Berlin - Just about every kind of gadget imaginable has been going digital, but Oral-B has still managed to surprise us with a first: an interactive toothbrush.
Billed as an intelligent hygiene tool, the dental-care company believes it will be part of the interactive bathroom of the future.
“It provides the highest degree of user interaction to track your oral care habits to help improve your oral health,” says Wayne Randall of Procter and Gamble, owner of the Oral-B brand.
The toothbrush supports the Bluetooth 4.0 standard and can transmit data to a smartphone app, such as details about a person's cleaning rituals and the amount of time spent cleaning.
Sensors can also detect if the tooth-brusher is applying too much or too little pressure. Using this data, the toothbrush can then provide cleaning tips and optimise cleaning for an individual user. The data can also be printed out as a diagram that can be shared with one's dentist.
Oral-B plans to start selling the toothbrush in Germany in the spring and worldwide in June, it said at last month's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The toothbrush app should be available for iPhones in May and for Android phones in June. - Sapa-dpa