Get the latest tech news
Feeling flush: Japan's high-tech toilets go global
Now sales are surging abroad and especially in the United States, led by A-list bidet fans
Japanese company TOTO, which pioneered the electric bidets it claims have sparked "a global revolution from wiping to washing", says overseas revenue for toilets has roughly doubled from 100 billion yen ($673 million) in 2012. At a major tech fair in Las Vegas this year, the marketing manager of US brand Kohler called its Numi 2.0 - which takes spoken instructions via an in-built Amazon Alexa - "the smartest toilet that exists". With sewer systems still undeveloped and squat-style toilets common, the business struggled, so they relied on tableware sales until habits began to change after the 1970 World Expo in Osaka, said Junichi Koga, head of TOTO's history museum.
Or read this on r/technology
