Wow, what's with all of the hate? Someone uses a new technology to create a device that could be a more efficient way of solving a current problem, and the best comments that anyone can write are complaints about how it's a bad idea or solving the wrong problem because they personally don't have this problem? What an awful way to encourage inventive people to follow their dreams and build new products for everyone. These attitudes kill entrepreneurship.
> What about clinical studies?
> Clinical studies will be published soon, showing the same
> dramatic improvements in plaque-removal and overall oral
> hygiene that our inhouse testing and usage by
> our first customers have already been showing.
That's not quite how science works.
But it's nice to see engineering geeks getting into the medical quackery business.
Also:
> It lasts 1 year - you receive a refurbished one (professionally cleaned and all bristles brandnew) for 89.
So it's even more expensive to maintain than an electric toothbrush, which can also be shared among multiple users with different bristle heads.
Bob brushes more carefully with NEW STYLE BRUSH than he does with OLD STYLE BRUSH, thus leading people to think that the new brush is better. When actually, it isn't, because it misses the gum line and doesn't help prevent gum disease. Thus, the population using the new brush has more fillings, extractions, deaths from surgery, and deaths from heart disease associated with gum disease.
I've been plagued with bad teeth all my life. No one ever taught me to know your teeth are clean, you just gotta figure it out. Who cares what toothbrush gets you there as long as it makes your life easier? It's not like it's a chemical.
I'm very excited about this. The 6 second thing would be a Godsend for my 5 year old, who I spend 90 seconds every night brushing his teeth for him, trying to stave off more tooth decay on his teeth (bad teeth run in my family). I feel guilty about only doing 90 seconds, and he hates that we even do that long. This would be huge for our evening routine, and maybe for his long term tooth health (baby tooth health can effect adult tooth health)
I'm disappointed at the $500/person price tag. ($300 plus dental impressions), but I'm still really thinking about this for him and for me.
I'm curious how long a kid could use one of these before needing to go get a new impression/print. Any dentists out there have a good estimate?
I imagine it would only last them like 6 months at best. I can't see putting a kid through dental impressions that often even if the price tag dropped.
for my 4 year old son, I brush his bottom teeth and count to 100, then brush his top teeth and count down to zero. maybe it's because i started this routine when he was 2, but he sits through it A-OK.
no cavities yet, and i hope it helps him with numbers too.
One of the parents at my school took a bullet for the rest of the team and let her son not brush his teeth. They became black, holey and disgusting, and I imagine quite painful. Everyone in school knew that that's what happened if you didn't brush your teeth. Worked on me and my brothers, and I remember the kids in my class boasting about how long they brushed their teeth for.
Totally. That price seems to be based on a weird kind of "medical products should/can be expensive"-thinking. Also consider they priced the product at an equal amount of dollars or euros. Makes me think it's priced more towards what people might be willing to pay (and betting quite high) than as a function of its cost.
You are correct. medical products should be expensive. If they're not they won't sell. The thought is something like this: "High price equals high quality". Family of mine found out when they engineered a machine to transform biohazard medical waste to standard 'grey' waste. Standard waste is 100 times less expensive to dispose care of, but they're having a really hard time selling the machine. (They own the patents and everything).
That's the exact reason why a bunch of Apple stuff is more expensive that it should be and/or not free. People tend to perceive free stuff as cheap/bad and expensive stuff as high quality/good.
Being in the FOSS world, I can only shake my head at that...
When people have difficulty to compare products they will use the price of the product and comparable products as a guide. If people start hassling you about prices of your goods/services, it means you have not done a good job differentiating your products. E.g. your message sucks (or perhaps your product suck).
> What an awful way to encourage inventive people to follow their dreams and build new products for everyone. These attitudes kill entrepreneurship.
How to provide useful feedback is a very serious problem. On the one hand, I agree that we are usually biased toward negative criticism, on the other hand overly positive feedback is exactly 0% useful.
If people on HN have this kind of reaction, it's very likely that other people out there will also have this kind of reaction so as an entrepreneur, you really want to know real people's reaction so you can improve your pitch.
So let's make sure that we provide constructive and encouraging feedback but let's also not refrain emotional reactions just because we want to encourage inventive people to follow their dreams and build new products for everyone. Otherwise, it's not feedback anymore.
It looks impossible to change the angle of the brush, meaning only the major face of each tooth gets touched by the bristles. This seems more to do with 3D printing, than dentistry.
