The exact same thing happened to me! Randomly one day a new toothbrush entity appeared in HA, even though I’m still using a “dumb” electric toothbrush.
Yea I have this toothbrush too, I also noticed the weird IC on the bottom of the brush head when I first bought it, I nearly correctly surmised what it did, was a little upset at the prospect of being forced to buy a new head when Phillips decided it was time, but it turns out it doesn’t really do anything, it buzzes a few times at the end of brushing when it thinks it’s time. And the LED changes color… who cares…
The recommendation generally is to replace your tooth brush semi-annually, which this basically reminds you to do.
Me, dumb: I change my Sonicare toothbrush head whenever it tells me to. I haven’t had a cavity in 8 years.
You, a clever toothbrush-hacking genius: haha, the head is new again!
This is neat, and I find the process of reverse engineering the Sonicare toothbrush fascinating, especially sniffing the NFC communication, but please change your toothbrush head every three months.
Electrical brush was night and day for me. Until I was 19 or so, I used to have a cavity nearly every check-up. Then, I got an electrical toothbrush, and it just stopped.
Now most of the work is maintenance on all those fillings, damage had been done, unfortunately.
I had the exact same experience. I always thought that the electric toothbrush was something for lazy ppl, then only recently - spotting one of the best electric brushes heavily discounted - I bought it. I felt I never had my teeth so clean. A game changer.
Some 15+ years ago (Don't quite remember the year, probably 2005) I bought myself an electric brush.
My gf at the time mocked me for wasting money on "such an useless thing".
A few months later she went together with her sister to their annual dentist checkup. The dentist praised her sister for how clean her teeth were, while he told my gf hers were "OK". What was it that her sister was doing differently? She was using an electric toothbrush.
I'm pretty certain you can guess what was the very first thing my then gf did coming out of the dentist.
As someone with a toothbrush subscription: I now change my toothbrush every 3 months. Left to my own devices it was closer to every year.
I am assured by everyone that this is better. I don't really feel like it's something worth thinking about so I am happy it's being taken care of by not-me.
I have the same toothbrush that my dentist recommended.
I just use it as an electric toothbrush. I briefly looked up some details on the app, realized it made zero sense to install it, and now I just use it as a toothbrush.
I'm sure my dentist made a commission on that toothbrush I puchased through her, and billed my insurance for it, as well as gets some kind of kickback from Phillips to hawk their products. I guess she needs to pay for her dental school tuition loans somehow. Either way, I haven't gone back to her since.
This comment reminded me to cancel my toothbrush subscription. It made me remove the toothbrush, toothpaste, and battery separately, then click a "cancel subscription" button which led to 2-3 "are you sure" pages.
reply