Welcome to the world of smart toilets
Is the toilet smarter than the person ready to splash out R95,000 on such a basic part of life?
Smart speakers are all the rage internationally and over the past few years have tended to dominate the annual extravaganza of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Maybe it’s because CES is held in Las Vegas that someone thought it wouldn’t be out of place to launch a "smart" toilet with Amazon’s voice assistant (VA), Alexa, built in. Yes, you can sit on the commode and talk to Alexa. There are some places and contexts where tech is useful and advances humanity. The toilet isn’t one of them. The Kohler Numi 2.0 "intelligent toilet" has many more tricks. It can warm the seat, and has a soothing blue glowing light. I’m not so sure about the "personalised cleansing and dryer functions". Amazingly it wasn’t the only "smart" toilet to be launched this January. Nor the cheapest. Toto’s Neorest NX2 intelligent toilet sells for $13,000. It can automatically close its lid or flush itself, or, wait for it, you can flush it by remote control. Some product designers — and their bosses who sign ...
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