What is interesting is the change from mass produced to 'mass customization' where things are made with efficiencies of scale, yet each one can be unique (within limits).
While it obviously appears to shorten the brushing time, it also looks like it would be much harder to keep the device itself clean - everyone who has had a retainer or other removable dental device could likely attest to this. I'd imagine it would also require more toothpaste.
Seeing as toothbrushes in bulk are about less than $1 each, a $300 ($150 refurbished, but ewwwwww...), hard to clean device seems somewhat difficult to argue for.
Lets put aside the cleaning argument and discuss cost for a minute here.
Its recommended you brush your teeth for ~2 minutes. Lets say with this thing you shorten it to 30 seconds. That means you save 3 minutes per day every day on brushing, assuming you brush twice daily. This works out to about 18 hours a year. If your time is more valuable than 17/hr it's arguably worth it.
Time and time again I see people complain about the cost of daily use items but when you factor in how much you actually use them and the potential benefit you can get out of a them it quickly becomes worthwhile.
edit: there is a huge difference between being maximizing productivity and measuring opportunity cost, I'm arguing the latter. I don't expect you to get paid another 18 hours a year. I'm simply pointing out that depending on how YOU value YOUR time spending $300 on a fancy toothbrush is entirely worth it.
So, it takes me approximately one minute to walk to the bathroom per day. I probably average four trips, so that's four minutes.
But if I just peed in a jug at my desk, I could save four minutes per day, or about one whole day every year!
--
For most people, saving three minutes a day is negligible. I know I'd get far more utility turning on noprocrast then I would trying to optimize for those three minutes.
You are assuming that you'd use those extra 3 minutes a day doing something that's worth >$17/hr. In most cases, it probably just means hitting the sack 3 minutes early. I've always found these types of arguments perplexing because while 18 hours at one time can be used to great effect, 1.5 minutes at a time cannot. I waste that much time just flipping through the HN headlines, which I would not pay $17/hr to do.
Do you value your sleep so lightly? An extra 3 minutes is an extra 3 minutes. Imagine getting that extra 3 minutes of snooze - I'd say that's highly valuable time for lots of folks.
I sometimes unintentionally skip brushing because I have to participate in the bedtime procedure for our 3 kids which can get a bit involved. I'd love to make brushing as fast as flossing - I'd do it more often.
You know, I see that argument all the time - 3 minutes here, 1 minute there. But I just wasted 5 minutes of my life where I zoned out staring at the ceiling. Sometimes you can justify 'wasting' 18 hours per year.
Also, it's not like you stop thinking in those 3 minutes per day, you can still use that time for something constructive, even if that something isn't using your hands.
Only if you'd be able to use those 3 minutes productively. You can't sit down at a computer and work for just a minute and a half, you'd have to be able to get to work a minute and a half sooner to capitalize on this. If you have a salaried job then this makes no difference.
The time it takes for an activity accounts for part of the "cost" of the activity. The lower the cost, the higher the chances of people carrying it out. It's not just about how much time it saves, it may make some people who are on the fence do more regarding oral hygiene.
That's a bit of a simplification. When I brush my teeth, I am often doing something else as well. So it doesn't end up costing me 4 minutes of my free time every day.
I value a contiguous 18 hours far more than I value 60 second chunks that total 18 hours over a year. They aren't worth the same because they cannot offer the same value.
If you're going to take that approach you also need to factor in the time to disinfect the thing and the extra minutes you spend huddled over the toilet if it triggers your gag reflex (which it might well do, since it covers your tongue).
There's nothing wrong with a refurbished device like this, provided it's been cleaned. I don't understand why people always have problems with things like this.
Or do you have a problem with the cleaning tools the dental hygienist uses? Those were in someone else's mouth the previous day, after all.
I agree with your other points, although if the device cleans your teeth better, that may be worth it to some people.
The refurbished point confused me. Does that mean they refurbish your own old one? If so, I would think that would alleviate most people's cootie fears. And if it's someone else's, how does that work? I thought they had to be custom created for each person's mouth.
Just because the bags are sealed doesn't mean the tools have never been used. They are cleaned, sealed in bags, and put in an autoclave to be sterilized.
Many of the tools are actually reused again and again. However, between uses they are sterilized using an autoclave and then immediately put into sealed bags to maintain sterility.
Yep. The bags usually have an indicator to show that they've been properly autoclaved (e.g. have reached the required temperature and pressure for enough time).
