Dyson made quite an entrance into oral care earlier this month. Its $500 CameraJet has a tiny camera along with machine learning and a liquid jet to automatically fire mouthwash between your teeth while you brush to improve your dental health. Dyson has been known to overengineer basic household products, so this design is right on character for the brand.
But there is another camera-equipped toothbrush that slipped under the radar, and at $199.99, it costs less than half as much. The Usmile D50 OralCam is the centerpiece of the company’s new D Series oral-care system. Unlike Dyson, it doesn’t look for gaps between teeth; it focuses on finding the plaque your electric or smart toothbrush may have left behind.
It can make plaque light up
The D50 combines a 300,000-pixel intraoral camera with six 405nm violet LEDs. Usmile uses Quantitative Light-induced Fluorescence, or QLF, which causes compounds associated with plaque bacteria to glow red or pink under violet light. The camera captures those areas, while machine-learning-assisted feedback highlights spots that might need more attention.
You don’t necessarily need your phone, either. The handle has its own display for scan guidance, plaque images, brushing modes, and feedback. The gadget can be paired to your phone via Bluetooth, sending scans to the Usmile app. Core processing happens locally, and Usmile says the D50 has no Wi-Fi and doesn’t upload images to its cloud for analysis. Paired with this brush is the $69.99 D-lite OralCam, a separate camera accessory intended to help inspect harder-to-see surfaces and back teeth with a smartphone.
Built by dentists, not replacing them
Usmile’s background is another highlight of this product. The company says its development work spans six specialist oral-health labs and partnerships with professional dentists and institutions, with real clinical problems used as starting points for product development.
Even so, Usmile is explicit that the D50 doesn’t diagnose dental disease or replace an exam, X-rays, professional cleaning, or clinical judgment. It isn’t as advanced as the CameraJet, but it is built to help your brushing be more effective. For something I use twice every day, I can see the appeal.
