Smart Toilets Arrive in U.S.

Like iPhones, app-packed commodes are objects of desire in Mr. Fujimori's Japan. The lids lift automatically. The seats heat up. Built-in bidets make cleanup a breeze. Some of them even sync with users' smartphones via Bluetooth so that they can program their preferences and play their favorite music through speakers built into the bowl.

Three-quarters of Japanese homes contain such toilets, most of them made by one of two companies: Toto Ltd. , Japan's largest maker of so-called sanitary ware, or Lixil Corp. , where Mr. Fujimori is the chief executive.

Now Mr. Fujimori is leading a push to bring them to the great unwashed. In May, Lixil plans to add toilets with "integrated bidets" to the lineup of American Standard Brands, which Lixil acquired last year for $542 million, including debt.

While bidets have often served as a byword for Old World debauchery in the U.S., Mr. Fujimori said Americans would welcome bidet-equipped toilets into their homes once they see them sold under a familiar name. Few people realized they needed smartphones until Apple's iPhone came along. So it will be in the U.S. with American Standard's new toilets, Mr. Fujimori said.

"Industry presents iPhone—industry presents shower toilet," Mr. Fujimori said in an interview at Lixil's headquarters in Tokyo. "We can create the same type of pattern."

Toto and Kohler, a U.S. manufacturer of bathroom fittings, have been selling toilets with bidet functions in the U.S. for several years. Beyond a niche market of Hollywood celebrities and early adopters, however, they feature more prominently in American bathroom humor than American bathrooms. The price, which can range up to more than $5,000 for high-end models—more than 10 times the price of some conventional toilets—is only one reason.

In a 2011 appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show," the actress Whoopi Goldberg called her Toto Washlet "the greatest invention on the face of the earth." Homer Simpson, on the other hand, merely looked bemused when, during a 1999 episode of "The Simpsons" that was set in Japan, a hotel toilet announced: "Welcome. I am honored to accept your waste."

Toto, which pioneered bidet-style toilets in Japan in 1980 with its Washlet line, entered the U.S. market in 1993.... Please read the whole story at WSJ.

Photo :A Toto Washlet alongside Meiji-era toilets in Toto's company museum. Toto entered the U.S. market in 1993. Eric Pfanner/The Wall Street Journal