I use a "dental device" on those nights that I remember to place it in my mouth, and typically I just give it a soak in some water with one of those denture cleaning tablets thrown in. Couldn't be much easier to clean.
My assumption is that cleaning this device would be the same.
Specifically to retainer cleaning, there is a huge difference between something that's in your mouth for 6 seconds daily and something that's in there for 16 hours. Retainers need constant cleaning to not smell like death. Your toothbrush does not, though it's in your mouth for longer than this one would be (seriously, go smell it. it's probably fine.).
This is the wrong problem to try and solve. Toothbrushes are a solved problem.
If you want to disrupt at-home dentistry, solve flossing instead. That one's still a pain in the ass that comes back to bite (heh) a huge amount of people down their roads.
Floss picks. They mostly solved my flossing reluctance. That and my dentist threatening a more invasive cleaning process if my gum health didn't improve.
They seem like a waste (mine are recyclable) but I found for myself and kids they are 100 times easier than traditional floss.
/I do not own stock or a website selling floss picks
Pro-tip: if you use a floss pick, rinse it in water and dip it in mouthwash every time you move between teeth.
Using the same small piece of floss for all your teeth actually spreads bacteria, etc. throughout your mouth, causing all the things you're trying to avoid by flossing in the first place.
Dentists & hygienists never floss two sets of teeth with the same piece of floss. (And yes, they go through a crap-ton of floss.)
Hmm, is this actually an issue worth worrying about? Your mouth is already awash like one big swamp. It doesn't strike me that you could "contaminate" an area any worse than your tongue could.
The purpose of flossing is to dislodge food particles and plaque buildup in difficult to reach places. These are the energy sources for plaque/cavity causing bacteria. No energy source = no bad bacteria = no problem.
My evidence is anecdotal: I used floss picks for months, went to the dentist, and he accused me of not flossing.
My sister is a hygienist, and she told me that's her experience with patients as well, and that you need clean floss to avoid spreading bacteria into the places you're trying to clean.
Optimal form may also be hard to achieve with floss picks - you want to form a 'c' shape with the floss partially wrapping around your tooth. That's impossible to do with a short, taught piece of floss.
Using the same small piece of floss for all your teeth actually spreads bacteria, etc. throughout your mouth, causing all the things you're trying to avoid by flossing in the first place.
Citation needed; I've heard this one before, and I just don't buy it. I've always believed (perhaps wrongly) that flossing was meant to remove food debris the bacteria lives off of that a toothbrush can't get to.
Dentists & hygienists never floss two sets of teeth with the same piece of floss. (And yes, they go through a crap-ton of floss.)
Maybe my hygienist is doing it wrong, but she uses very little floss and uses the same piece for multiple tooth gaps.
a dentist friend of mine gave me a floss card once (looks like a credit card only has floss in it). still have it and i don't know what i'm going to do when it runs out, it has literally been a life saver for me. if there is one thing i hate in life is having something caught between your teeth all day.
Interdental brushes works well for me. Pretty much like a toothpick but a brush, and deforms more. Small enough to pretty much always have one with me - my gums get easily inflamed so it's a relief to be able to use them anytime.
You know, most of the times the problem is really solved, and the inventor just loses the time and money he could invest on some unsolved problem.
Yeah, some times an extraordinary invention just changes the scope of the problem, or solves it so much better that "good enough" stops being enough. But if you have one of those solutions, you probably know it, and should also know that the problem is solved - how can you revolutionize a mature market without knowing it's mature? (That'll probably be the case here if that brush really works.)
Probably; all I know is that my dentist always tells me I should brush after all meals. However that is probably assuming the standard "3 meals a day" instead of the modern American "continuous meal throughout the day, with occasional breaks for breathing".
Modern advice is to brush before eating. You clean the teeth so stuff doesn't stick to them. Brushing after eating brushes when your teeth are being attacked by acid.
> Brush your teeth for at least two minutes in the morning before breakfast and last thing at night before you go to bed.
> Never brush your teeth straight after a meal as it can damage your teeth, especially if you've had fruit, fizzy drinks, wine or any other food that contains acid.
> This is because tooth enamel is softened by the acid and can be worn away by brushing. Instead, wait an hour after a meal before brushing your teeth to give your saliva chance to neutralise the acid.
Obviously, I'm not a dentist and nothing I say is meant to replace anything an actual dentist tells you.
