App-enabled Beam Brush tracks habits, gamifies brushing your teeth

Possibly a fun way to get kids to brush their teeth more often, the Beam Brush utilizes your smartphone to encourage better oral hygiene.

Similar to health-related tracking devices like the Fitbit, a company called Beam Technologies has developed a toothbrush that syncs with your smartphone to track your oral health. Called the Beam Brush, the Bluetooth-enabled toothbrush is designed to increase the amount of time you spend brushing your teeth in addition to tracking overall consistency. Syncing to either an iPhone or Android phone, the Beam Brush includes a two minute timer and a quadrant indicator to help the user target specific sections of their mouth. In addition, the user can setup the application to play their favorite song in order to listen to something entertaining while brushing. 

This product may be particularly helpful for parents trying to encourage their children to brush their teeth on a consistent basis. The app allows parents to sync multiple Beam Brushes to a single smartphone, so an entire family could track their progress. In addition to a set of standard goals within the app, parents could also setup custom goals that could lead to incentives for a child.

The application also outputs reports detailing each time a person brushes their teeth in addition to the length of time for each instance. Reports can be formatted for a single day, a full week or an entire month. These reports can be supplied to your dentist through email, thus helping the dentist evaluate a patient’s oral care more accurately. Rather than telling a patient to simply increase the amount of times they brush and floss their teeth each day, dentists will be able to offer more specific advice regarding future oral hygiene. 

According to data provided by Beam Technologies, the average person brushes their teeth for 46 seconds. By increasing the figure to 120 seconds, users will be able to reduce the potential for cavities or other problems that would require a trip to the dentist. People are also 50 percent more likely to brush for a full two minutes if using a timer. 

According to Mashable, the company plans to monetize brushing goals for all Beam Brush users. This would include prizes such as discounts on specific merchandise or entertainment options like tickets to a local theater as well as video games for kids.

Hypothetically, the company could also work with dentists to provide incentives to patients that supply the Beam Brush tracking data prior to a checkup.

Beam Technologies plans to launch the Beam Brush during November 2012 for a price of $49.99, but is currently offering a preorder price of $34.99 on the company’s site. Available in blue and pink colors, the Beam Brush uses AA batteries that last approximately 90 days per charge. It also requires Android version 2.2+ or iOS 3.2+ on your Android phone or iPhone.

Replacement brush heads will be sold through the site for a price of $3.99. Beam Technologies recommends that the brush head be swapped out every three months and includes a feature within the app to track the last time the brush head was replaced. In order to raise consumer awareness about the Beam Brush, the company is also working with dentists on a resale program. If a dentist likes having access to the Beam Brush data, they could offer the brush to patients during a checkup.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com