from Singapore
A toothbrush with superpowers, which goes beyond itself, which adds benefits and new sensations in the mouth. It gives her a light, pleasant tickle, not to make her laugh, but to give her a better smile. A toothbrush that is not just a toothbrush, but a complete hygiene system of the mouth, round in the sense of broad. That makes the use of dental floss unnecessarybecause it removes plaque while brushing through an integrated water flosser. Which leaves teeth white and bright and eliminates rinsing with mouthwash, including them in the main cleaning routine. If it’s not a revolution, it certainly is a paradigm shift in an indispensable daily ritual.
CameraJet, just unveiled by Dyson inaugurating an unprecedented product category, the name says it all: ha a video camera integrated inside itcapable of identifying the spaces between the teeth and reaching them with a powerful, precise but non-invasive jet of mouthwash, exactly when needed. He has the talent of arriving with a stubborn ruthlessness in the points where plaque tends to accumulate and harden. That plaque is a treacherous and tough enemy: it paves the way for tartar, gum irritation, cavities, that bad taste that is the prelude to bad breath. The Dyson toothbrush is the weapon to fight it. And defeat her.
The head tells you when it needs to be changed
The toothbrush head also combines morphology and technology: a double bristle design reaches the gum line, lifts stains and eliminates thempromoting the natural whiteness of the teeth. Inside it has a small chip that counts how many times it has been used, signaling the moment when it is appropriate to replace it to ensure maximum effectiveness. So we no longer have the excuse of having forgotten, of not knowing that we had to change it.
Dyson is one of those few technological companies capable of reinventing objects, making them go beyond themselves, make them a status symbol. Becoming, despite their apparent functional obviousness, something very desirable. As before, the hairdryer did so with its powerful blast, now a must in the equipment of luxury hotels; with the air purifier that brings the forest into a room and even Queen Elizabeth liked it; with the robot vacuum cleaner that sees and cleans everything, with the electric broom transformed into a design objectto be displayed proudly, flaunting one’s propensity for household chores, rather than hiding it in a wardrobe.
Oral hygiene as it should be
CameraJet is part of the same trail of substantial innovations but, let’s be clear, it doesn’t promise miracles. It does what proper oral hygiene should guarantee. The one that requires particular dedication: a minimum of two minutes of prolonged and thorough brushing (when instead we stop on average, if all goes well, at 45 seconds); the one with dental floss passed tooth by tooth to eliminate residues (raise a hand if you use it enough); the one with sips and rinses of mouthwash to best eliminate what has been removed.
More than appropriate, or rather necessary, practices: 3.7 billion people worldwide suffer from oral cavity problems (in short, the news is those who don’t suffer from it), which can be some contributing causes of heart disease or that affect the brainas confirmed by qualified studies released by the World Health Organization and the American University of Harvard. Dealing with oral hygiene is not a marginal issue for Dyson, just as removing allergens, viruses and bacteria from homes with air purifiers was not a marginal issue.
«I remember the first time I used CameraJet. I had no idea how bad my mouth was. I have to be honest, I was scared. I immediately made an appointment with a hygienist” he says, laughing Will Kerrvice president of new product development for the company. Panorama.it meets him in Singapore inside of the St James Power Station, the historic power plant of the Asian city-statefirst converted into a nightclub, now the headquarters of a multinational present in 85 countries, which however has maintained the approach of the obsession with detail of a family business. «The founder, James Dyson“, recalls Kerr, “he is very present on all the projects. We have update meetings with him more or less once a week.”
A long behind the scenes
CameraJet is the result of six years of research and development work in the laboratories of the power plant, between common spaces full of light that recall an atelier of a design studio and rooms inaccessible to visitors full of computers, machinery, blackboards on which to sketch ideas. There were over 660 engineers involved in the project38 patents have been filed, some of which have fueled rumors in recent months about the arrival of this new product category, spoiling the surprise a bit. «At Dyson we don’t improvise, we take the necessary time. We are always looking for problems to solve. We realized that, in oral hygiene, only the surface of what was possible from a technological point of view had been touched”, he comments with Panorama.it Rich Baconproduct program manager.
