Oral B, Signal, Philips… All these brands have been selling electric toothbrushes for years. But in 2019, more and more of them are offering “connected” toothbrushes, understand with Bluetooth functionalities. Oral B was the first brand to market with the Smart 4 4000N, a toothbrush that combines electric power by adding an intuitive side since it can be connected to a smartphone. As a reminder, an electric toothbrush has an oscillating head which allows you to clean more thoroughly. Some have several modes, allowing for example to stop the rotation when you press too much on the teeth (so as not to damage the enamel) or to adapt the brushing for people with sensitive teeth. The Bluetooth functionality also allows you to know the time and the brushing zones (and to be able to perform averages). Just install the dedicated application on our phone, connect the toothbrush and presto, we then have access to the "archives" of our brushings (6 months in general, which can be practical to show the dentist).
Concretely, connected toothbrushes only provide monitoring, which can indeed be useful for people with teething problems, but which is not necessarily necessary for a person with healthy teeth. One wonders if adding a connected functionality to an electric toothbrush is really useful since it must ensure that the teeth are brushed well, while electric toothbrushes are already supposed to do the job themselves (the little head "takes" the tine entirely and rotates around it to remove dirt at 180°). This feature should however delight people keen on new technologies and is not surprising, in an era where all objects are connected (or almost).
But to be able to afford a connected electric toothbrush, you still have to invest an average of 100 €. So, useful or gadget? We let you judge…
