There are over 20 individual controls on that unit (which is, FWIW, common and reasonably expensive). If you do not read Japanese, good luck at finding flush... and finding it will not help you finding it on the next machine you use.
I've never seen this unit nor anything even remotely this complex in a public toilet. The vast majority of toilets I've seen are the basic washlet features and a few give you the added option of spray pressure. The pressure options I've only ever seen in hotels. Not only that, but the vast majority of public toilets are auto-flush.
Having said that, the "bidet" label on the "ladies" button is highly misleading ;-)
This use case (use by people who are not literate) is one of those few circumstances where worse-is-better, because public toilets (like one might find in a train station or department store) are typically either mechanically operated (trivial to use) or the lowest-scale models.
That said, this is not a rare, exotic toilet in Japan; it's something which would be unremarkable in an office building or a restaurant that you could reasonably use for date night.
Don't you like the washiki toilets? ;) (seriously, I live neither in a big nor a small city, but there are way too many of them still, in this century)
I don't :-) But that's the reality of the izakayas around here. Actually the virtually brand new (7 years old???) onsen near me has exclusively washiki toilets (very nice new ones). Apparently the older patrons like them. They have handlebars on the wall too, which is a nice usability touch.
Yeah, I figured that's the theory, but in practice I've found no consistent aiming for either function. Also, most washlets with both also have an independent forward/backward function.
Besides all that, is there some targeting system going on down there? Machine vision? Lidar?
None that I know of. A combination of adjusting yourself and using the forward back buttons usually works. There are also some with pulsating streams for extra scrubbing power.
It's going to happen sooner or later. I'm pretty sure the $8000 models employ some kind of computer vision to adjust the sprayer to the correct "human output interface".
A cloud toilet that examines your feces and urine probably isn't far off (and is probably already in the works).
On the majority, if not all of Japanese toilets I remember using, the actual flush was just a normal flush. The buttons were just for the various washlets mounted in the toilet seat, and could be safely ignored.
Obviously you have more experience than my one holiday, but it seems surprising that I wouldn't have encountered this problem if it's widespread?
flush is the leftmost button on top of the remote, to the right side of it is also flush, if you only need small amount of water. To the right of that "little" flush, is even more "eco" flush.. This is why they need standardization.
I've been to Japan recently and saw all kinds of toilets. I encountered types like that as well and honestly it's not that difficult. I don't speak Japanese but you'll quickly figure out that the dots represent the water amount for flushing, that there are probably two bidet functions per gender (water more spread out or not), that the "sliders" control the pressure etc.
There are other buttons for deodorization, sounds and whatnot but well, that's just the cherry on top.
I miss them!
Confusing Japanese toilets were my favorite part about visiting. I don't mind having to it a few random buttons. But yeah having standardized iconography for visitors is probably a good thing.
sym for big is up, sym for small (urine only) is down - I see them right away on your image at the top, usually the flusher is not on the seat controls itself either.
The orange square is to stop the current bidet function. The 9 dots is a big flush, as opposed to the one beside it which is a small flush and then an even smaller 'eco' flush beside that.
Oh, come on. It's pretty obvious that "eco 小" with the three dots means eco flush. It's also one of the larger buttons. Which means that the four and nine dots mean larger flushes. Which means that "流す" means flush. There you go, problem solved. Just take a note of 流 on a piece of paper, if you're not good at remembering symbols.
The user is expected to be able to read basic Japanese. You are of course welcome to use the product without that prerequisite; just experiment.
If you are a lady not much can go wrong; for us blokes… well you might get your ball-sack rinsed, but that, while surprising and slightly awkward, is fairly harmless on the whole.
What's the fun in being a tourist if you understood everything around you.
I believe most models will refuse to turn on any washlet function if there's no pressure on the entire seat (not sure exactly what the predicate is, but something along those lines). Certainly my model[0] in SF is that way.
This is the dumbest coherent thought I have ever read. Edit Look, I don’t know you, but if I presume you are a smart young hacker… your own attitude toward technology as something that can and will be understood, conquered, and mastered will serve you well, but you must also come to realize that your own creations will never matter unless they work for an entirely different audience. And no, you don’t have to be dumb for a poorly designed interface to confuse and disorient you.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0iripy6m7fu5f3o/2017-01-19%2016.57...
There are over 20 individual controls on that unit (which is, FWIW, common and reasonably expensive). If you do not read Japanese, good luck at finding flush... and finding it will not help you finding it on the next machine you use.