App-Connected Toothbrush Tracks Your Habits, Rewards You With Free Stuff

A clean bill of health from your dentist isn't the only reward you'll get with this Bluetooth-enabled toothbrush. Keeping track of your good brushing habits through the toothbrush's app can earn you real rewards.

The Beam Brush plays two minutes of music while you brush, so you can scrub your pearly whites the recommended amount of time, while the tracking sensor will let you track your brushing habits. The rewards layer built into the app will give users real stuff for good oral hygiene: video games, movie tickets, plus deals on purses, shoes and clothes.

"We'll monetize those two minutes," Alex Frommeyer, cofounder of Beam Technologies, tells Mashable.

The Beam Brush is the first app-connected toothbrush. A sensor embedded in the upper part of the brush tracks your activity and syncs it to the company's app on your smartphone via Bluetooth. The free app is available for your Android or iPhone device. By recording this data, you can get a better picture of your overall dental hygiene habits.

The two minute music-timer idea actually works. Beam says people are 50% more likely to brush for the full time, which is much better than the average brushing time of 46 seconds.

"We know that most people don't need to spend hours and hours checking out their oral care habits, so the idea is to give them the quick hits," Frommeyer said.

The app will also show you your brushing habits, like what time of day you brushed, or if you've missed a brushing. It's displayed on daily, weekly and monthly charts which can be emailed to your dentist.

"You don't change anything about how you brush your teeth," he said. "It's going to hold you accountable, similar to what the Fitbit does for your activity."

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The Beam Brush and its good-brushing rewards are motivating for kids, too. Frommeyer said some of the product's early adopters are parents who wanted to utilize the technology to help their children build and maintain good habits and do that in a fun way.

"The connected health era is giving us this completely new opportunity to get data out of that event," he said.

Perhaps your dentist won't want you turning down the free toothbrush at your appointments? Frommeyer says for the most part, dentists and oral hygienists appreciate this technology because rather than issuing patients the standard statement "you need to brush and floss more," doctors can show Beam users where they're going wrong and how they can improve their oral hygiene.

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Frommeyer says this Bluetooth-enabled toothbrush is the next step for patients who want to take more control of their oral health. Whitening treatments and the electric toothbrush were formerly for dental professionals only, he pointed out, and now people comfortably use those products in their homes.

You can get the Beam Brush in blue or pink, with adult or kid-sized brush heads. Pre-orders of the brush cost $35, but when it launches in November the prices goes up to $50. Replacement heads cost $4. You can order the brushes once with the use of an automated system and receive the replacements every three months without having to enter your credit card information again.

Do you think this toothbrush can help people improve their oral health? Tell us in the comments.

[Andrea Smith contributed to this report]

Photo courtesy of iStockphoto, AnthonyRosenberg