if you’re not on your way to get a refund for that bullshit, then that’s entirely on you and i have no sympathy
that shit exists because people keep fucking buying it
Right? I buy only open-source wifi toothbrushes. Still waiting on the year of the Linux toothbrush, tbh
If you can’t run Doom on it, is it really your toothbrush?
My esp32 vibrator-toothbrush is up on GitHub. Might take it down later, idk.
There’s no one maintaining the repo. St this point, the brush is gonna be archived </3
Can you turn a Raspberry Pi into a toothbrush? lol
Redtooth? 🙃
We should not be shaming the consumers, but educating them. The blame is on the companies for making such a terrible product in the first place, the consumer only found out how bad it was after. Sometimes, you can no longer return a product because its X days out of policy.
Not that I don’t completely agree with your sentiment, but to make people start advocating for themselves, you have to make them see you are a friend, and the company is the enemy.
(not that the oop would ever see this post, comment or reply because who on twitter is also using lemmy, but you get it right?)
Sometimes, you can no longer return a product because its X days out of policy.
🤣🤣🤣🤣 I bought this $50 brush than didn’t use it for 6 months 👌👍
I weep for all 5 of you that happened to.
You don’t have to not use it. You just have to not consistently use the app for 6 months. This is not about the users. Its about the abuse of the users. Regardless of if they did or did not use it for 6 months, the company should not force things upon you at random. I don’t understand the mentality of attacking people who are ignorant of the evils companies do. We all walk different paths, and no one learns without being taught.
If it’s anything like mine, it works just fine without the app. The app just does brush tracking and shit. I don’t need any of that, so I never set it up. But I suspect even if I had, it would still let me use it without being logged into the app.
I suspect the same is true here. That the function of the toothbrush is available regardless of whether it’s logging data to your phone.
But that’s way too rational and doesn’t let me rage, I don’t like it!
Yeah I got mine on sale a few years ago and totally forgot it had that until it showed up on my home assistant when I got a ZigBee USB dongle for my pi
The function is available for now.
I cannot imagine the value to the company from whatever usage data they get from their toothbrushing app is anything close to the value they get from selling brush heads. So it would be immensely foolish to lock down the toothbrush.
The app is a selling point, and they do it because others do. Without it, they’d lose the portion of the market that wants to track which parts of their mouth they’ve brushed properly to their competitors. But that isn’t their main market, and they’d be idiots to kill their product chasing that niche.
But… how else am I going to connect my toothbrush to my smarthome…?
Just kidding, I use home assistant and my oral-b toothbrush broadcasts using BLE, which Is capture using the oral-b integration. You don’t need to be logged in.
I agree. It’s super dumb to buy IOT toothbrushes that require you to be logged in. Luckily I’m not one of those people, so that doesn’t apply to me. Phew…
Just kidding, I use home assistant and my oral-b toothbrush broadcasts using BLE, which Is capture using the oral-b integration. You don’t need to be logged in.
Oh god I hope this is sarcasm. I’m good with my old, dumb oral-b that does nothing but brush my fucking teeth.
I imagine getting a notification on their phone reminding them if they’ve not brushed their teeth by a set time might help forgetful people to remember to brush their teeth, and if it’s via Home Assistant, which is self-hosted, entirely local, and open-source, there’s no downside other than having to set it up in the first place.
The oral-b integration has been installed by 13,611 users.
My BLE proxies keep picking up my neighbor’s toothbrush. I was briefly tempted to install the integration just to see what would happen. I didn’t because that’s creepy, but just… what a weird world we live in.
How’s your low-level programming ability?
I bet you could update its firmware to one you write.
Ever use one of those kid toothbrushes that plays a song by vibrating your skull? You could do that live from a microphone.
IoT has gotten way out of hand
No it hasn’t. Nerds spend all day looking for edge cases with mostly unsuccessful dumb ideas then screech while having the option of 40 different branded regular brushes in every grocery store.
It’s angry permanently online rage fiends.
