Everything in our modern lives is eventually touched by technology, thanks to the technical wizards who are hard at work innovating, reinventing and modifying the things that we use on a day to day basis. From our phones to our fridges, our TVs to our heating, everything we use is being pushed to try and make it do more and more clever, useful things.

It was only a matter of time before the consumer dentistry market was the recipient of one of these new innovations, and here at CK Dental Practice in Bristol, we were interested to hear more.

Smart tooth brushes

At the recent Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in Las Vegas, a new type of ‘smart toothbrush’ was unveiled. This new innovation promises to sync with an app to try and help you make your teeth brushing routine as efficient as possible. The logic behind this new tooth brush is that in the long run, the intelligence garnered from its use will save you lots of money in future dentistry work.

Artificial intelligence

These smart tooth brushes even promise that they use the very latest in artificial intelligence (AI), as they will supposedly study the way in which you brush your teeth, learn from this and then make suggestions about how this can be improved. The tooth brush is designed to connect to an app on your phone via Bluetooth, which captures information about your brushing habits, such as how often you brush, how long for and which areas of your mouth you give most attention to.

Interestingly, according to one toothbrush innovator Kolibree, a tech firm specialising in dental products, their new toothbrush has the capability of storing usage data while it is not connected to the app, and then syncing when the connection feature is activated.

Sounds very futuristic, doesn’t it?

Some of the big, well-known brands in toothbrush manufacture are already investigating the potential behind using AI to keep our teeth cleaner and healthier. If you like the sound of this but aren’t in a position to invest in one of these new smart toothbrushes, then there are other dentistry apps available that can help add a bit of sparkle to your normal tooth brushing routine. This is a great idea too if you’re trying to encourage children to find tooth brushing more interesting.

When it comes to dentistry innovations, it sounds like the future’s bright, the future’s pearly-white.