Toto Washlet – A Spa for Your Backside – Unboxing

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before or not… nah, who am I kidding? I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before. I’m a great fan of the so-called “Japanese toilet seat.” It’s actually most commonly referred to as a woshuretto woshuretto in Japan (or “washlet” in English), after the name of the original introduced by Toto. These are toilet sets which, at their simplest wash your rear-end somewhat like a bidet, rather than using toilet paper.

Fancy models will detect your presence, open the seat for you, warm the seat, spray you with warm gentle oscillating water, dry you with warm air, evacuate the “swamp gas”, flush the toilet and close the lid. (And, of course, they’re self-cleaning and made of anti-microbial plastic.) These toilet sets, at one level or another now account for over 50% of all home toilets in Japan.

In 2001 we went to Japan and our hotel had one in our room. As someone who has, for most of my adult life, had a somewhat… umm… rapid processing digestive system, I immediately recognized how wonderful these things really are.

Irene wouldn’t let me buy one, but after her pregnancy with Michelle, she agreed that we had to have one before we had our second child.

On our next trip to Taiwan, we purchased a National made model. (National being the name used by Panasonic in Taiwan and Japan at that time.) It was a basic unit, controls on the tank, warm seat, warm water (front and rear) and adjustable pressure. It lasted about 2 years before the tank sprung a leak. We replaced it with a Panasonic (National having changed their name in Taiwan to the more worldwide know Panasonic.) which was slightly more advanced, in that it had a pulsating action for superior cleaning.

Recently that one has also sprung a leak and I have begun to wonder if the Taiwanese versions of these toilets simply cannot withstand the water pressure in the US.

So, despite the increased cost, we decided to go with a proper Japanese manufactured one, sold in the US for the US market.

I thought to myself: “Self”, I said, “You never get to buy the latest Apple product and post ‘unboxing porn’ on the net. Why not be the first on the net to photograph the unboxing of a hi-tech Japanese washlet?”

And so, without further adieu is a pictorial which I’ve entitled, “Our New Toilet Seat”

• To start, this is the old toilet seat. Note the primitive controls situated actually on the seat.
• This is the Washlet box
• The friendly welcome printed on the inside flap
• The basic contents of the box. Note how the Toto engineers have left detail untouched. The instruction manual is conveniently placed for ease of finding and reading.
• The seat itself, wrapped in a hi-tech polymer, tantalizingly calling out, “Sit on me!”
• The plumbing kit, packed in its own secure section of the box.
• All the pieces laid out for inspection.
• This is the connection point for the seat to the water supply. Note how this is a superior approach than our previous seats. The pervious ones tapped off at the water supply cutoff. This one installs a split at the base of the tank. It includes a cutoff valve and a water filter.
• This is the mounting plate. I like this a lot better than the previous seats. The older ones required that the seat be mounted to the bowl like a regular seat. This is problematic when you want to clean them or need to perform maintenance. The Toto unit has you install a mounting plate, and the toilet clicks in and out of the mount when needed.
• The seat, in position.
• Water supply lines, hooked up.
• A mounting plate is also installed for the remote control.
• The control panel, installed.
• The finished installation.
• Now if they could just get William Daniels to do voice prompts for the seat, this would be better than the new Knight Rider TV movie. Come to think of it, it’s already better than the Knight Rider movie.