Shower Toilet - A Morning Wonder :)

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Japanese industry have got basics right when it comes to implementation of even a simple technology. The reason as I understand is the things are invented/modified because of some needs. No matter how small the modification of the original product is or a brand new invention, but they seem to solve a problem. They seem to improve your life by some way or the other.

"Shower Toilet" is also a result of such problem solving. This product was born in America and was referred as "Washlet" and it was basically invented for helping patients in healthcare industry.

From the name you can guess, it is a system which washes/showers your bottom portion with a push of button.

What does it do ?
This product is basically performs two tasks and is designed for Western type toilet rooms :
1. Warms your bottom portion which we use when we sit on WC.
2. A jet spread stream of war water cleansing the lower portion of oneself.
The advanced version have then additional features like "Air Freshener", "Different Rhythms in Jet/streaming the water", "Human Sensor" which automatically lifts the lid of toilet as soon as someone approaches it, "With remote" i.e. it comes with basic buttons attached to the body, this remote is one more panel which can be held in the hand or mounted on a wall to again make it more convenient to use.

A Brief History
TOTO a ceramics article making company started importing it from the US and selling it here in Japan in year 1964.

In 1967, INAX , another famous ceramics company in Japan started manufacturing their own product with the name "SanitaRina"which ultimately made TOTO also start manufacturing their own version in 1969 calling "Washlets".

Since the warming the bottom feature was still not safe and it had some problems this product was not a big hit in 1970s. Additionally it was a costly product too.

Then in 1980, TOTO added couple of feature like "bidet" which is designed for female customers. INAX rebranded their product from "SanitaRina" to "Shower Toilet". They also made the product more safer to use and got a bit cheaper also. During this era Panasonic also joined the band wagon. They also have a product now with a name "Beauty Toilette".

With these improvement 1990s witnessed the increase in sales and these things found their way to toilets of Departmental stores, Hotels and public places like airports etc. Recently in 2000s it is becoming more common and people are also mounting it at their homes. Specially it is also being utilized in platforms which call themselves "Barrier Free Platforms" which simply means "to make the platforms so convenient that even a handicap person can use it without any difficulty".

So the term "Shower Toilet" is basically a brand name and not product name. If you ask the formal name of the product then in Japanese "温水洗浄便座" if I literally Translate in English it means "Warm Water Wash Toilet Seat"

Personal Impressions:
I got it for myself recently and that's the reason of this painfully long article on this :) But the reason I wanted to share is that earlier I used to think that

1. installing it in your home requires some special arrangement.
2. If I do not have this from the start I can't modify my Western Toilet.
3. it will be very costly.
4. I do not need it.
5. I may not understand how to use it.

but all proved wrong once I started looking for one.

We started looking at options in the nearest departmental store. The cost was around 19,500 Yens (200 US$) and installation charge were around 5,600 Yens (50 US$). I along with my friend decided to order it online. We go the best deal from kakaku.com (Famous price comparison site in Japan) and we got the same product in 15,300 yens (150 US$) and saved 5,000 Yens (50 UD$). And then we took a bold decision of "DIY". We decided we will install for one home at a time so that if something goes wrong at one home, we have a back up home to perform the morning rituals :). But the risk was quite worth. We eventually were able to replace the lid and arc of our old seat and changed it with new one with few change in piping and a nut and bolt here and there :) The tools you require to fit the pipe/nuts/bolts everything comes with the pack you order.

Using this stuff in winters is a real pleasure as you can imagine :)

The one we bought is the basic model "Panasonic DL-EAX11".
Uploaded few snaps to give you a proper idea.

Overall Look after it is installed !

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Basic Two Parts of the controls on the right side of the seat.

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Shower Related Buttons

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Temperature Controls

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A short video on how it is used :


I guess the description in the images above will give you better understanding on what this can do.Of course this will vary from manufacturer to manufacturer.

There is no rocket science used to manufacture this product, but it really has a capability to change the way you do such a trivia/daily thing. We spend equal lot of money on the electronics things which we do not use so often, but spending on this is worth every penny since you can't stop using it :)

This thing is really a convergence of simple technology, common sense and daily life improvement.
No matter how trivia, general, silly and small problem the technology solves. the main thing is that it is improving our daily lives.
Flushed !!