Bottom Line Means More To This Firm (HIGH-TECH TOILET)

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | February 7, 2005 | Benny Evangelista

[srm913]

Already flush with cash from selling his online music firm, entrepreneur David Samuel hopes to be sitting on top of another business success: high-tech toilet seats.

Samuel co-founded San Francisco's Brondell Inc., which this week plans to start marketing the Swash, a toilet seat that sprays a stream of warm water to cleanse a person's private parts. It turns an ordinary toilet into a bidet, a water-spraying toilet device that is popular in Europe.

The Swash 400 is heated and has push-button controls to adjust water pressure and temperature. A self-cleaning spray arm moves forward or back to adjust to the anatomy of male and female users

An advanced Swash 600 also includes a wireless remote control and a blow- dryer designed to eliminate the need for traditional toilet paper.

Brondell lists the Swash 400 at $699 and the Swash 600 at $899, although the company is offering a 38 percent discount through its Web site.

Samuel, who sold the Web music service Spinner Networks Inc. to America Online for $320 million in 1999 , said he believes that the Swash, like TiVo, the digital video recording device, must be used to be fully appreciated. ''Once someone experiences one of our warm toilet seats and the warm-water bidet, there's no going back to the cold porcelain toilet,'' he said.

[srm913]

Ooooooh boy- I don't want a Europeanization of American hygiene! Bidets were invented so BO-afflicted Euros could wash their equipment without having to wash off the rest of the mildew. Leave it to San Francisco to debut luxury toilets for the homeless- at your expen$e!

[Semper Paratus]

Al Gore would make a great pitchman for that.

[srm913]

He'll probably say he invented it-
for Hillary.

[Taylor814]

$899.00 for a rogering? Sounds steep.

[Zeppelin]

Funny that Europeans used bidets to clean there arses long before they even considered picking up a toothbrush!

[Abathar]

This will go over big in S.F., a lot of arses there are too sore the following morning for a traditional cleaning.

[Taylor814]

WOW! I wasn't going there... LOL

[SeamusVA]

Sounds like a modified verison of the French shower.

[SeamusVA]

And let's hope you don't!

[Abathar]

I had to put on my mental bio-hazzard suit to go there myself!

[Question_Assumptions]

My guess is that the Japanese already have a toilet seat that will do both -- work like a bidet and brush your teeth -- and massage your bottom, too. I had to carefully look at what I was pushing on a toilet in a Japanese hotel, not because the labels were in Japanese but because there were about a half-dozen of them and I didn't want to activate the bidet function.

[E.Allen]

The bidet function's not the one you have to worry about, it's the automatic tampon remover you have to watch out for (if you're a guy).

[One Proud Dad]

Oh man, I'm still laughing.

[socal_parrot]

Our home has a bidet. We are getting ready to remodel the bath and are removing it. It just takes up room.

[boris]

Aw, that's nuthin'. The Japanese invented a $5000 internet-connected toilet which takes your weight, pulse, urinalysis, blood pressure, and (for all I know) fecal sample and emails it to your doctor.

My question: what if hackers gain access to your toilet?:

Times Square ticker: "Joe Jones had a bowel movement at 11:42 this morning...film at 11..."

--Boris