At KBIS 2022, TOTO Showcases Innovative Products and Technologies for Cleaner, Healthier Living in Award-Winning Virtual Showroom and Hybrid Digital Booth

Company Pursues Virtual Strategy at this Year’s Kitchen and Bath Industry Show due to the Rise of the Omicron Variant and Increased COVID Cases

(Morrow, GA) February 8, 2022 — TOTO, the world’s largest plumbing manufacturer with more than
$5.45 billion in annual sales, announced today that the rise of the Omicron variant and increased COVID cases compelled the company to forego its traditionally robust in-person presence at KBIS 2022. TOTO made this difficult decision to protect the health and safety of its employees, partners, customers, and communities.

TOTO’s award-winning Virtual Showroom casts its elegant products and innovative technologies in a luxurious light. With Its intuitive hot-spot-based navigation and sliding menu bar, consumers and design-build professionals move easily throughout this immersive, highly interactive design tool.

Instead, TOTO has collaborated with the National Kitchen & Bath Association to design a unique hybrid digital booth experience (#W928) that helps tell the TOTO story virtually and keeps everyone safe during these unprecedented times. TOTO will also showcase its elegantly designed products and cutting-edge technologies in the company’s award-winning Virtual Showroom.

“Our virtual KBIS strategy will protect the health and safety of our teams and larger communities as the Omicron variant continues to increase COVID-19 cases dramatically,” said Hidemi Ishikawa, CEO of TOTO USA. “No matter if people choose to attend KBIS 2022 in-person or visit our newly enhanced award-winning Virtual Showroom, they will be able to experience TOTO’s elegantly designed bathroom products and leading-edge clean technologies.” He continued, “We look forward to 2023 when we again build a monumental in-person TOTO booth that not only showcases our award-winning products but also serves as a KBIS destination.”

WASHLET_® G450 Integrated Toilet
At KBIS 2022, TOTO will introduce its new WASHLET 450 Integrated Toilet, which offers users the height of convenience and luxury by opening, closing, and flushing automatically (manual flushing is also available). The WASHLET G450’s universal height design facilitates rising from sitting to standing, and its skirted base conceals the trapway, creating an aesthetically pleasing design that is easy to clean. Its easy-to-read touchpad remote control memorizes users’ personal preferences and mounts to the wall in a magnetic cradle.

The WASHLET G450 offers TOTO world-renowned WASHLET personal cleansing system with warm aerated water to cleanse, warm air to dry, and a heated seat, among numerous other technological advancements. It also features TOTO’s market-leading gravity-fed, high-efficiency TORNADO FLUSH® system, enabling users to select the water volume needed to clear its CEFIONTECT® glazed bowl—1.0 gpf for the full flush or 0.8 gpf for the light—which saves money and water.

TOTO’s “Shop the Look” bath spaces enable architects, designers, and consumers to step inside the bathroom suites and experience what it would feel like to inhabit that space with its elegantly designed TOTO products.

Enhanced Award-Winning Virtual Showroom
TOTO’s newly enhanced award-winning Virtual Showroom offers consumers and build-design professionals a high-definition, interactive design tool to bring their TOTO dream spa bathroom to life. Using the immersive power of artificial intelligence, TOTO’s Virtual Showroom offers innovative 3D product experiences that will open their minds and homes to new TOTO product possibilities.

This year, TOTO dramatically expanded its Virtual Showroom with four new interactive “shop the look” bathroom suites – Luxury, Premium, and Reserve for residential spaces and an IoT-enabled smart public restroom. With each interactive bathroom suite, architects, designers, and consumers can shop the look by stepping inside the bathroom design to explore, learn more, and feel what it would be like to inhabit that space. Hot spots provide on-demand TOTO product information they may download and take with them.

For example, when consumers and design-build professionals step into TOTO’s Luxury interactive bathroom suite, they will experience the beauty and elegance of TOTO’s

• NEOREST_® AH Smart Toilet,
• Drop-In Flotation Tub with RECLINE COMFORT technology,
• Luxury Square Showerhead and Square Handshower with WARM SPA® and COMFORT WAVE® technology, and
• GE Single Handle Semi-Vessel Faucets and GE Roman Tub Filler with Handshower.

Hot spots provide TOTO product information at their fingertips, which they may easily download and take with them.

