Finally, an open-source smart toothbrush with a subscription plan
If you ever thought to yourself, "Self, I need a crowdfunded toothbrush that tracks my oral activities," you're in luck. The folks at Goodwell estimate that we'll each go through some 300 toothbrushes over the course of our lifetime. As such, it wants to do its part to wage a war against the "planned obsolescence" of traditional fang-cleaning apparatus. For just $69, you get a hollow aluminum handle with a compostable, replaceable, charcoal brush head -- even with a $79 subscription for replacement parts that's still cheaper than Oral B's SmartSeries. If you're feeling even more spendy though, you can get what's known as the premium kit, which comes with screw-on flosser and tongue-scraper accessories, costing $89.
But what if you really want to know exactly what you're doing with that fancy toothbrush via the web or your smart device? That option (which includes a 3-axis motion tracker plus stats via an app), will set you back $150. To be fair, that also grants software access to the accelerometer and built-in microcontroller to do with what you will. The whole shebang is open source, so the hope is the development community will build even more apps to take advantage of the hardware. Of course, none of this will be possible unless the $12,500 crowdfunding goal is reached. But you do want Oral B to have some competition, don't you?
