Bidet seats do not need a hot water line, but they do need a GFCI protected electrical outlet within 3' or so.
They have self contained water heaters, seat heaters, drying air heaters, and ozone based deodorizers. They pre-mist the bowl sides when your first sit down to help keep the bowl clean. It's a pretty magnificent device. It's 25% of the way through the 21'st century, and I may not have a flying car just yet, but at least I have a robot to care for my tushy.
Prior to installing bidet seats throughout the house, we had handheld bidets that were attached to the cold water line. It's really never immanentized a "religious experience" so far as I have noted, and while the heated one is certainly more pleasant, a cold water bidet seems to function pretty well for hundreds of millions of people around the world.
The cheap ($50 or so IIRC) bidet I have gets cold water from the toilet and hot water from the sink. No power hook-up. Has none of that other fancy stuff you mentioned.
Not exactly sure what you mean by "bidet seat" vs "handheld bidet" based on context, but mine goes under a regular seat (seat isn't replaced) with controls jutting out the side. I have also used what I'd call a handheld bidet during an extended water outage. It was a squeezy rubbery thing from Amazon, a bit like a cycling water bottle, and I'd fill it up with water from a jug or sink depending on where I was (was not "attached to the cold water line"), then it squirts out water from an angled plastic tip. I found I had to be a lot more efficient with that to get the job done on one fill, but it was certainly better than nothing.
Thinking on it more, maybe your handheld was like a pressure washer, totally separate from the toilet, and what I had in mind would be called "portable".
Have you met Americans? We are addicted to comfort. You will certainly get cleaner using a bidet but a jet a cold water spraying your rear end seems like it would be quite uncomfortable. Caveat, like most Americans I have not tried it.
It's really not that uncomfortable at all. Buy one on Amazon and try it, they're 20 bucks and take 5 minutes to install with no tools. That's less than one package of Costco toilet paper these days.
So far as I know, I've been an American for the ~50 decades I've been on this planet, and I'd say ~85% of the people I interact with on a day to day basis were born in America. I've observed that it is a common American trait to form strongly held views about things where one has no experience, and to defend those views fiercely. The Dude said it best.
They have self contained water heaters, seat heaters, drying air heaters, and ozone based deodorizers. They pre-mist the bowl sides when your first sit down to help keep the bowl clean. It's a pretty magnificent device. It's 25% of the way through the 21'st century, and I may not have a flying car just yet, but at least I have a robot to care for my tushy.
Prior to installing bidet seats throughout the house, we had handheld bidets that were attached to the cold water line. It's really never immanentized a "religious experience" so far as I have noted, and while the heated one is certainly more pleasant, a cold water bidet seems to function pretty well for hundreds of millions of people around the world.