Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This is my personal and honest review of the Swash S-1000 Toilet Seat Bidet. After searching high and low, and researching and reading everything I cld find on EVERY toilet seat bidet out there, I chose the Swash 1000. It's too bad you can't "try before you buy" with these things. Maybe my choice would have been different in the end. I almost bought the Coway BA-13. Def worth you checking out. So, that's why I wanted to write a comprehensive review on the Swash S-1000 for ppl. There just aren't many solid and detailed reviews out there on these things. So I hope this helps you in your search for one of these. First a little bit about me. I am a 41 y/o male, and my main reason for buying one of these was for myself. More on that in my review. The 2nd reason was for my 4 y/o dghtr. She's been toilet trained for almost 2 years now, but still doesn't always wipe herself well enough down there when she's at school, and ends up with a very bad and sore/irritating rash. So I wanted her to always be able use the seat to get herself totaly clean whenever she "goes". We have her use it to clean off w/e she may have missed from going to the bathroom at school everyday as well. 3rd reason was for my wife. Not for after doing #1. That's too much of a hassle. But mainly during her "friends" visit. AKA "that time of the month". So,...on to the review. I'll start out with the cons/negs first. For you ladies out there, I hate to break it to you, but...this seat WILL NOT reach you well enough in your frontal area unless you can uncomfortably skoot all the way to the back of the toilet seat, and lean forward. Luckily here, my wife is a workout queen so that's not a problem, but for some women, that may not be so easy. To the makers of the Swash...I understand that you only have so much room for the wands to extend out based on the depth of the back of the toilet seat housing, but honestly, is it that big-a-deal to make telescoping wands that cld more than easily extend ALL THE WAY OUT to where any person wld need them to be in order to wash comfortably? You know, wands that will collapse into themselves in a couple of sections for extended reach but will also fit all the way back into the housing. I mean come on! This aint rocket science. Especially if a dummy like me can come up with the idea. LOL I mean this is a $1000 toilet seat (based on MSRP) we're talking about here. Yeesh! To me, that's is a big negative. A major design flaw. Swash, PLEASE steal my idea and make/design both wands with a scoping feature. The whole purpose of the seat is to TOTALLY clean you, back to FRONT. In fact, as much as I like the dedicated wands for each clean up chore, I'm sure that with a scoping wand, you'd only need one wand as opposed to two, thus saving on the cost of production as well as the cost to the consumer. Secondly, with my dghtr. The weight sensors in the front of the seat will not recognize her sitting on it. This now requires my wife to go in there and push down on the inside front part of the toilet seat, and me to work the remote for it to clean her. Now I realize that the sensor is a safety feature, and it's a good one at that, but my dghtr weighs 42lbs. Certainly someone weighing more than say 30lbs should be recognized by the seat sensor as a person "in use". Not a big thing to complain about, but a problem none the less. And for anyone else who has the same idea of using it on your children as we did, (especially if you have multiple little ones) will find it to be none too fun. It will get old real fast having to deal with that. So, I can honestly say that those are the two "MAIN" negatives with the seat. Minor things wld be to have a completely back lit remote feature for night time usage. It stinks to have to turn the lights on to see the thing. It'd also be nice if the seat itself had a nite lite feature on it. It does have nice little function lights that are lit up on it, esp the blue eco-mode light. But a dedicated nite lite wld have been a great little addition to match a lighted remote. But that's nitpicking. So, now it's time for the POSITIVES. = ) As I stated, the purchase of this seat was MAINLY for me. You see, I have severe Ulcerative Colitis. For those who don't knw wht that is, it's a serious colon disease. For me, I use the bathroom between 25 - 40 times a day. That is NOT a typo. You read it right. Depending on what I eat during the day I cld be on this thing up to 40 times. A little milk or ice cream and I'm doomed. Anyone out there with Collitis or Chrone's or Diverticulitis or IBS knws all too well wht I am talking about. I say all this because IMHO, if you're only going to use your toilet a cpl times a day, I really don't think a $300-$600 plus dollar toilet seat bidet is worth the investment. If however, money isn't tight, and you can afford it, then go for it. Because even those few times that you do put it to use, you will find yourself LOVING it. And if you're going a lot more frequently, or have some type of gastro-intestinal disease...it's a "MUST HAVE". An absolute "GOD SEND", LITERALLY! Having the Swash for almost 2 months now I can say that this seat has been awesome for me. No more using a a roll and a half to 2 rolls of toilet paper per day. And at 69-79 cents a roll now-a-days, the savings are considerable. For me that's a potential savings of $250 to $350 a year right there! It's like an investment that will pay for itself in 2 to 3 years. Not to mention the fact of NO more awful rashes and that sandpaper feeling with every wipe. NO more dirty feeling, like you need to take a shower 5 times a day, just to name a few things. As I said, it's been a God send for me. The seat gets me totally clean, EVERYTIME! As for drying yourself...I have found that if you use the dryer feature alone, it'll take forever to get dry. So wht I do is take the toilet paper and just pat (NOT wipe) myself dry to get the heavy water off, using 2-3 wads of paper. Then I dry myself with the dryer (which has 3 temp as well as 3 speed settings) for 20-30 seconds, and I'm perfectly clean and dry. At least 80% less paper used! = ) There are alot more awesome features on the seat as well. First, no cheap plastic washing wands. Nice rust free stainless steel here. That's definitely the best way to go if you buy one. SS, you can't beat it for quality, longevity, and cleanliness. It also has oscilating wands, meaning they go back and forth while they clean. Truly a great feature