CLEANOVATION®: Revolutionary Cleanliness Technologies that Ensure a Better Quality of Life
CLEANOVATION, which combines the words “clean” and “innovation,” articulates TOTO’s commitment to the kind of refreshing cleanliness that promotes peace of mind, beauty, and wellness through its technological innovations that provide consumers with a cleaner, better quality of life as they help protect the planet.

WASHLET: People across the U.S. have shifted their daily ritual from wiping to washing with TOTO’s WASHLET bidet seat. They have come to appreciate the many benefits of personal cleansing with water. Far superior to the paper alternative, Americans now experience a new kind of clean with WASHLET that leaves them more refreshed and confident than they have ever felt after a bathroom break.

WASHLET uses pure, clean water – and myriad technological innovations – to make consumers cleaner and more refreshed than they have ever felt. When the cleansing cycle is activated, a streamlined wand with AIR-IN WONDER-WAVE® technology extends from beneath the seat to provide a soothing warm flow of aerated water for complete cleansing. Because the water is drawn directly from the home’s freshwater supply, WASHLET delivers warm, aerated water that is always clean and pure. Once the cleansing cycle is completed, users may engage the drying cycle, which uses warm air to gently dry the area, protecting the environment by reducing the need for toilet tissue.

TOTO’s WASHLET bidet seats will fit most standard North American toilets. Installing WASHLET is as easy as changing the toilet seat. Consumers may refresh their bathroom with WASHLET in less than an hour and begin enjoying the cleanliness and comfort of personal cleansing with warm water.

Since its launch in 1980, TOTO has sold more than 50,000,000 WASHLET units worldwide, sparking a global revolution from wiping to washing.

WASHLET+: TOTO’s innovative WASHLET+ models harmoniously connect a high-performance TOTO toilet and WASHLET+ personal cleansing unit with no visible hoses or cords. Designed for every home, WASHLET+ is the smart way to introduce the comfort and cleanliness of TOTO technology to homeowners’ lives. TOTO offers a wide range of WASHLET+ models for every bathroom’s décor, enabling homeowners to receive the maximum benefit of clean innovation and seamless design.

NEOREST: TOTO’s NEOREST Smart Toilets offer the most innovative, design-forward array of smart toilets available with integrated WASHLET personal cleansing technology. NEOREST Smart Toilets respond to consumers’ needs intuitively and luxuriously. NEOREST offers elegant designs drawn from nature, cutting-edge technology, flawless performance, and extraordinary comfort, providing an unparalleled sense of relaxation in the most comfortable and refreshing way possible.

TOTO believes that the bath space should be a relaxing, restorative place where homeowners escape daily life’s stresses and their everyday bathroom rituals are transformed into enriching experiences. With NEOREST Smart Toilets, TOTO has brought its design, innovation, and exceptional performance philosophy to its most beautiful and welcoming expression.

CLEAN SYNERGY
With the need for cleanliness and hygiene at the forefront of consumers’ minds, TOTO NEOREST Smart Toilets and WASHLET+ models offer advanced cleaning technologies that work synergistically to keep the toilet bowl fresh and clean at all times:

• PREMIST®: The bowl’s interior is sprayed with a fine water mist to reduce waste’s ability to stick to its surface, which results in a better clean.
• CEFIONTECT: TOTO’s nano-technology glaze seals the porcelain with an ionized barrier, creating a super-slippery, non-porous surface that leaves waste nowhere to cling.
• TORNADO FLUSH SYSTEM: The rimless bowl design and 2.5 diameter trapway use 100% of the water to remove waste effectively and clean every inch of the bowl and rim. TOTO’s TORNADO FLUSH system optimizes water conservation (1.28 or 1.0 gallons per flush) while setting a high bar in quiet world-class flushing performance.
• EWATER+®: The cleanliness of the bowl’s surface and the interior and exterior of WASHLET and NEOREST wands is ensured by automatically misting them with electrolyzed water, a well-known cleaning agent, which reduces the need for harsh cleaning chemicals. Electrolyzed water is produced by electrolysis of the chloride ions in ordinary tap water. It is completely free of added chemicals and harsh cleaning agents. Over time, EWATER+ returns to its original state as regular tap water.

ACTILIGHT® ADVANCED CLEANING TECHNOLOGY: Available on TOTO’s NEOREST NX2, NEOREST 750H, and wall-hung NEOREST AC, ACTILIGHT synergizes TOTO’s CLEAN LIGHT and revolutionary titanium dioxide and zirconium bowl glaze. CLEAN LIGHT activates TOTO’s proprietary glaze, generating super hydrophilic, photocatalytic power to decompose waste, dirt, and grime on the toilet bowl’s surface and easily wash it away. As a result, even microscopic particles and debris are removed.

