Brondell Swash Thinline T44 bidet review: king of the throne

It is our lot in life to poop. We eat stuff, digest it, and then the waste must be expelled. That’s just the way it is, which means we are destined to spend a not-insignificant portion of our time sitting on the porcelain throne. So why not make that as pleasant an experience as possible? And if your toilet seat can make the experience better, cleaner, and more comfortable, then does it not deserve its own throne?

Behold the Brondell Swash Thinline T44, the best bidet seat I’ve ever sat on. And for $700, it had better be.

The Thinline T44 is a bidet toilet seat. These sorts of things have been around since 1980, when the Toto Washlet debuted in Japan, and they’re a lot more convenient than the old standalone bidets they’ve more or less replaced. At its most basic, the bidet toilet seat fits on your toilet bowl, connects to the water supply line, and washes your butt. They can be as cheap and simple as something that blasts you with cold water when you open a valve. The Thinline T44, from San Francisco-based company Brondell, is on the other end of the spectrum.

I am not a bidet rookie here. I reviewed one (actually from Brondell) 13 years ago, and I’ve been a convert ever since. I also just spent three weeks traveling around Japan, where nearly every toilet (including those on high-speed trains) has a bidet seat attached. Nearly all of them are made by Toto, and they range from the most basic water sprayers to full toilets with integrated bidets.

The T44 has a heated seat, instantly heated water (temperature adjustable) to clean your backside, a separate jet to clean your front side (a feature not generally recommended by medical professionals), and a hot air dryer, so you need very little toilet paper. The jets can also be repositioned or set to oscillate, and you can adjust the level of water pressure, too. It features a nightlight (three different colors), a deodorizing air filter, and self-cleaning jets. All of this is managed via a sleek remote control, with a cradle you can stick to the wall within easy arm’s reach.

None of those features may sound novel if you’re familiar with bidet toilet seats. The difference is that they work better than any I’ve tried in the past, including units from Bio Bidet, Kohler, Tushy, Brondell, and, of course, Toto.

The T44 has a wide range of pressure settings, from very gentle to stronger than most of us would (or should) choose. The cleaning is very thorough. The seat heats quickly and more evenly, with fewer hotspots compared to older units I’ve tried from Brondell and others. The water temperature stays more consistent than other models I’ve used, too, which occasionally hit you with a chilly stream. The hot air dryer’s fan is stronger and does a better, targeted job of drying your bum (though it’s still a far cry from a Dyson Airblade hand-dryer, and the hairy-butted among us will probably need two or three dry sessions and still require a bit of TP). When I was traveling through Japan, I was surprised to find that the vast majority of bidet seats don’t have air dryers at all, which I think is an essential feature. They were only included on some extremely high-end units, and even on those, the dryers lacked horsepower.

The thing that really stands out about the T44, though, is how little it stands out. While it still looks like a cyber-toilet from outer space, it’s much thinner than your typical bidet toilet seat at just 3.9 inches high. That’s a lot taller than your standard toilet seat, but much lower-profile than most bidet seats. For example, Toto’s best-selling Washlet C5 is nearly 6 inches tall at the back. This makes the T44 look more like a modern, luxurious toilet seat than a piece of medical equipment. It’s also more comfortable to sit on.

Installing the Swash Thinline T44 is easier than you would expect. Simply remove your old seat and close the water supply valve. Flush the toilet to empty the tank and then disconnect the water supply line. Install the included hose with the T-connector between the valve and the tank. Mount the seat on the toilet, connect the hose to the bidet, turn the water back on, check for drips, plug in the power, and you’re good to go. Actually, that is one thing to consider: not all bathrooms have power outlets, mine included. My toilet and shower are separated from the sink and vanity, where the outlets are. I had to get a very thin extension cord and use some guides to keep it tightly pressed to the doorjamb, otherwise my door wouldn’t close. Even with that, I consider the installation simple and worth it.

There is room for improvement. While I love that it has two user-preset buttons, setting those modes requires you to use a secret series of button presses you can only find in the manual. Very unintuitive. You need an even more elaborate series of button presses to change the default drying duration. This is where a Bluetooth radio and a simple phone app would be handy, if only for adjusting settings.

There are also a couple weird little bugs and quirks. For example, if you select your user profile, it will wash you with all of your desired settings. But if you want a little more washin’, and you hit that button combination again, something gets lost and it will forget to include oscillation or something. I also had some issues while using the T44 with my feet on a Squatty Potty type thing (yes, I know, how many toilet accessories can one man have? Leave me alone!) Something about the angle of my legs or weight distribution would sometimes trip up the occupancy sensor, so I couldn’t get it to wash me until I stood up for a minute or so to allow it to reset. I went back and forth with Brondell’s excellent technical support team, but we never got to the bottom of it. The support team couldn’t replicate it in their testing, so it might just be my weird body or something. The issue became very rare when I moved the mounting bracket forward so the seat was a bit more flush with the bowl’s rim, but it’s something to consider.

I hope Brondell steals some of the bidet seat features I tried in Japan for the next generation. For instance, a lid that automatically opens when you step into the bathroom. Being able to raise or lower the seat with a push of a button on the remote control. Some were even connected to the flush mechanism; the toilet would flush, and the lid would close when you push a button on the remote. Are these mandatory features? No, but they’re nice to have.

These minor gripes aside, I absolutely love this thing. It’s so much more comfortable to use than toilet paper, and you feel much, much cleaner. Not to mention that it’s mostly a hands-free experience, so once you push the button on the remote, you are free to continue doom-scrolling on your phone. While that’s true of most bidet seats, the extra powerful jets make this one work a lot better than any other unit I’ve tested, and it’s easily the best-looking and most comfortable to sit on. Sure, I wish they could turbo-charge the air dryer to reduce my toilet paper usage even more, but, ultimately, the Swash Thinline T44 is the best your butt can get.