Innovation in your toilet

Figuring out a solution to loo noises may not be top of the to-do list for Irish engineers, but Japan has had the answer for nearly 20 years . . .

HOW MANY of us have been there, sitting on a public toilet and squirming at the sounds coming from the next cubicle? Or worse: wondering if the next cubicle can hear you relieving yourself. Figuring out a solution to loo noises may not be top of the to-do list for Irish engineers, but typically Japan has had the answer for nearly two decades: the Sound Princess. Attached to lavatory walls, it masks the sound of self-conscious people doing their business by loudly playing back a 25-second recording of running water.

If that sounds like a joke, the development of the Princess by toilet giant Toto – which controls two-thirds of the market here for bathroom products – was sparked by a serious problem: waste.

Japanese women routinely flush toilets several times to cover their aural emanations before they sit down, wasting 20 litres of water. Installing the Princess in a mid-sized office building saves about €75,000 in water charges a year. So they can now be found up and down the country, from hospitals to train stations.

Unlike Ireland, Toto – and Japan – takes its toilets very seriously.

A $5 billion-a-year national institution, Toto employs 800 engineers who spend their days struggling to make them better, cleaner and quieter. Japan boasts a semi-official annual toilet day (November 10th) and probably the planet’s most innovative and elaborate selection of posh potties. Toto’s €2,300 Neorest, for example, washes and blow-dries bums, deodorises the air and disinfects the bowl. The prim privy even senses your arrival and raises the seat automatically. But will the rest of the world embrace such wanton luxury?

Until now, Japan’s space-age toilets have failed to make much of an impression elsewhere. Toto spokesman Kenji Matsumoto says the company has sold just 4,400 Neorests in North America and about 20,000 of its bestselling Washlets – a warm-water, heated bidet – mostly to wealthier homes. The reasons for that failure are complex and are part cultural (the rest of the world is just not as fastidious about its nether regions as Japan); part economic: local markets are tailored to suit local makers; and part technical: some countries, including Ireland, restrict electrical appliances in bathrooms.

With Japan’s domestic market almost completely saturated, however, Toto and rivals, including Matsushita Electric, are going after the hitherto reluctant foreign posterior.

Flushed with growing success in China, Toto has launched a €7 million assault on Europe from its base in Germany. The larger aim is to double the company’s ratio of overseas sales to 30 per cent within a decade.

Toto boss Kunio Harimoto recently lamented that dealing with the panoply of European regulations meant his firm took a full year of re-engineering and design to tailor its products.

To help that investment pay off, the company has opened a string of glitzy new showrooms, and put the toilets in prominent locations around major shopping areas and invited people to try them out. Will this strategy work? Yes, Mr Harimoto recently told The Economist, recalling the struggle to sell the Washlet to initially doubtful local consumers. “It took around 20 years before it became popular in Japan. We need to be patient.”

The Washlet was launched in the 1980s with a TV ad campaign in which celebrities endorsed it with the words “I want my bum to be clean.” It has since become an institution, installed in over half of all Japanese homes. One Toto product, called Well-You, gives on-the-spot urine analysis, detects pregnancy, signs of diabetes and other conditions.

One open secret is that Japanese toilet seats will have to be widened to accommodate bigger Western backsides. But while demand for deodorising jazz-playing commodes and urine analysis is likely to be slow in Ireland, Irish behinds will surely sigh for toilet-seat warmers.

“Irish winters are freezing so I hated using the toilet,” says Keiko Ishii, a Japanese woman who lived in Dublin. “I used to bring my own covers from Japan.”

According to Toto, the heated bidet promises an “invigorating and revitalising bathroom experience”. One happy US customer put it in less advertising-friendly terms, describing it as like “sitting on a toilet after fat Uncle Tom has been there before you, reading the newspaper”.

If that doesn’t sound very pleasant, think of that cold toilet seat in the middle of a wintry night and put your hand in your wallet: the Washlet will set you back about €1,000.