TOUCHLESS PRODUCTS: Today, more than ever before, consumers want to decrease public restroom touchpoints in airports, shopping centers, schools, offices, and other facilities where they might come into contact with infectious diseases like the coronavirus, influenza virus, or norovirus, to name but a few. With hands-free faucets, flush valves, and soap dispensers, TOTO’s TOUCHLESS technology provides consumers with the confidence that their restroom experience will be clean, comfortable, and convenient.

ECOPOWER® TECHNOLOGY: TOTO’s TOUCHLESS smart-sensor faucets and flush valves for toilet and urinal harness its ECOPOWER technology, which generates electricity each time water spins a small internal turbine. This electrical energy is stored in a series of capacitors to power the TOUCHLESS faucet or flush valve. There is no minimum usage requirement. TOTO’s self-powered ECOPOWER hydroelectric technology generates power during use. No need for hard wiring to the building’s electrical system or routine battery replacement, which is costly and hazardous to the environment.

IOT-ENABLED PRODUCTS: To provide consumers with a consistently clean, comfortable public restroom experience no matter where they travel for work or play, TOTO has launched an array of IoT-enabled products for smart, fully-connected public restrooms, which include: IoT-Enabled ECOPOWER Smart-Sensor Flush Valves for Toilets and Urinals, IoT-Enabled ECOPOWER Smart-Sensor Faucets, and IoT-Enabled Auto Soap Smart-Sensor Dispensers.

TOTO’s IoT-enabled, smart-sensor products connect seamlessly with the KOLO™ Smart Monitoring System by GP PRO, a division of Georgia-Pacific, to deliver reliable, customizable, and secure monitoring and analysis of connected restroom fixtures to a dashboard that facility managers monitor via phone, tablet, or computer. For example, facility managers and their custodial staff will receive real-time updates or alerts on:

• the number of toilet and faucet activations and their water consumption;
• operational abnormalities such as leaks or product malfunctions;
• user safety, alerting staff to check the toilet stall when an occupant has remained in it for more than 30 minutes; and
• consumer traffic to determine optimal periods for cleaning and repairs.

Facility managers harness this information to dramatically increase consumers’ satisfaction with their public restroom experience and solve real-world business issues to manage their workforce better and make substantial cost savings in their restrooms’ operation.

Journalist’s Note: High-resolution digital images of the WASHLET G450 Integrated Toilet, award-winning Virtual Showroom, WASHLET, WASHLET+, NEOREST, IoT-Enabled, and TOUCHLESS Products are immediately available upon request.

About TOTO
TOTO USA is headquarters for the Americas Division of the TOTO Global Group, which was established in 1917 with the founding of TOTO, Ltd., in Kitakyushu, Japan. TOTO is the world’s largest manufacturer of bathroom fixtures and fittings, with $5.47 billion in annual sales (as of March 2020 and its exchange rate). For more than 100 years, TOTO has been the recognized leader in innovation, technology, performance, and design with products that enhance the luxury bathroom experience. Today, the company maintains 33,554 employees in 19 countries and owns manufacturing facilities around the world in countries as diverse as Japan, Mexico, Germany, the USA, India, and China. Guided by its corporate philosophy, the TOTO Global Group strives to create a great company, trusted by people worldwide, which contributes to the betterment of society. Dedicated to engineering products that respect the environment while meeting people’s needs for comfort, beauty, and performance, TOTO is the sole plumbing manufacturer to maintain a research and development center devoted to universal design, advanced science, and technology. Consumers enjoy the peace of mind that comes from knowing they purchased a brand that innovates to improve people’s quality of life. Winner of numerous domestic and international awards and recognitions, TOTO is the only plumbing manufacturer honored as Water Efficiency Leader by the US Environmental Protection Agency. The company continues to raise industry standards and consumer expectations about what is possible in the bath space, as TOTO believes a high-quality bathroom is an experience and an everyday luxury people value and appreciate.

For more information, consumers may visit www.totousa.com or call 1.888.295.8134, Option 5. Follow TOTO on Twitter (@TOTOUSA) and Instagram (@TOTOUSA) and become a TOTO fan on Facebook.