that you will appreciate. It also has a width adjustment for the water stream that you can use and adjust WHILE it's cleaning you. It can blast a stream at you, a medium width fan spray, or a nice wide spray. That's my personal fav. ; ) The water pressure from the wands can also be adjusted from low to high water output. Also with the internal ceramic heater element, you NEVER run out of nice hot water. I've used the water stream for 5 minutes without it running out just to test it. It's a great feature to have as opposed to the water resevoirs that will give you warm water for about 45 seconds. It takes longer than that to wash yourself clean. I mean why buy a cleaning seat if you're not going to get 100% clean? There are also 3 different temp settings for the water so everyone can find a comfortable heat setting. Also, being up here in New England with our freezing winter temperatures, it's a great feeling to sit down on a nice pre-heated toilet seat. Esp in the middle of the night when you have your heat turned down to save some $$$ and it's chilly in the house. The seat is so warm and comfortable, hec, it's down right inviting! LOL It also has 4 temp settings. Completely off, then a cool temp setting for summertime (no sweating), medium heat, and extra warm. It's also great that the seat has the gentle close feature. Especially for the kids, and guests. You don't want your seat to be accidentally slammed down, jarring all the inner workings and electronics in your toilet seat. It won't last long for sure. And don't forget the fact that those accidental late night slams sometimes have you ducking and dodging slippers being thrown at your head from an angrily awoken significant other person. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that. LOL Well,...I appologize for the length of this review, but I really wanted to be as comprehensive and informative as possible to help you with your purchase. $600. is a lot of money to spend on a toilet seat. You def want to be happy with such an expensive purchase. So, all in all, the Swash has some truly great as well as addicting features, and aside from a few negatives, I would DEFINITELY recomend the Swash S-1000 Toilet Seat Bidet to you, and would in fact myself buy it again. Now, as I stated at the begining of my review, there may be a better seat out there, I don't know. Honestly, the Coway BA 13 was the other seat that I narrowed my exhaustive search down to, and almost bought. It's one that you shld seriously consider too. As I said...I wish you cld try before you buy, becuase if the Coway can reach a womans' frontal area better...I'da chosen that one because it has the same features as the Swash does. So def give that a look too. Hope this was helpful to you all. God Bless and good luck to you in your search for "bathroom bliss". = ) 5/16/12 Product Update... Well, it's been over a year and a half since I bought my Swash 1000, and I thought it would be a beneficial addition to the review if I gave a little "Quality" update to let you know how the toilet seat is performing. Well, the seat is performing PERFECTLY. There is not a single thing wrong with the seat. Nothing is broke or has stopped working on it. It has performed flawlessly. And believe me, my toilet seat probably has the equivelant of 10 years of "normal" usage on it with my stomach ailment. This has been a tremendous value and investment for me. I really can't say enough good things about the Swash. I have also recommended it to a lot of people. Even a few people at work. One guy weighs 4oo lbs and really can't clean himself well enough back there. And another guy at work who was collecting money for a charity raffle for his friend who was in an accident, and is almost a quadrapolegic. I say almost because he has very "limited" use of his right arm. I don't know if that family ended up buying one, but what a great way to be able to properly clean someone in that type of physical condition. #1-The person doing the cleaning doesn't have to hurt themselves trying to clean the person right. And #2-I think you'd give a real feeling of self respect to the person who needs to be cleaned. Thus saving them a lot of constant embarassment. To me, that's the most important thing of all. So, for all those wondering about the potential longevity of this seat, I can honestly say that this thing has more than just lived up to my expectations. It has by far and away surpassed them. And as I stated, with the demands I put on my seat, it will definitely last you for years to come as well. Well, I hope this little update will provide some additional help for you all. Any questions, feel free to ask in the comments section. Update 11-25-14 After receiving a kind comment from Sisyphen, I've decided to do another seat update. Long story short, I severely hurt my back and blew out 3 lower discs. This has caused me not to be ably to hold myself up when I go to sit down. When it comes to my toilet seat, I literally fall into it. This has caused me to crack the plastic in multiple places under the seat. It's a mess, but this is NO fault of the seat. 250lbs falling into the seat a thousand times and using the front of the seat to push yourself back up has been beyond excess use of this. But what I will say is, even though it's all cracked up, it's still working perfectly with the exception of some lost wand pressure. Probably due to something being pinched or wedged in there. Again, not Brondell's fault in any way shape or form. So this thing can really take a ton of abuse and still will hold up and work well for years to come. Also, because of how this thing has held up under all the down right torture that I put it through, and the money that I have saved on TP, which is definitely more than the cost of the seat, I have changed my rating to this to 5 stars. It may have a few things that could be improved upon, but after how this thing has held up and what it has saved me, it is a well deserved 5 star rating. Lastly, the true test of a customers satisfaction is, would you buy it again? Not only do I answer yes, but I in fact HAVE! :) I have yet to install it as I've been thinking of a way that I could brace it up and spread the weight around the whole seat as opposed to its rubber padded contact points. Any Ideas? Thanks for reading all. Hope this helps someone on the fence out there about weather to spring for this or not. It's a purchase you won't regret and it's well worth it in the end. Well, Happy Holidays to all! :)