Toto's Flotation Tub wants to calm your mind

Toto, the Japanese company that started a high-tech toilet revolution, has turned its attention to ultra-fancy bathtubs in an effort to expand business overseas. The keystone of their strategy is the luxury Flotation Tub aimed at deep-pocketed consumers in Europe, United States, the Middle East, and China. Like just about any Toto product, the tub has features. Oh, how it has features.

Unveiled this week at a trade fair in Frankfurt, the pristine and perfectly elliptical features an adjustable pillow that allows users to lay back, water massage capabilities, and a sort of body-supporting bottom shaped like a lounge chair.

But the tub’s chief selling point? The claim that the it can change the brain waves of its users, inducing low-frequency mental activity associated with relaxation and sleep. Inspired by flotation therapy, the tub offers an optimal balance between floating and lying down, which, according to Bloomberg, was achieved after over a hundred tests by Toto researchers.

Via Bloomberg

"We asked around our researchers, ‘When do you come up with ideas?’ and many said when they were taking baths," Haruo Tsutsui, Toto’s manager of products R&D, tells Bloomberg. "We believe relaxation stimulates the brain allowing ideas to pop up."

Via: Bloomberg