News

• Reviewed on: My teeth.
• Also available for: Your teeth.
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• The Good: An electric toothbrush that's stuffed with microprocessors that tell you how long to brush or polish your teeth with its redesigned brushheads.
• The Bad: The price.
• The Verdict: It takes a while to rid yourself of the feeling that the device nags you to brush properly, but if you time yourself correctly, you will after all be doing what your dentist says is necessary.
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REVIEW:

One of the few things we took with us when we climbed down from the trees to begin our Darwinian journey of life on two legs was a twig, which we chewed and used to clean our teeth.

Aside from toothpicks, the next real advancement in dental gadgetry came in 1780, which saw the appearance of the first toothbrush, with bristles wired into holes bored into a bone handle. And then there was little more substantial change, until the electric toothbrush, which mimics the motion your wrist makes.

Now we have the third generation of the toothbrush — the maker of the Oral-B series of brushes has figured out how to stuff a microchip into it, turning the humble tool for hygiene into a high-tech device. Okay, let's call it the 3G toothbrush.

The Oral-B Triumph Professional Care 9000, due to be released next month, makes everything that came before it look like proof of concept. Aside from arousing memories of a really neat British sports car of the 1960s, it tempts me to make fun of it — perhaps because Oral-B says it contains "Smart Technology," a turn of phrase I'm certain was designed to make me feel inadequate.

I mean, why on earth do we need a central processing unit to get dinner off our teeth? Is it another example of putting microchips into things that don't need them just because it can be done? Or because it's a way of getting people to shell out $179.99 (Cdn. list) for an over-designed toothbrush when we can get the analogue version for free from the dentist?

Well, I took it out for a spin, so to speak, and it killed my impulse to laugh. High-tech brushing works.

First, I had to get around its design. It sits vertically in its charger, like most electric brushes, which Oral-B calls a "base station." And the combination of sleek design and intelligence makes me wonder whether the thing will get a notion into its little brush head to take a joy ride around the bathroom when I'm not paying attention.

As for its fuel consumption — I mean its power — it can hold a charge for up to two weeks, meaning you can take it on extended trips. And for those who can get to a power outlet, its base station opens to release its small charger, which is more portable than the ones designed to sit in your bathroom. (The plug, which is also "smart," adapts automatically to different voltages, so one can take it to countries running on different power grids.) It even comes with a bullet-shaped blue plastic travel case.

An image of a little battery appears on an LCD screen in the handle, with a thermometer-like indicator showing the remaining power level.

It comes with two heads for each user, one for cleaning and one for polishing. The cleaning head has something called "MicroPulse" bristles, which are the racing models of the brushing world: 40,000 in-and-out pulsations per minute and 8,800 side-to-side oscillations. The polishing head has that little rotating rubber cup thing that dentists use to polish teeth, surrounded by bristles.

The Triumph can tell the difference between the two. That's because the brush head has another microchip in it, which chatters with the handle's on-board computer, providing feedback in 13 languages on the LCD. The on-board computer recognizes each user's brush head by its unique chip, so it can track usage and prompt the user when it's time to change brush heads.

When you've polished enough, an image of a tooth appears on the LCD screen, with an asterisk of light glinting off a corner. And when one has brushed enough with the cleaning head, the LCD screen displays (heaven help us) a smiley face. A little cloying for adults, perhaps, but it should get kids into gear to brush properly.

The brush head also notifies the user every 30 seconds to shift gears and brush another mouth quadrant. It also notifies you when the recommended two minutes lap time has elapsed — very sportsmanlike for the wired (as in orthodontia) prepubescent user.

At least it doesn't make any rude sounds when you don't complete your two-minute duty. All you get is your lap time in the LCD readout.

Beta electric brushes had two speeds — fast and slow — but the Triumph has four on the floor. (Sorry.) Aside from fast and slow, it has a setting that cycles varying speeds and a fourth that sounds like a revving engine.

Of course, Oral-B doesn't refer to the actions this way. It calls them clean mode, massage mode (to stimulate the gums), soft mode (for sensitive teeth) and polishing mode.

I'm not sure about these actions or the design of the actual bristles, how they spin or even how the whole head races around. But surely these actions can be imitated using proper wrist action and a much cheaper brush.

Apparently not. After taking the Triumph for an extended test drive (this metaphor is irresistible), I can see the difference. The teeth feel cleaner, and there's much less need for flossing, as Oral-B claims. I now clean until I see that silly grin in the brush's rear window. And what more is there to oral hygiene?

My urge to laughter had been misplaced. A watch and accurate wrist movement could arguably work as well, but it's obvious that all my earlier efforts without digital prompting have been less rigorous than I'd intended. And so it takes high tech to bring me back to proper hygiene. My dentist will be pleased.

That is, after all, what high tech is supposed to do: Make your life better.