Hence the intuition of a video camera that looked into the mouth, like a dentist’s mirrorand understood where it was necessary to intervene. Orchestrating it is software trained with 470 thousand images of teeth: pure machine learning applied. In parallel, it was a collaboration has been started with the University of Singapore to develop a substance with the consistency of plaque, capable of imitating its behavior. And the development of the awareness that, to remove it, a straight jet like a needle, which would split it leaving its edges intact, was not needed, but of a conical flowrounder, which would eliminate it en bloc.
The toothbrush that teaches you how to use it
«When we brush our teeth, we are convinced that we are doing it well. We invited numerous people to test the product. The bottom line is that we neglect the less easily accessible partsfavoring the left side if we are left-handed, the right side if we are not”, explains Alessandra, an Italian researcher who works in the Dyson headquarters in Singapore.
CameraJet relies on several automations, but also on the intuition of cultivating our awareness while we are using it. Through the application installed on the smartphone, we can follow the brushing phases live, moving slowly from one side to the other and inwards and watching the jet reach the teeth and the space between them. An unprecedented form of voyeurism, toned down by the producer: for privacy reasons, images cannot be saved and are not stored on any server (but nothing prevents us from recording the screen and storing them in the phone’s memory as an archive, if for some reason we feel the need). Furthermore, as if it were a video game, the areas where we should insist more are shown on the displaylooking at the statistics of our progress.
It doesn’t cause any disasters and works as intended
Let’s get to the point, the practical use. We turned it on and we have first tested the intensity of the spray on a fingertip. It’s firm, but not annoying. And it’s well calibrated, meaning it doesn’t flood your mouthforcing (forgive the inelegance) to spit every 10 seconds, dramatically extending the operation time. We need to get used to it, or rather our mouth, yes, but the ritual proceeds smoothly and is intuitive. Furthermore, given its trajectory, the jet does not drip downwards and does not make a dripping mess on the sink. It is clearly not comparable to a static toothbrush with toothpaste paste on the bristles, but the operational liturgy is much more complex.
For the more nerdy souls, CameraJet also presents several gems that emphasize Dyson’s imprint on the engineering approach. It has an anti-gravity tankobtained by combining a diaphragm pump and a pressure chamber. It doesn’t mean he’s ready to keep astronauts company in space, but allows you to use the toothbrush by tilting it and almost tipping it overwithout fear that the jet will lose strength or effectiveness. Furthermore, the capacity of the tank itself, equal to 12.5 ml, was desired for dispense the necessary amount of mouthwash for complete cleaningwithout spilling everything or running out of liquid. But also without waste.
Fail and get back up, like a start-up
In Singapore the approach was to proceed by trial and error: «In the first prototypes», recalls Bacon, «the chamber had been placed right in the middle of the brush. It seemed like the most obvious place to put it. But the first thing people did was put toothpaste on it, which ended up covering it. So we decided to move it further down.”
Speaking of toothpastes, Dyson also invented an ad hoc one to use with the productwhich has the merit of producing little foam and therefore do not interfere with the electronic eye that must scan the mouth. Its twin is a mouthwash designed to maximize the cleaning effectiveness of the jet. You can use your own favorites, but Dyson can only recommend theirs. We tried them after a lunch break full of treacherous food: noodles and finely cut vegetables, which seem made specifically to fit into the space between your teeth. Well, they are mouth-watering a sensation of prolonged freshness and higher than what we are used to.
Is it worth what it costs?
There is a standard base that recharges the toothbrush and fills its tank in the meantime. In appearance it reminds a bit of a coffee machine, with mouthwash instead of capsules. Obviously, to take it on a trip, or if there is not enough space on the bathroom cabinet, you connect it to a traditional cable.
The product is already available in two colours: Ceramic Ultra Blue and Ceramic Pinknames that highlight a desire for value, for preciousness. In the package, in addition to the toothbrush, there is the charging system, the travel case, the toothpaste and the mouthwash for the first uses. It has a premium price: it costs 479 euros. Yes, almost 500 euros for an electric toothbrush, the thought is inevitable. But it’s not the usual toothbrush: you can read it as an investment in your smile and your health and to go to the dentist less. Or, at least, to avoid being scolded for our haste and carelessness when brushing our teeth. Who knows, maybe next time the dentist will compliment us.