Yep. Over-brushing can cause your gums to inflame and retreat, lowering the gum line. There is also no fix to this problem short of surgery. Wish I had known that when I was younger.
The only damage that I've ever read about re: over-brushing has been enamel damage caused by abrasives in toothpaste. The bristles of the brush should be much softer than enamel.
I had this problem for ages, in the end, the actual problem was gastrits. Any gastric problem has that same simptom, so if it persists, go check for them.
I don't doubt you, but that might also have been advice for after the filling perhaps? The stuff they fill it with is not nearly as hard as the stuff on the outside of your teeth (which is pretty damn hard). So a filling will always be a weak spot.
>According to the company, By simply biting and grinding, Blizzident automatically cleans all teeth perfectly within six seconds, and you can even floss and clean your tongue at the same time.
EH.. I spend ~5 minutes a day brushing my teeth.. if I brush during the day instead of just at night/morning.. it migh tbe 7-8.
If I could legitmately get that down to say, ~30 seconds.. I might save 4.5 minutes x 365 days = ~27 hours a year. If I make $10/hr and have plenty of time; this doesn't make sense. If I make $100/hr and am limited on time; this is potentially pretty sweet, especially if I am able to get a better cleaning.
I've had basically the same idea as the the article, but for flossing, since I was a kid. You would mold your teeth and then cut slots in the mold between the teeth. You would then string floss through all of the slots and put the whole thing in your mouth. A single bit down would floss all of your teeth at once. A neat idea, but not that practical.
Tooth health was solved thousands of years ago - and it's called Oil Pulling. Toothbrushes are the norm because of marketing budgets of teaching society to buy 1 disposable product (toothbrush), which then requires buying another product on a recurring basis (toothpaste).
There are different kinds of oils you can use for different benefits, though overall you just need the suction and vacuum that the oil allows for (with the density of the oil). It's great for your gums and teeth overall - and has other benefits relating to tongue health, tasting of food, etc..
I was really curious, so I looked up Oil Pulling [1]. 15-20 minutes of swishing oil around in my mouth? I don't see how that's ideal for anyone, it sounds disgusting and terribly time consuming. The literature linked from Wikipedia also doesn't talk about any of the benefits you discuss, and I'm a little skeptical. Why can't I achieve this by just swishing my own spit around all day?
Not only all that, but the Wikipedia article states that after spitting out the oil you would then clean your teeth, gums, and tongue as you normally would.
It only seems to be a remedy for specific situations.
Try it. I don't have any links that reference the technique I learned, though you want to only have so much oil in your mouth that you can maintain swishing it around (through your teeth, back and forth, etc) for the 15-20 minutes. I wouldn't start with 15-20 minutes either - you won't be able to maintain it, your muscles in your mouth will get tired.
You need to rinse after with a roughly half-water, half-hydrogen peroxide mix - after spitting the oil into your toilet (into sink could cause clogging issues) - and swish it around in your mouth for 10-15 seconds, through your teeth, etc.. This will help whiten your teeth too - most toothpaste companies add a bit of hydrogen peroxide to the toothpaste for this effect.
Spit isn't as dense as oil, and so it won't create as much pressure when being squeezed through your gums - which will loosen out anything stuck in your gums, that floss could otherwise get, and instead of floss jamming in say a piece of meat in further, the swishing and suction that occurs from a 'tight' vacuum in your mouth helps pull the stuck material away.
You don't have to swish for 15-20 minutes either, even a few minutes will do similar - though 15-20 minutes has added benefits, mainly related to the blood flow with your tongue, and the muscles in your mouth / throat, etc.. More so if you use sunflower oil because sunflowers absorb radiation (another thing you'll probably want to look up because you'll say "BULLSHIT!" -- Wikipedia doesn't have anything on it, though a search on Google brings up various results). P.S. If you oil pull with sunflower oil (can't remember if you want refined or unrefined) then after ~3 days you'll start to get a brown spot at the back middle of your tongue - you can gently scrap that off with a spoon. After a week or so that'll likely stop showing.
Anyway, try it yourself - is all I can really suggest..
You're being downvoted and yet your comment is worthy and even a "hack" so to speak. That's sad and typical. On behalf of people who care and are fascinated, thank you.
Oil pulling works and remineralizes tooth enamel. I do it occasionally. However, using a toothbrush to remove most food particles beforehand saves a lot of time. Do both. Then cleanse with a quick water rinse after. There are some biodegradable and recyclable toothbrushes on the market.
