Ditch your old electric toothbrush for this new breed of teeth tech

Whisper-quiet and with real-time feedback, what you need to know about the new-gen bristles
Clean sweep: the flexible Encompass mouthpiece brushes half your teeth at a time
Encompass

Put down your slowing electric toothbrush and start the stopwatch: the smartest new set of bristles on the market promises to “dentist clean” your teeth in just 20 seconds.

It’s called Encompass (£81, indiegogo.com) and has been five years in the making by a team of designers and dental experts, led by Sonicare and Clarisonic’s former director of engineering. The LA-based start-up has developed a new patented technology in a bid rethink the way we brush our teeth: no more cleaning one or two teeth at a time — Encompass cleans half your teeth in one go.

The devil is in the detail: bite down on the bristle-lined J-shaped half-mouthpiece and it’ll flex to adjust to the size and shape of your teeth, ensuring optimal bristle contact for every tooth. The motor then moves up and down 100 times a second, deep cleaning all the teeth on one side of your mouth in 10 seconds.

You’ll be done in under half a minute, less than the average 45- to 70-second brushing time achieved by most of us in the UK, according to the Academy of General Dentistry (experts recommend at least two minutes with a traditional toothbrush).

Encompass’s turbo-brush uses a patented air pump system inside the handle to hit its 100 brushes-per-minute count, and it’s whisper-quiet, gently cleaning along the teeth and gum line so silently you can hardly hear it. It’s already achieved more than eight times its funding goal on Indiegogo and the first products start shipping next year.

If you can’t wait until then, Oral-B has just released its smartest toothbrush yet, The Genius X (£340, boots.com) which uses artificial intelligence to track where you’re actually brushing (and not brushing enough). A red pressure sensor lights up to tell you when you’re brushing too hard and it automatically slows down to protect your gums.

The Oral-B Genius X toothbrush uses AI to track where you're brushing or not brushing enough (Oral-B )
Oral-B

The device also connects to an app on your phone for real-time, personalised feedback. Brush twice a day and it’ll score you out of 100 according to how long you brush for, whether you press too hard and how effective your coverage is. The app will then coach you on how to improve your habits over time.

Charging has had a high-tech overhaul, too. Oral-B’s new smart brush lasts for two weeks on a single charge and comes with a sleek travel case for powering the brush on the go. It’ll also charge your phone or another USB device at the same time, perfect if you’re travelling.

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