In my experience, this $460 bidet is worth every penny

Ever since I came home from a trip to Japan in 2019, I’ve been using a bidet. Japan takes its hygiene and bidet game seriously. Their bidets were incredible, with features and technology that I never imagined people would be using in their toilets. But I decided to start simple with a $56 basic bidet that gets the job done. But as winter approached, the water and toilet seats in our non-insulated bathroom became unbearable, so we decided it was time to upgrade. Coway BidetMega 500S This has affected my wife and I so much that sometimes we put off what we need until we get home to use our shiny new bidet.

The Cowey 500S comes in tall and short round shapes, both of which easy to install. But I urge anyone spending more than $400 on a luxury bidet to first upgrade to a longer toilet, which you can find for $100 at Home Depot. Installation isn’t hard – did it myself by watching a YouTube video, but you can get a plumber to do it for about $150. Experience on longer toilets makes a big difference. Toilet seats on bidets are already smaller than regular seats, so a smaller round makes things tight (I tried the round version first and didn’t enjoy it). One important thing to keep in mind is that you will need a grounded outlet near the toilet to plug the Bidet Tino.

As I mentioned earlier, my bathroom is not insulated, so it is very cold in the mornings. This makes us appreciate the seat and water heating features a lot. You can use the remote to adjust temperature levels through three levels: green, orange, and red, each of which gets gradually warmer. There’s also a neat user profile on the remote that saves settings under that user, that way my wife and I don’t have to wrangle over settings.

Credit: Daniel Oropeza

As much as I enjoy the heating features, there’s another aspect that makes this bidet worth every penny: the self-cleaning nozzle. With my old bidet, the self-cleaning wasn’t great, which meant that occasionally, I had to apply some elbow grease to the bidet to get it looking good again (I hated that). The Coway 500S automatically self-cleans and keeps it looking brand new in three ways: a UV light, a nozzle cleaning spray, and a water shield that catches particles moving over and outside the bowl. So far, I’m very impressed with this feature.

It also has other features, including an air dryer (I personally don’t find it particularly effective), a touch button on the remote to open the lid (works about 80% of the time), a night light, and a deodorizer. If you’re a bidet lover, the Coway 500S is an amazing bidet that takes me back to Japan. It has raised the quality of my life and is worth every penny to me.