I'm skeptical about everything. However, I try not to downvote that which sounds pseudo-scientific even when it contradicts deep preconceptions. I try to remain open, intrigued, and investigative. Fewer things in life have several major, unbiased studies that can act as evidence. It's helpful to reject any broad claim of a "fact" while accepting it as a matter of thought.
Hmm...
Upon further consideration, in defense of downvoters, the person's claim was pretty extreme to reject the benefits of brushing. That makes it a disservice to his/her other point. Ah well. Most people haven't tried oil to remineralize. Most people won't. I'm in the minority of those who have, with empirical benefit.
Just to add - for all those downvoting me - if you oil pull AND maintain a diet low in sugars, you won't have to really brush your teeth afterward. I am assuming most others you need to brush afterward in order to avoid potential liabilities. Great to see such strong bigotry here on HN..
"And you can floss your tongue simultaneously" -- way to trigger my gag reflex.
No, seriously. I'm sure this will work for some people, but for those of us with a strong gag reflex this is a nightmare device. (I know whereof I speak; I've had to have dental imprints taken for prosthodontic work several times, and I always come close to throwing up -- when having my jaws packed with something not dissimilar in size and shape).
I agree, this device looks neat but I fear it would be very difficult for me to use. I could probably get use to it eventually, but it would almost certainly have me throwing the first few times and just gagging long after that.
A lot of negativity in the comments, I'm surprised. Electric toothbrushes aren't more effective than traditional (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_toothbrush), but have huge sales numbers.
Packaging is a problem right now, but put that thing in something unapologetically plastic and shiny and there may just be a market.
Electric toothbrushes aren't more effective than traditional
There's a key qualifier: "assuming that the person using the manual toothbrush will brush effectively". I have a huge amount of trouble brushing effectively with a manual toothbrush; with an electric I can just let the toothbrush do the work.
What I really want is nanobots that live in my mouth and discard of bacteria the moment they appear. Every night I'd put some fresh nanobots on my tongue and they will last a day. I'd even splurge for the nanobots deluxe, they directly remineralize the calcium in my teeth. They extract the calcium from the bacteria they kill!
I have been told by a dentist that the reason for "you must brush your teeth for 2 minutes" is mostly because the tooth paste should have time to work on the teeth. I.e. Not to remove physical "dirt". In which case you should keep the paste on for two minutes even with this device.
Disclaimer: I never checked on the 2 min fact, but do think a dentist would know.
> One of the great advantages of 3D Printing is the ability to design and create customized versions of everyday objects.
This is not a customized version of an everyday object. This is a completely new object nobody has ever made before. Calling it a toothbrush is like calling an automobile a "horseless carriage".
An automobile is a horseless carriage. Many new objects that displace older objects are refereed to initially in reference to the established product. This serves the same purpose as a toothbrush, so its entirely sensible to refer to in terms of a toothbrush. Calling it a "whizgonger" or some such is neither descriptive or useful for anyone.
Anyone with half a brain knows no self respecting density will sell this.
The number one they teaches kids is that you don't brush food into the gum... So any magic brush that works by biting will push the food to where? Hint: it's not away from the gum.
Would love if they worked around this problem though...
This is interesting but a pointless optimization. I use a cheap brush and have no dental issues to date. Also, for those of you like me who will criticize this -- make sure your small business isn't a virtual analogue of this.
You're making a weird assumption that because you have no dental issues nobody does. Or that because a cheap brush is good enough for you it's good enough for everyone.
33% of Americans have untreated tooth decay (CDC). An optimization may be just what the average American needs.
My dentist told me that the most important part of brushing wasn't the technique or type of brush, but the time. The two minutes of fluoride contact is the most important part of the process, and this product removes that.
Now just give it some rigidity and attach it to a Sonicare handle. The high frequency vibration and resultant cavitation kill bacteria (or so says some papers on it).
have you ever been to the denist and they ask you to focus on some area of the mouth? for perfect brushing, yes, this is a solved problem. however, I don't think everyone is a perfect brusher.
It's not about how much absolute time this brush saves, it's how much it saves relatively in comparison to the status quo and in that way it is just 30 times better. If you deduct the higher costs and whatever you might lose some of that, but you will still be above the magic "10 times better" threshold that a product needs to be to beat competition.
In this case, I have doubts they have improved on anything. Where did you get the impression anyone is against the idea of finding better solutions in general?
