Hidden away in a remote CES corridor, amidst a sea of gaudy phone cases and chargers, something catches my eye. What’s a toilet doing here? Oh, you know, just revolutionising how you use the bathroom. No biggie.
Behold the Swash 1000, the latest and greatest evolution of Brondell’s line of high-tech toiletry. The Mark Cuban-backed company’s raison d’être? To make it simple and enjoyable for everyone to have a bidet. You, me, the guy who owns the sketchy bodega down on Jefferson, the Pope. Bidets are none too common in the US, where most of us are pathologically afraid of our own buttholes, but they make sense. They’re more hygienic; you wouldn’t rub yourself with a towel and call it a shower, would you? They’re more ecologically sustainable that toilet paper — Americans use 34,000,000 rolls of the stuff per day.
And this, friends, is the freakin’ Cadillac of bidets.
It’s built into a heated toilet seat, so it’s easy to install and comfortable to use. The butt-cleaning stream of water’s temperature can be adjusted from 32C to 38C. You can control the width and the angle. You can even make it oscillate in an eyebrow-raising “massage” mode. The jet tucks away into the seat and only pops out when you need it, and it’s got a nano-coating to keep it sterile. There’s a second jet for gently cleaning lady parts (or I guess guys could clean their balls?), a deodoriser, and when the fun is all over, there’s a built in air dryer. All operated by a remote control. Wowser.
I do have some lingering doubts about just how ecological of a solution this is. After all, it plugs into a wall, and heating the seat/water and using the drier have got to suck a fair amount of power. There’s an “eco-mode”, but using that puts you in danger of a spurt of perilously cold water. I do, however, love the idea of never buying toilet paper again. There’s also the electricity-free (and much cheaper) Swash Ecoseat 100, but then you give up heating altogether, and that’s gonna burn come winter.
The high-end-for-your-rear-end) Swash 1000, with all its bells and whistles and heated butt-cleansing water jets will run you $US600, which certainly ain’t cheap for something you poop on. The Ecoseat 100 is only $US179 but has relatively few features. I can’t wait to sit down on one of these and give it the old heave-ho. [Brondell]