People keeping buying it because they don’t know this shit exist. And once they already buy it… Hey, as long as it works…
Exactly
I am what you would call a technology enthusiast, or what some people have dubbed as a gadget whore. I love little electronic devices that make my life easier. However, at no time in my life, will I ever need or desire a toothbrush that needs WiFi access or a subscription to some service. It really isn’t necessary or even useful. It’s like the old comic about the toilet that needs a phone app.
More like “Enshitify app”, amirite?
Deshittify, technically.
old comic
12-13-24
But then how will you download the latest pulse patterns? You could be missing out on a more optimal brushing experience.
Reminds me of my Dyson fan. When I put it away for the season the battery inside the remote leaked and the remote is dead now. So I download the Dyson remote control app. There’s only an on button on the fan itself, so in order to sync my phone to the fan i need the original remote to navigate the settings and go to “sync”
So my dead remote is required to activate any other remote
You jest, but smart toilets actually are a thing now… Though from what I can tell, they use remotes instead of apps. So no wifi or subscriptions, but you better not break that remote.
Whoa, you are not kidding. The toilet is powered (not so unusual for bidet toilets), but it looks like there’s no mechanical override. Just a ‘remote’ control panel with a flush button (among many other features). That I’m sure is hygienic.
The video is about how to bluetooth pair the remote to the toilet. There are so many points of possible failure here, I can’t even.
I used to be a gadgetwhore, now im recruiting for the butlerian jihad, and my values around this have not changed at all.
It doesn’t need it, it works totally fine without it.
(Also, FWIW, the toothbrush itself connects via Bluetooth, not Wi-Fi)
I think most of those toothbrushes use Bluetooth if you want to track your brush stats or something with like home assistant, mine came with that and I totally forgot until my home assistant pinged me one day to add the device, I got that toothbrush in like 2017 on some sale and I wanted an electric tooth brush
I love technology and gadgets!
Got this Cuckoo clock, and it never asks me to sign in.
I have a compass gadget in my car - never have to sign in
My propane camp stove - fun fact, no sign in!
I have a #2 pencil - I sign in with it regularly …
I own dozens of screws - brilliant tech helps me keep it all together, no sign in though
We’ve been doing great tech since the OG ‘Fire’. I’m beginning to think what we call the ‘tech’ industry has a very limited understanding of what tech actually is.
If you meet a man who has been logged out of his toothbrush, do not mourn him. He has chosen thus. He is exactly where he has desired to be.
Mourn for this man, not for his choices but for his lack of them; a store selling expired milk should be put out of business by the authorities, not by a mob of post-poisoned shoppers.
That’s communist talk. Those shoppers should have done their research before buying bad milk.
That’s free-market naïveté . No one has the time to be an expert in every field to always make the informed choice.
Do you read the labels on tangerines to check which antibiotics were used against citrus-greening? Do you even know if that’s something you should be worrying about? Is Anti-Microbial Resistance something to legitimately be afraid of when buying tangerines?
(I leave this as an exercise for the so-called informed reader…)
I hope you understand that my comment was sarcastic…
Plenty of progressives who lean on the “vote-with-your-wallet” rhetoric. Can never be too careful.
that’s communist talk, keep saying it
But any man’s toothbrush logout diminishes me
Because I am involved in brushing my teeth
Although I don’t have one that’s smart, I have researched enough into electric toothbrushes to know that this title is exaggerating. The app is just to store your brushing information. People like tracking data about themselves as it helps with positive reinforcement. The app just allows you to see your analytics much like an app to count your steps or activity levels. It in no way “disables” your brushing experience.
I have one that is smart, and you are spot on. It was nice to use in the beginning to get an idea of what pressure is recommended and time spent on each section. But I have uninstalled and been running app free for several years now - with zero issues.
This seemed a little clickbait-y
Why did you have to login in the first place? What’s an “Oral-B brushing experience”?
It’s the experience of a toothbrush collecting data about your daily routines to sell for profit.
