$6,400 Toilet Might Be a Little ... Much

The New York Times enters the world of toilet reviews today, but this is no ordinary toilet. It's the ultra-luxury Numi from Kohler that costs $6,400 and brings hygienic extravagance to a new level. Shaped like a white rhombus, the Numi is controlled with a touch-screen remote that allows the user to flip on the radio or MP3s, heat the seat, perform an eco-flush, and thoroughly wash oneself with an adjustable water nozzle located inside the bowl. Writer Sam Grobart tested one for a month in his home, and while enamored with its extravagant amenities, he did find a few technological pitfalls such as the Numi's rather slow automatic seat-lifting and lowering and an annoying jingle it played every time it turned on (until he dismantled it).

He also found himself confronted with an uncooperative toilet one day. Solution: He had to "reboot" the thing. "In the end, perhaps the Numi’s greatest flaw is this," he writes. "It has a panoply of logical and imaginative features, but it also assumes that you have all the time in the world to play with them. On rare occasions, that may be true, but for most of us, most of the time, the bathroom is a waypoint, not a destination." Read the full review here. (More toilet stories.)