TOTO WASHLET S5 Review: The Mainstream Line at Its Peak

What sets the S5 apart

The S5's heater is the part that matters most: instantaneous water heating delivers continuous warm water that lasts as long as needed, the line that separates a TOTO from cheaper tank seats that cool after a minute.

What the S5 adds over the cheaper S2 is control. An arm control panel stores 4 user memory settings reached from a wireless remote, a built-in nightlight illuminates the bathroom with a soft glow, and the wand and bowl self-sanitize automatically every 8 hours. Around those sit the standard TOTO set: the wand self-cleans automatically using EWATER+ inside and out, PREMIST mists the bowl with incoming water before each use to prevent waste sticking, the SoftClose heated seat provides consistent warmth coverage across the full seat surface, and an air deodorizer with air filters neutralizes bathroom odors.

The wash itself is fully adjustable. A cleansing stream offers pulsating and oscillating spray options, and water direction forward or back and pressure stronger or lesser are user-adjustable, with both seat warmth and water temperature adjustable for comfort. The map below shows the wash coverage owners are setting.

What owners praise after installing it

The most recurring praise is the setup: easy DIY installation tops the reviews, and the conversion is quick: one reviewer expected the seat add-on to underperform a dedicated bidet but found it works great.

"Being an add on, I didn't think it was going to work as well as a dedicated bidet. But it works great." — an S5 owner on Amazon, capturing the most common arc in the reviews: doubt about an electronic seat, then quick conversion once the warm water and heated seat become routine.

The cleanliness payoff is concrete. One owner cut bowl cleaning from twice a week to once a week after installing the washlet, and the PREMIST prerinse keeps the bowl cleaner than going without it. Over several weeks of ownership the conversion spreads through the household — a hesitant household member grew comfortable with the warm seat and cleanliness over time. owners say the quality is better than they expected, and TOTO points to 60 million WASHLET users behind the line.

TOTO includes an adjustable warm air dryer, and it is worth setting expectations honestly. Like most bidet dryers, it finishes slowly enough that many owners still pat dry with paper — the state of bidet dryers generally, not a fault unique to the S5. The meter below plots that gap between the marketing and how owners actually use it.

The caveats worth knowing

The S5 draws little criticism of the wash, so the caveats are about everything around it. The first is power: installation requires adding a GFCI outlet behind the toilet for the seat.

Two more are worth flagging before you buy. The unit requires 110V US power, so UK and Europe buyers should avoid it, and a long-time owner finds the redesigned remote control harder to understand than the old model — a learning curve, not a defect. There is also a startup quirk: a startup behavior surprised an owner but can be disabled via a remote button sequence.

The one fit caveat is shared across TOTO's high-back washlets. The seat's high-back design forces sitting forward, awkward at 6 foot 5, and the same shape draws the C5's sharpest complaints: C5 owners found the angled seat uncomfortable, hurting the back with no way to lean back, and argue the design is not made for larger people, only smaller men or women. Yet the counterweight holds: another owner of the same TOTO seat reports none of the fit complaints and would buy it again. The shape is a fit gamble for taller and larger bodies, not a universal flaw — which is why measuring before you buy matters, a step our how to choose a bidet seat guide walks through.

Where the S5 sits in the WASHLET ladder

The cleanest comparison is the cheaper S2: it shares the same instantaneous heater but trades the wireless remote and four presets for a side panel. If you want the warm water without the controls, the TOTO WASHLET S2 vs S5 head-to-head settles it.

Below the S5 sits the tank-heated C5, and a seller is blunt about the difference: a seller recommends the tankless S5 over the C5 for unlimited continuous warm water. The retailer ratings track the ladder: the S5 seat carries a 4.8 rating from 177 reviews at Lowe's, the older TOTO C5 holds a 4.6 rating from 605 reviews, the cheaper TOTO Washlet A2 rates 4.5 across 204 reviews, and the step-up TOTO S550e rates 4.8 across 278 reviews at roughly double the price. The standalone S5 seat sells at Lowe's with free delivery.

Watch the listings: a Home Depot KS5 variant rates lower at 4.1 with only 11 reviews, so the model and seller you choose matter. Owners upgrading from round to elongated rank TOTO as the number one washlet choice. Shoppers cross-shopping brands can weigh Kohler bidet seats and Brondell bidet seats first. The S5 is the wrong pick if you are on a tight budget, outside the US, or want the simplest possible remote.

Is the TOTO S5 worth the premium?

The S5 earns a recommendation for the buyer who wants the most complete mainstream washlet without crossing into the seats that cost roughly double: a US household that values continuous warm water, per-person presets, and low upkeep, and that can run a GFCI outlet behind the toilet.

The S5 sits in the premium price tier, so it is the wrong seat for tight budgets, for buyers outside the US, and for anyone who wants the plainest possible controls — the cheaper S2 covers that buyer with the same warm water. For everyone else the S5 is the seat that does the most without the step-up price, and the high-back shape is the one thing to measure for first.