Ah yes, there’s a whole line forming to buy data about teeth brushing, it’s like a gold mine.
You joke, but I guarantee there’s a market. Consider health insurance companies that see an opportunity to charge everyone more unless they can prove their good brushing habits via app data.
I think it’s a conspiracy theory. The vast majority of people use manual brushes. Of those who use electric ones, a majority use dumb ones. Of those who use smart ones, some people don’t use the app. Or don’t bother opening the app every time they brush. Those who register probably don’t provide insurance info. The data they collect is basically useless for individual cases, and definitely useless on a bigger scale.
My take is that it’s a gimmick to help sell you more expensive brushes when you are browsing and comparing them.
It’s not about user-led synergy. The personal data market is slurped up by those that already have and are building correlations. Just because a user didn’t report anything to their insurer doesn’t mean an insurer sure as shit isn’t going to want the data if they can link it to the user whatsoever, so long as it will make them more money.
This is hypothetical, of course, but it’s the way the market of data brokers works.
Yeah, my understanding is that companies generate this data and just sell it unprocessed to data harvesting companies who link it with other data they’ve been sold. Companies seeking targeted info can then request data with varying levels of depth.
Like a company may request a list of emails of users who are very good (or bad) about brushing their teeth everyday to target ads at
Yeah, it’s not like there’s money in dental products… Oh wait.
Tooth brushes are under one euro. Tooth paste is around one euro. Both last like a a couple of months. Floss and inter-dental brushes are a couple of euros.
Not everything is implants and high tech drills, the consumer products to take care of your teeth are cheap as fuck. Unless you volunteer to buy the toothbrush with leds, Bluetooth and timer, but that’s a tech toy, not a dental product.
An over engineered toothbrush is a dental product just as much as a very cheap one and there are for sure greedy people interested in trying to get people to log their brushing data on a corporate cloud and later link together their insurance and their dental habits at some point and there are for sure people willing to pay for detailed brushing data. It’s just the very beginning of it all still. Give it 20 years, your insurance company or dentist will ask you how come you’re not logging your brushing.
I disagree, I’ve heard the same thing about many other things and haven’t seen any of those happen. I guess we’ll see in years?
Have you ever seen how expensive braces are?
That’s not the product that’s expensive, it’s the dentist salary you’re paying (and I don’t thing you are going to buy braces online).
Who is interested in that data other than Oral-B and their competitors though? Oral-B isn’t collecting that data to sell to itself, and they certainly wouldn’t want their competition using it
The amount of information that can be inferred, especially when coupled with more data from other “brokers”, is crazy. You might be flagged as a depressed person if you skip brushing some/most days. The time you wake up and go to work might be an indication of your social status, together with how often you replace the head.
You see, they’ll sell this information to your health insurance company, so that your premium will increase if they think you brush too seldom or not thoroughly enough.
Exactly this, but it will be sold the other way around, you’ll get a gift or a discount if you log+link data
You can use the Oral B with some electric brushes to see where you have brushed and where you haven’t to help you with not missing anything.
You have brushed in New York and Philadelphia this week!
Suspicious activity has been detected in your toothbrush in Hong Kong. Your account has been locked for your security.
Goddammit, Oral-B, I told you I was traveling this week!
sets up VPN to trick it into brushing from home
For brushing in Asia, please upgrade your Oral-B account to the Oral-B premium account for just 5 € / month!
You have brushed in New York and Philadelphia this we
Sorry, not sure what you mean by this (not a native English speaker)
It’s a data collection joke.
“where you have brushed” -> either “where in your mouth” or “where you were when brushing”
I hate capitalism
So, class war or butlerian jihad? Pick at least one.
Why? Because you were dumb enough to buy, or manipulated into buying the toothbrush.
Well-deserved, IMO.
