When Oral-B unveiled the SmartSeries Bluetooth, I rolled my eyes at the prospect of yet another industry awkwardly making a go at the “smart” space. I launched into a cranky old man rant about why everything has to be web-connected these days — particularly when it means having to pay $160 for a toothbrush.

And then I tried the thing. Like the thermostat and the smoke detector before it, a smart toothbrush seems like some piece of early 21st century digital excess — until, of course, you incorporate it into your routine.

It’s an appreciation that comes even more swiftly in the case of the SmartSeries Bluetooth. Unlike those other examples, the toothbrush is — if you concern yourself with things like hygiene and oral health — something you interact with multiple times a day, each and every. It is, quite literally in your face.

But is the Oral-B SmartSeries Toothbrush worth $160? That is, after all, a huge premium over its analog counterparts. I made a trip down to Walgreen’s for some reconnaissance. Turns out you can buy three for $5. The takeaway: Oral-B’s smart version is a whole lot to pay for smarts.

Setting Up

Getting started is simple enough, and the device works with both Android and iOS, but it’s only compatible with Bluetooth Smart Ready (AKA Bluetooth 4.0 or LE) devices. It’s still a fully functioning electronic toothbrush, even if there’s no compatible smartphone nearby.

When I finally got everything set up, the brush backloaded my past brushing (I tried it a few times before ever syncing the app). I hadn’t realized it initially, but the brush actually has onboard storage, letting you save up to 20 sessions before offloading them to a phone — a definite perk for those who brush their teeth in pubic restrooms and might feel weird about glancing at a mobile device at the same time.

For a product that’s only intended to be used less than five minutes a day, the Smartseries Bluetooth sure spent a lot of time on its charging dock. It goes through a charge pretty quickly and takes a considerable amount of time to fill back up.

With all of the proper gear in place, the syncing process is simple. There’s no need to fumble with the phone’s settings — just press the arrow button (which also serves to adjust speeds) with the app fired up. The wave icons will fittingly, light up blue.

Hardware

It’s been a while since I’ve used an electric toothbrush — not that I’ve had any particularly unenjoyable experiences in the past, but look at all the breakthroughs the dental industry has made in the world of manual toothbrushes. They’ve got little brightly colored pieces of rubber on them now, like tiny hygienic tennis shoes.

I only mention that to say I’ve forgotten how intense the things can be, but the brush is pretty unassuming so far as electric toothbrushes are concerned. Bluetooth markings aside, you’d be hard pressed to pick it out of a lineup with its brethren.

The brush head in particular is quite small — as is the case with most of Oral-B’s electronic line. It’s round and roughly half the size of a standard toothbrush head. That makes it all the more jarring when you first fire it up. The brush defaults to its most powerful setting, and I wondered for a wide-eyed for a moment if someone had sent me a miniature sandblaster.

It all comes back to you pretty quickly: the intensity, the gum-tickling vibrations. It’s all a reminder of the sub-standard job you’ve been doing to remove plaque with an old timey brush and your human arm. Also, don’t open your mouth with the brush going — you’ll become a slobbering, foamy mess all over that shiny smartphone.

I can’t claim to be an electronic toothbrush expert, but even after the first two-minute session, I can genuinely say that my teeth haven’t felt this clean for a while. A few days in and I don’t think my enamel’s been this spotless since its last cleaning.

It helps, of course, that this isn’t just some Kickstarted hardware startup here. Oral-B knows a thing or two about making toothbrushes — electric and otherwise — and the edges of my gums thank them for it.

App

The simply named Oral-B App isn’t a new one. Prior to the release of the SmartSeries Bluetooth, the app’s main functionality was timing, counting up to two minutes while highlighting the portion of your mouth you should be working on at a given time.

That basic functionality is still there, and as silly as it sounds, it’s one of the biggest benefits the brush has brought to my life thus far: the twice-daily reminder to go a full two minutes. You’d be surprised how long two minutes is until you sit down with a timer.

Once the app is paired with the device, hitting the start button on the brush will set the timer, which can be set to count down or up, depending on your preference. I like the countdown, personally. It’s how James Bond must feel when he brushes his teeth.

Like the older version, the upgrade prompts you to move to different quadrants of your mouth after 30 seconds. The brush isn’t smart enough to know which one you’re hitting, but it will notify you when you’re brushing too hard with a flashing red warning (the color, incidentally, is reminiscent of bleeding gums) on both the app and the brush itself. I pressed a bit harder than usual to trigger the warning — it turns out you’ve got to really put your wrist into it.

Image: Mashable, Brian Heater

Once it’s triggered, it’s hard to get back to normal. The added pressure will show up on your report once you’ve finished brushing. It’s an important warning: brush too hard — particularly with something as powerful as the SmartSeries — and you risk wearing down enamel and speeding up gum recession.

Et tu, toothbrush?

The app also notes positives like when you’ve got a good brush pacing. It’s not all blood and gums here. It does a good job keeping you occupied too because there’s most likely a lot of overlap on the venn diagram of early smart toothbrush adopters and people with short attention spans. During the two minutes, the app serves up news headlines and videos to watch.

There are several oral hygiene tips sprinkled in amongst the world affairs. If you’re so inclined, you can enable weather forecasts, too.

When the default two minutes is achieved, the app will notify you, along with a green flashing light on the brush itself. Go longer than that, and it will enter a “deep cleaning mode,” for some anti-tartar extra credit.

Once the brushing is done, the app asks if you’ve flossed, brushed your tongue (we’re supposed to do that?!) and used mouthwash; you can customize the number of times you get hassled about these activities. Until Oral-B figures out how to cram a Bluetooth module into a strand of floss, all of that information is on the honor system.

Then the app serves up a big smiley face, along with a summery of your session, including duration, whether you applied too much pressure and how you did with time. Brush twice for two minutes a day and you’re considered a success. It’s sort of like the world’s least demanding Fitbit.

And like many fitness bands, the app offers up trophies to unlock. The list includes things like Power User and Early Riser. If that sort of gamification can get you to the gym each day, sure it can push you into four minutes of brushing.

You can examine your daily, monthly and weekly stats from there as well, and if you flip the phone into landscape mode, everything is laid out on a handy graph. Once collected, all of this data can be sent along to your dentist, so they know you didn’t just attempt to make up for six months of neglect with a particularly vigorous session the morning of your appointment.

You can even find a dental professional through the app. It’ll help you find one in your area if you enable location detection.

Wrap up

So, $160. There’s no question that is a lot to ask for a toothbrush, and if you’ve managed to keep the teeth in your head this long, odds are you’ll do just fine to wait until there are enough similar products on the market to bring the price down considerably.

There’s little question, however, that you’re getting what you pay for here — namely a powerful and thorough electric toothbrush with some really compelling “smart functionality.” As the world of fitness bands have compelled us to get off our couches, the SmartSeries Bluetooth will almost certainly go a ways toward making its users more frequent and thorough brushers.

And heck, if you factor in the cost of future dental work, $160 isn’t so bad after all.

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