Automating automotive accessories... and toilets

The schedule of these Substack posts might be different for a little bit. I’m going to be away from my EV as I’m in Japan for a couple of weeks. I’m not straying far from cutting edge technology though. I’m in Japan because I’m leading 17 ASU students through the Osaka 2025 World Expo. I suspect there will be many stories to tell about the relationship we have with technologies. In the process I might explore a few technologies that don’t have four wheels and a thousand pounds of batteries.

Before I dive into the details of the Expo, however, I’d like to reflect on Japan. I’ve always been told that technology is incredibly important to the Japanese and that there are ways they showcase and interact with it that are very different from the US. I anticipated the bright neon signs and vending machines that sell all manner of things. But I’m still finding myself surprised.

My first awakening was on the United Flight I took from San Francisco to Osaka. The food they served us was absolutely terrible. Alas, that wasn’t really a surprise. But I also had my first brush with Japanese technology and that was surprising. At the beginning of the flight I was handed a small slip of paper that I had to fill out to make my way through Japanese customs and immigration. That shouldn’t have been something worth thinking twice about. But as I received the small piece of paper the neurons in my head started firing because it felt… different. The paper was smooth, almost silky. This may sound weird, but it was delightful to touch.

As I wrote out my passport number and date of birth I tried to think through the disconnect in my head. Immigration forms seem to me to be utterly disposable. They carry information for perhaps a couple of hours and then, as long as nothing is amiss, are quickly recycled to make room for processing the next traveler. But it was clear that this immigration form was crafted with a great deal of time, effort, and resources. Why would someone put so much are into creating an object that was only a few hours away from becoming garbage? My only explanation was that the people that produced, purchased, and used this small piece of paper have different values than I do. They felt that even this small piece of paper – which would only be handled by a few people – was important enough to craft with precision.

Once I actually arrived in Japan itself I was inundated with an even wider variety of technologies that I recognized, but that were designed in a slightly different way. It was interesting to me how much of the culture shock I experienced revolved around technologies as well as the technology that has captivated me the most: toilets.

So I have interacted with Japanese toilets before. I knew that there are many buttons and gizmos and water can squirt in multiple directions and at different temperatures if you so choose. Some even have a dryer function. But there are two things much more basic than that that I’m trying to figure out.

The first is that some of the toilets at restaurants or hotels anticipate your arrival. They politely sit with the lid closed until the bathroom door opens and they sense that you might like to use the facilities. When that happens a small light begins to glow and the lid automatically opens to invite you to sit down. After you leave the toilet quietly returns the lid to the closed position.

Initially I had no idea why it does this. Do we really need to automate everything? Isn’t the simple acts of lifting and closing a toilet seat something that we should expect of the average restaurant-going adult?

But as I thought about it, my mind drifted back to where it often does – cars. There is an automated system available in most US cars these days that I initially was dumbfounded by: automatic headlights. Just as with toilet seats in Japan, headlights were something that we used to rely on fully functioning adults to turn on. But as we all know some people forget, especially in rainy or snowy conditions. Car manufacturers have either given up on us to know how to do it, or we’ve collectively decided that our lives are so busy we’d be better off letting the car’s computers handle them.

Over time, however, I began to appreciate automatic headlights because they make up for a personal failing. I have on more than one occasion accidentally left my lights on, run my battery down, and needed a jump start to get the car going again. Setting the lights to “automatic” alleviates this problem because in addition to turning the lights on when you need them, it turns the lights off when you don’t.

There’s also a benefit in rental cars. I don’t always take time to figure out where the light button/switch/stalk is on every car I drive. And I am pleasantly surprised when the car takes care of that for me. It’s one less thing I need to worry about as I try to figure out how to properly use a car I’ve never driven before.

As I think about it, the automatic toilet seat solves two problems that didn’t initially occur to me. First, it certainly is more polite to have a toilet seat down when you first encounter it. A closed lid keeps both smells and perhaps unsightly messes hidden. We probably should be able to rely on adults to close lids, but as we all know – especially women – not every fully functioning adult takes the time or shares these values enough to put the seat down.

Second, toilets tend to be inherently dirty objects. If a device frees you from having to touch a toilet, your hands are likely to be at least a little bit cleaner. Automating the opening and closing of a toilet seat helps ensure that the values of politeness and cleanliness are promoted even when the person involved is not inclined to participate. My assumption is that while we have those values in the US, they are so important in Japan that society (and toilet manufacturers) have decided to re-engineer their toilets to do something about it.

The second toilet technology that has me confused is the heated seat. I’ve found that nearly all toilet seats in Japan are heated. They are legitimately warm – sometimes to the point where I’d say they are hot.

These still don’t make sense to me. I have gotten a bit of a shock in the past from a cold porcelain toilet seat and I am certainly open to a technology that would take off the chill. But the heat in many Japanese toilets is just too high for me. It is still a surprise to me every time I sit down and I can’t get completely comfortable.

But again, when I think of my experience with cars I think I can begin to get it. In today’s modern world I do think seat warmers in cars are one of life’s increasingly delightful simple pleasures. I actually look forward to days that are cold enough in Arizona such that I can turn on the seat warmer. I’m convinced that it doesn’t just make the seats a comfortable temperature, but also relaxes my back muscles a bit. If I lived in Chicago I’m sure that the delight would be several fold higher during the frigid winters.

So, while I’m not a fan of overly heated toilet seats, I can imagine that over time it becomes something the Japanese not only look forward to, but increasingly feel is a necessity. Maybe the fact that I’m visiting during the summer means I don’t get the full Japanese heated toilet seat experience.

So yes, I’m still a skeptic. I’m not convinced that we need to automate and electrify every aspect of our lives – including our car accessories and our toilets. But I do see why it is happening. Different people value different things. Different technological capabilities satisfy different goals. And different cultures have developed different expectations for what technologies should accomplish for them. Maybe in 20 years I’ll think a heated toilet seat is an indispensable part of a civilized technological society. For certain I know I look forward to my next encounter with Japanese paper.