What on earth can a $330 ‘smart’ toothbrush do?

Buying a regular toothbrush is expensive enough, but now well-known oral-hygiene company Oral-B is unveiling a high-tech (and more costly) way to brush your teeth.

The toothbrush.

This week at Mobile World Congress 2014, the company will show off its electric toothbrush that uses Bluetooth 4.0 to connect to an Oral-B app, for a more connected brushing experience.

The toothbrush offers real-time brushing guidance, records brushing activity and charts a user’s activity.

Once the app is downloaded, you can program it to communicate with the brush. If you forget to bring your phone into the bathroom while you’re brushing (which is understandable since you wouldn’t want to drop it in the toilet) the handle of the toothbrush will store your data for later.

The app.

The goal is to improve brushing behaviors. According to Oral-B, pre-tests of the app have shown that when connected, brushing time increases from less than 60 seconds with a manual toothbrush to two minutes and 16 seconds with an electric toothbrush (surpassing the dental professional-recommended two-minute per session).

“It provides the highest degree of user interaction to track your oral care habits to help improve your oral health, and we believe it will have significant impact on the future of personal oral care, providing data-based solutions for oral health, and making the relationship between dental professionals and patients a more collaborative one,” said Wayne Randall, Vice President, Global Oral Care at Procter and Gamble.

The toothbrush doesn’t only offer connectivity; it’s also got features of a regular electric toothbrush. It has oscillating, rotating, and pulse technology, six different cleaning modes, pressure sensors, and it works with six different brush heads.
The Oral-B app will be available for iOS in May, for Android in August, and the toothbrush will hit the market this June with a suggested retail price of about $330, so you won’t be able to lie to your dentist much longer.

For more information visit Proctor and Gamble.