in Japan a lot is a motorized toilet seat, so you can raise the seat without touching it. That’s a really good idea, but last I looked you’d be spending over $1k for one with that feature.
Also just say no to calling these “bidets”. They are, and always will be “Japanese toilets”.
They were not invented in Japan, have been used in Europe since the 1700s. Invented in France. Started being used in mid 1960s in Japan.
Why they have never caught in the US, I have never been able to figure out.
Quibbling I know, but weren’t / aren’t those bidets dedicated devices, not toilet add-ons? That makes them really expensive, both for the device itself and the space for them.
And they don’t have the high tech playfulness of the Japanese toilets. It’s really nice just to press a button to fire up those “pulsing jets” (at whatever pressure you choose), rather than have to control faucets, whose hot water has to be piped in from a distant water heater. But maybe I’ve just never used or seen a modern bidet.
I would have no idea how to use this (or clean it, ugh), which wiki calls a “modern bidet”. But pressing that button on the Japanese toilet while still sitting on the bowl is easy enough:
Agreed about the oddness of them not catching on here. When I recommend them (and if I’m an evangelist for anything, it’s for Japanese toilets) people consider them a bit gross. Which is really odd considering how much cleaner they are than dragging toilet paper around down there, but to each their own I guess.
And interesting fact I heard: they caught on in Japan for old people first, since they have more trouble wiping. But then their younger relatives used them and wanted them too.
One feature that would be really nice is to sense who’s using it somehow (a scale in the seat?), and apply a profile. I live with 3 other people, and each of them have vastly different pressure preferences. If I forget to change that setting after one of my roomies has used it (he puts the jets on full blast, I call it “stun”), I get quite the blasting.
Also interestingly, my Toto does try to anticipate toilet usage patterns to warm the seat for you. And it’s occasionally even right. No idea how it could be anything other than coincidence with multiple people using it, but who knows.
For the price of some cheap blinds, you could just make the long hike over to that shower.
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Yikes! that’s a lot of lettuce. Come to think of it, a lot of lettuce could be used instead of TP
cmon man just don’t be in a hurry. or get a bidet with a dryer 
growing up with these devices, I was told to chill for a minute in the bathroom until I air dried. usually 5 minutes or so.
What I’m wondering is, where is the wifi chip, the butthole sensing technology, the camera, the bluetooth contact sensing, the corona testing kit, and the particle accelerator?
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You’ll have to wait for model BB-2000, mk2.
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My bidet has 2-minute air dryer cycle with 5 heat settings. A single cycle does the job for me on the 2nd highest setting. Would be faster on highest heat setting, but it’s just too hot for my liking.
I’ve probably said this before, but… Protip: flush before starting the air dry cycle.
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