Some of the features I really like about my Japanese toilet:
* Heated seat
* Bidet with warm water
* “Omakase” power-saving setting that learns your schedule and turns off the heat during the times you are typically out or asleep.
* Flush with a button press vs. turning a handle. This sounds minor, but whenever I have to use a toilet with a handle it is noticeably less convenient as you often have to keep the handle turned for a couple of seconds for a proper flush.
* The flush button is also conveniently located on the wall next to the toilet rather than behind the user (good for courtesy flushes). The control panel communicates with the toilet via IR.
* Selectable flush volumes (eco, normal, large)
* Automatically flushes when you stand up
* Non-stick coating to keep the bowl clean. It also releases a bit of water and wets the bowl when you sit down to make the surface less sticky.
* Has a lever to lift up the toilet seat a couple inches from the base to easily be able to clean under the area where the seat sits atop the base.
* Lid and seat hinges are dampened so they never slam shut
Some things which I don’t like/use:
* It has a blow drying function which I almost never use (toilet paper works fine for drying).
* It has an air filter that I need to change once a year at a cost of about ¥2000.
* Haven’t run into this problem yet, but could be a pain in an extended power outage. I think you’re supposed to just pour water into it from a bucket to flush it.
Features which I don’t have but would want on my next toilet:
* Button to automatically raise and lower the lid. Bonus points if it’s motion activated to raise the lid when you enter the bathroom.
> Button to automatically raise and lower the lid. Bonus points if it’s motion activated to raise the lid when you enter the bathroom.
I have this, and eventually disabled it. It's super annoying, and goes off if if I enter the bathroom and go near the toilet for any reason, even if I'm not about to use the toilet.
It probably only works in Japan where, if possible, the toilet is in it's own separate room, separate from the room where you wash your face, separate from the room with the shower/bath. You'd never be in the toilet room except to use the toilet. The door stays closed so the toilet is only going to open when you open the door to the toilet room.
It's still kind of annoying since you can just leave the lid open instead of waiting for it to open...
Except, the motorized seat is indeed convenient, for which the lid might be a dependency, and I guess at which point a scope creep into auto opening everything is just an inevitability.
I have a strong dislike for typical toilet flush buttons as they are less sanitary and harder to clean.
I feel if it's already electric then everything that can be touch free should be and everything else should be crevice free.
A handle flush or chain flush also allows more control. I grew up doing slow flushes with minimal pressure at night for pee. It saved water and didn't disturb people.
Most of the buttons on my toilet's control panel [1] are crevice-free. The front buttons are completely crevice-free. The flush buttons on the top do have crevices between them, but in practice they are raised, and the surface is large enough that fingers only come in contact with the flat part of the surface when they are pressed. After 5+ years of only wiping the surface when cleaning, there is zero gunk build up in the crevices. I do think it would be better if there were no crevices at all - but I'm not sure what design tradeoffs that would entail (for example, the front buttons seem less durable than the top).
Handles, on the other hand, also often have crevices and areas that are hard to reach for cleaning (on the underside of the handle or the area between the handle and the toilet). They also require more pressure, a larger contact area, and a longer contact duration, leading to more transfer of germs between the hand and the handle.
I agree that it makes sense for bathrooms to be as touchless as possible. My toilet will flush automatically when you stand up. Higher-end models will also raise and lower the lid automtically when you enter or leave the room.
It might be nice to have touch-free controls like you see on airplanes and some public restooms. But on the other hand there might be some design tradeoffs in terms of usability or battery life. And in a private residence, I don't think a flush button contributes significantly more to the spread of sickness than, say, door handles throughout the house.
In terms of water usage, Japanese toilets tend to be very efficient. The eco flush on my toilet uses 3.4L. The EPA's "WaterSense" certification, by comparison, applies to toilets that use 4.8L. So without more data, I'm a bit skeptical of the claim that it is possible to achieve better efficiency (and a complete flush) by using less pressure on the handle. To the contrary, I think it's probably more efficient to have the water enter the bowl with a higher velocity, as it would allow the water to get over the trap and flush with a lower total volume of water.
There's a delay between when you get off the toilet and when it flushes automatically (about 10 seconds, on some models it is configurable), so there is enough time to close the lid first. You can also turn off the feature completely, but personally I'd much rather have the toilet get flushed with the lid up than not at all (because someone forgot, made a mistake, etc).
Also, the science doesn't really back up the claim that closing the lid prior to flushing makes a meaningful difference [1]. Cleaning the bathroom and toilet regularly has a much larger impact than whether or not you close the lid before flushing.
* Heated seat
* Bidet with warm water
* “Omakase” power-saving setting that learns your schedule and turns off the heat during the times you are typically out or asleep.
* Flush with a button press vs. turning a handle. This sounds minor, but whenever I have to use a toilet with a handle it is noticeably less convenient as you often have to keep the handle turned for a couple of seconds for a proper flush.
* The flush button is also conveniently located on the wall next to the toilet rather than behind the user (good for courtesy flushes). The control panel communicates with the toilet via IR.
* Selectable flush volumes (eco, normal, large)
* Automatically flushes when you stand up
* Non-stick coating to keep the bowl clean. It also releases a bit of water and wets the bowl when you sit down to make the surface less sticky.
* Has a lever to lift up the toilet seat a couple inches from the base to easily be able to clean under the area where the seat sits atop the base.
* Lid and seat hinges are dampened so they never slam shut
Some things which I don’t like/use:
* It has a blow drying function which I almost never use (toilet paper works fine for drying).
* It has an air filter that I need to change once a year at a cost of about ¥2000.
* Haven’t run into this problem yet, but could be a pain in an extended power outage. I think you’re supposed to just pour water into it from a bucket to flush it.
Features which I don’t have but would want on my next toilet:
* Button to automatically raise and lower the lid. Bonus points if it’s motion activated to raise the lid when you enter the bathroom.