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Comment by tlarkworthy | Hacker News Reader

I think a machine vision directed spray is the future. I don't fancy collecting the training data though.

LOL, "a machine vision directed spray", missing a '/s'? My toilet has a built in bidet. When the spray comes on, I move my butt to positions the stream to dead center. There's really no need for any added complexity.

It's knowing when it's done

I can already see the news reports about racist toilets.

over-engineering much

Toilets seats with built in bidets have already been perfected in Japan and South Korea since the nineties. Anyone who suggests the need for computer vision aided complexity has never used one of these. They just work, and you learn to use them properly really fast.

They just want to gather the footage for research

I only used one in Korea once, and to be honest, it worked so well without doing anything special that I assumed they were already using some kind of recognition.

And those toilets have been readily available in the US for over a decade. I did opt for a higher end model, but it wasn't hard to find either.

Better safe than sorry

Please no. I don't want asshole recognition software tracking my movements from washroom to washroom.

But the potential for offering targeted hemorrhoid treatment advertising could heavily subsidize the cost of the Amazon Toilet

Two answers to this one

1) iPhone X already has this feature.

2) GDPR will require you to opt-in to asshole tracking, and you'll also have the right to request your asshole scans be forgotten.

Surprisingly relevant Adult Swim Infomercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJklHwoYgBQ

A sewer pipe that could detect what’s passing through it would actually have all kinds of practical uses!

I wonder how feasible it would be to embed chemical sensors into such an environment.

Governments sometimes analyse waste water for drugs and drug metabolites. You can't pinpoint specific houses' drug use, but you get get trends and general population data.

Relevant - http://www.dw.com/en/austrian-woman-poisons-local-water-trea...

Targeting action on drugs by monitoring sewerage plants is some sort of genius.

Are you suggesting that each human has a unique anus-print? Or is this just some shitty theory of yours?

Each human actually does have a unique anus print and I'm pretty sure it was pornhub that figured this out. If I find the article I'll edit.

and the data can be stolen by an analytics company which may use it to manipulate elections.

How else would we elect the biggest asshole?

Once I had a very serious conversation about this, bussiness conversation

No need to go that far. Even the $300 unit I purchased off of Amazon is, uh, remarkably accurate.

And of course it will be sending the data to the cloud, to improve ad targeting.

Or you can just use wet wipes

Beware, many of those "flushable" wipes aren't actually: https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/09/putrid-130-ton-mass-...

Especially for septic systems. In related news, it is very expensive to have a plumber come fish "flushable" wipes from your septic system when they are blocking the tank and backing the "water" back up into the house.

I asked a plumber about those once and he laughed and said there’s no such thing as a flushable wipe - but they’re great for business.

What's the limitation? Why can't we make actually flushable wipes?

Shear stress. You want something that won't tear when it is pulled against your skin, but with enough friction to remove viscoplastic residue.

The way to make a cloth that supports such high shear stress without tearing is to use a very long fiber. This precludes the fiber from dissolving in water. Some experimental materials actually dissolve not in water but in alkalines such as fats that are found in most sewer systems. But not all sewer systems have the proper conditions so these materials then do not dissolve.

Doubt it would take off, considering the low adoption rates of "regular" spray toilets in the west. It's a relatively marginal improvement after all.

Bidet use is accelerating rapidly* in the US. Which doesn't surprise me, really. When I got one, most of my family was surprised. As they tried it out of curiosity, most of them were really happy with how clean they felt, and have gone on to get one for their own homes. I'm sure they have other friends that come over and will experience the same. It's an exponential effect.

(* source: https://www.proremodeler.com/bidets-finally-making-inroads-u... )

Washing one's "back-parts" after they've completed their job feels much more clean to me compared to using toilet paper. Whenever I'm forced to use TP (i.e. when not at home, mostly) I always feel a little dirty after the deed, no matter how much TP I use. I don't have that feeling when using water to clean said back-parts.

If I have taken only one thing away from living in Japan for near-on a decade, it is that the washlet (aka the cyber-bidet) is, quite possibly, mankind's greatest invention.

The predecessor to the above were small squeeze bottles full of water, and you can still buy various versions of these today, which are heaven-on-earth as a wilderness backpacker.

I picked up a travel bidet[1] for backpacking, and it has proven to be one of the best uses of six bucks that I can remember. Weighs in at 50g (~2oz), and not only cuts down on the amount of TP I need to pack in (and out), but it's also been a general lifesaver when traveling.

[1] https://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/B007ZLB3NA

There are non-electronic bidets that I found worked just as well (you rotated a nob to spray water using just water pressure).

I installed one of these at home. Absolutely superb.

That sounds like a rather... brisk experience in the colder months. I hope you live where the winters are mild!

Hooooly shit I never thought of this for backpacking.

You're a life saver. Accidentally pulling out my shit wipe Ziploc is my least favorite part of backpacking.

Yeah, it's pretty hard to differentiate that from an MRE.

Cost of bidets are coming down a lot with more domestic manufacturers. At $200-300 for a Toto-like attachment I upgraded all of my toilets. It's hard to go back once you are used to it.

Yes. I recently went to Azerbaijan and was amazing at how barbaric we are in the USA with our hard, dry toilet paper :-)

I agree 100%. I purchased bidets as Christmas presents for many family members this past year after a visit to South Korea (where they were the norm in the hotels I visited). I've even found myself telling my neighbors about the advantages of bidets over cocktails (which is kind of weird). I wouldn't want to live without one, and I spread the word.

And what are the advantages of a bidet over a cocktail? Not as sticky, I imagine.

You don't need to pay so much, you can get some that attach under the seat for $30.

Far easier is just to have the person move into the proper position.

wow, collecting isn't so bad, (you just place a camera) Labeling it however!!

That would mean literally looking at poopy buttholes all day long and highlighting the poop on the butt, maybe also highlighting where you think the hose should start. I wouldn't want to be that Mechanical Turker

There's someone out there for whom this is their dream job. Probably a substantial fraction of the population, actually, judging from the tag clouds on porn sites.

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