Woah, slow down (both of you). As a person who was THIS close to buying one of those in a store:
the packaging really hides how obnoxious these things are. I only noticed a small ~“wireless” symbol on the packaging last second. Seeing that symbol then reminded me of this amazing writeup I had stumbled upon months earlier by coincidence. Only then did I realize what I was about to get myself into.
Don’t blame people who don’t happen to read niche reverse engineering blogs for fun.
Do blame companies that invest heavily into making shitty products without being up front about it.
the packaging really hides how obnoxious these things are
No kidding. Have you ever bought a product that was upfront about its shortcomings right on the box?
This is hilarious. I laughed for some time.
“Log back in to continue your OralB brushing experience”
Who thought it would be a good idea to have an online toothbrush, who decided to log customers out after a period of inactivity, and why, for all that is sane in the world, would not being logged in stop you from doing anything at all with your toothbrush!?!
Yeah. Everything in tour homr with radio needs to be microwaved. Butlerian jihad now.
I am enjoying saying “Log back in to continue your Oral B brushing experience” in my best “customer-service/salesperson ad lady” voice. Like the kind of tone that’s so soullessly saccharine that it gives AI vibes
My toothbrush is as dumb as it comes. The only smart thing it does is charging itself when I put it in its charger base. And that should be the standard.
i use only the oralb 1000, its good enough, no need to spend over 100-200 for a toothbrush.
No reason to even use electricity. A damp cloth and some baking soda works just as well!
Uh, looking that up, it really doesn’t seem to be true.
It was sarcasm. They were making fun of the comments.
You are correct. I was making fun that an electric toothbrush is “as dumb as it comes.”
Using baking soda is a thing that people do, but I’d save that for last resort situations. The “damp cloth” seemed to me like the least favorable application but, seriously, better than nothing tbh.
Oh, alright, I guess…
Pfft baking soda? Don’t you know certain tree species’ twigs work just as well?
(not AI)Although my comment was making fun of electric toothbrushes being “as dumb as they come,” this is actually pretty cool.
Ngl, I just ordered some online to throw in my day pack.
Having to log back in is just part of the Oral-B Brushing Experience™
I prefer the cheap-fucking manual brush my dentist gives me every visit experience.
Hey everybody! Get a look at Money Bags over here being able to afford to go to the dentist!
(kidding, low key jealous… please marry me so I can have benefits/health coverage)
Who said I go frequently? It’s been ages. I really need a new brush, too… 😔
I found a 350€ OralB toothbrush in a shop recently in France.
I couldn’t believe the amount of bullshit you have to cram in to up a toothbrush to that level of price.
Pic :
My sister, a dentistry student, got one in a promo event. It glows when you walk by to remind you to brush. Drove me nuts.
Does it come with a “feminine stimulation” accessory?
I have two of these i bought for $30 each
I use a website that has auctions near me that sell Amazon abandoned packages. I find these often
Because you don’t want someone else using your toothbrush on your account. Do you?
Edit to add: just thought of the implications. It’ll totally screw up your algorithm. Just like how now that my kids can get on YouTube in the living room, I only get suggestions for Minecraft videos. I don’t even like Minecraft.
Imagine explaining the concept of this to a 16th century peasant, let alone some rich person from the 2000s, like nobody would’ve ever been ready to comprehend the existence of a wi-fi enabled toothbrush.
Escalator temporarily stairs
We have recently gotten ourselves some SURI toothbrushes and they are eco friendly, repairable, the heads are recyclable/ biodegradable. They also give a better clean than my old oral b electric. Quieter too. Highly recommend.
How repairable are we talking? Can the battery be replaced?
I have the cheapest oral-b (bought for under 20 euros about a decade ago) and it uses AA-batteries, a pair of rechargeable ikea 1900mah batteries last for about 100 cumulative minutes of usage.
Yup, you need to send it back to them but for a few quid (or included if you have their replacement head subscription) they will change the battery for you.
Oof, I’m not sure I’d call that repairable. That’s iPhone levels of repairable.
It’s a lot better than other electric toothbrushes whilst retaining waterproofing.
