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A "Throne" Fit For a Tech King
WrongSizeGlass writes "PCWorld has an article on Kohler's new hi-tech toilet. The Numi comes complete with a detachable touch screen remote; motion-activated lid and seat; integrated air dryer; a heated seat; feet warmers; ambient lighting; built-in speakers with FM radio and an MP3 player input jack. If you have $6,300 to flush down the drain on a toilet this is for you."
Not up to the standards of an average high-tech toilet in Japan, but it's nice to see the US at least stepping up to toilet tech.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Does the seat have a notch in the front? No? Back to the drawing board then.
May the Maths Be with you!
Eww, I'm not touching that!
If it does not have its own "I" "P" address, I am not interested.
You can't handle the truth.
A couple of questions.
1) Do these high-tech toilets mean you don't need any more toilet paper? Someone told me they spray a beam of water up where it's needed. Which I assume means it needs some kind of image recognition...
2) If an AI is sufficiently advanced as to be distinguished from a human, does it have a right to not stare at people's goatses?
Does it keep logs?
I used to laugh about the toilets that wash and dry you. I don't any longer. I went to do some work for a few weeks in Seoul, South Korea. Both the hotel and the place I worked had them. I tried them out, and found out what I had been missing all these years. The basic ones have these functions:
- Warm toilet seats - this really helps to get things moving in the morning
- Washing, front and back - say goodbye to skid marks.
- Drying
Anyway, I told my wife over Skype how wonderful they were, and she laughed at me. Then she came to visit me in Korea, tried them, and suddenly, it was a must have appliance for when I get back. Since the power in Korea is different from North America (220V with different type of plug), and the instructions were in Korea, I ended up ordering one that had the basics, as well as a remote control. It took me about 1.5 hours to install, but about an hour of that was poring over the entire manual to make sure I understood how to do it. The actual install took about 30 minutes.
We both enjoy using it, and we hardly ever use toilet paper anymore. Some people might be put off by drying time vs. wiping, but as I like to tell people: "What's your hurry? Bring a book."
Here is the really funny thing. My wife has gone viral with this info. She told her pottery group, the girls at the dentist, and countless others abut this. I have female relatives and friends visiting more now, some almost embarrassingly come over to "try out the toilet". Almost all of them are in the process of buying or attempting to convince their significant others to purchase one. I'm now the accidental "Toilet Tech", as I answer questions about purchasing and installation for them.
After they use it, I've received all kinds of comments like: "If I met a guy with one of these, I'd never leave", and many more in the same vein, I got to thinking that the average guy would do well to have one of these when they finally bring home the woman of their dreams. All things being equal, for some gals, the bathroom will be a deal breaker on whether they will spend the night. It just might be worth investing $400-$1000 on a Vorpal Toilet Seat.
They model this thing in a glass house as though that's where you'd take a dump - right next to the window.
People in glass houses shouldn't show thrones.
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It's a good idea, if only because otherwise people will just drop the paper towels on the floor.
But I just don't worry about it. The world is an absolutely filthy place, and as it happens we're up to the task of dealing with it without needing hand sanitizers and constant hand-washing. I know there's probably fecal coliforms on my toothbrush, but they're pretty much everywhere anyway. Same with every other kind of bacteria and virus. But I don't carefully wash my hands after gingerly touching the remote, even though it's more likely to make me sick than my bathroom.
And aside from a day-long cold in November (which was as much an excuse to take a sick day as anything), I haven't been sick in 3 years. Yet the people I know who wash their hands all the time and keep a bottle of sanitizer around are the ones who get sick. Sure, it may work in the other direction (they wash their hands a lot because they get sick), but there's significant evidence that trying to keep everything clean is actually worse for your immune system.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
I wonder if they were security conscious when they developed the remote? ... a brave new world of hacking into your neighborhood toilets, adjusting the temperatures, playing sounds, flushing, raising the seat, perhaps on some models even activating the bidet....