There are some quite clever electric toothbrushes on the market and some claim to be 'smart' too. Whilst a lot of electric toothbrushes are called 'smart', few of them are 'connected' in any real sense. Some do come with Bluetooth capability though and can connect to a Smartphone and an associated app. We could list a number of products here but, the list would quickly be out of date, as manufacturers update their model line up and bring out new, smarter products.
We are big fans of electric toothbrushes in general, as they do a lot of the work for you and make it easier to clean your teeth thoroughly. The main area where they differentiate over normal toothbrushes are:
Our main area of interest and research though, is in how an electric toothbrush can be integrated into the wider smart home. With this in mind we have connected a toothbrush to our smart home, so that its presence on a charger can be detected and it essentially becomes a sensor that provides occupancy information to our contextual smart home.
Another area of research we have been looking at is in detecting when a toothbrush is used and how to charge them more efficiently. Many on the market come with an inductive mains charging dock that is normally left plugged in and on all the time. This is a classic example of a phantom load.
This example tweet from our @smartest_home shows how it can track the toothbrush being placed on the smart charger. This will then start the intelligent charging process.
This example tweet from our @smartest_home shows how it can track the toothbrush being removed from the smart charger. This will then ensure the charger is not switched on.
