We really are living in the future now! In the past few years toothbrush makers and even candy companies have been trying to find ways to use technology to help us brush our teeth better. In 2012, Oral-B came out with an electronic toothbrush with a separate handheld screen to help you control your brushing pressure. Last year, Hi-Chew candy maker Morinaga announced development of a video game to help kids learn how to brush better. Now, Sunstar, the maker of GUM mouth care products, has revealed the prototype of a new toothbrush attachment that can be linked to an application on your smartphone. The goal is not only better brushing, but making the process more entertaining.
▼ The toothbrushes of the future look a lot like normal toothbrushes.
The GUM Smart Toothbrush is actually just a small attachment that can be connected to any normal GUM toothbrush (how convenient!). It has an acceleration sensor as well as a sensor to pick out the places in your mouth that you aren’t brushing well enough. The attachment then uses Bluetooth to send the information in real time to an application on your smartphone called “GUM Play.”
The application then analyzes and records the movement and timing of your brushing and displays it on an easy to understand diagram and graph called the “Mouth Log”. It seems that you also have access to the data from previous brushings so you can watch your progress toward a cleaner mouth.
▼ Uh-oh, this guy’s gotta try the bottom-left side again!
GUM wants you to brush better, but they also want you to enjoy the process. Aside from the “Mouth Log,” the application will offer a music player, it will read the news to you and there is even a game called “Mouth Monster,” where you can fight the bacteria in your mouth by brushing better.
▼ This is what the inside of your mouth looks like.
▼ Mouth bacteria are pretty cute, do you really want to kill them?
Since this is only the prototype, when the Smart Toothbrush is eventually released some time in 2015, it could potentially have even more features or just modified ones. How whacky would it be if the application came with a social network connection, so you could Tweet about your brushing habits, or follow people based on their oral hygiene scores? Oh, the crazy things the future may hold! In the very least, we can be more confident that all of the sugar we are eating is less likely to lead to cavities! Now, where are those sweets?
Source: NetLab
Images: Sunstar New Release
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