Brushing your teeth seems easy enough. Problem is, simple brushing doesn’t really clean your teeth as thoroughly as it needs, which makes regular visits to the dentist a requirement if you want to avoid getting cavities. The Colgate Plaqless Pro seeks to improve on this by helping you brush in a more thorough manner.
No, it won’t brush your teeth differently than any electric toothbrush currently out there. It also won’t brush it any more efficiently. Instead, the new toothbrush will inspect your your teeth as it moves around your mouth and let you know in real time whether you’re brushing a clean or dirty area, so you can do a more through brush if an area’s dirty or move on elsewhere if it’s already clean.
The Colgate Plaqless Pro is an electric toothbrush equipped with embedded sensors that can detect the presence of plaque on any area you’re currently brushing. A light ring somewhere along the handle shines in blue whenever it detects a buildup of biofilm, prompting you to keep brushing the area until it’s clear, at which point the light ring turns white. This means, you’re not just hoping you’re brushing your teeth clean – you’ll actually know for sure if you have brushed enough or need to keep going.
Not only can the toothbrush detect plaque, it can identify it per individual tooth, allowing the system to create a map of your mouth that you can then review on the companion app (it transmits data over Bluetooth). This way, you can check if you’ve missed any plaque build-up during your last brushing, giving you an option to go back with a more thorough pass or just give it extra attention later. We know, not everyone wants to be this obsessive over how clean their teeth is, but we imagine, there’s a good chunk of folks out there who will appreciate this and take advantage of it.
The Colgate Plaqless Pro can also monitor and record your brushing technique, allowing it to give feedback and tips on things you can improve on. So yeah, it’s like having a dentist watch you clean your mouth and tell you what you’re doing wrong, so you can do much better next time. We guess, that’s a good thing, since you’ll be regularly brushing your teeth anyway, so may as well do it right.
Aside from the smart features, it appears to be a regular electric toothbrush. You know, the kind that’s motorized, so you don’t need to move it back and forth over your teeth. Instead, you just move it over an area, hold it in place, and let the bristles go to work on their own, then move to a new area once you’re satisfied. The fact that it prompts you when an area is clean removes the guesswork for that situation, which should make your brushing sessions a lot more efficient than it probably is now.
No word on pricing yet for the Colgate Plaqless Pro. It is, however, scheduled to retail in 2020.