Next for health tech? A smart toothbrush that connects to your phone

Every year at least one company at CES showcases something "smart" that you insert into your mouth. This year it's the Kolibree smart electric toothbrush, which connects to your phone via Bluetooth, tracks your brushing with an app and helps you improve oral hygiene by highlighting areas of your mouth you're neglecting.
Speaking to Wired.co.uk at CES in Las Vegas, inventor Thomas Serval -- ex-Googler and also a former Microsoft developer -- explained that he began creating the device just over a year ago after realising his daughter wasn't cleaning her teeth properly, which resulted in gum disease.
"I talked to my dentist and he explained that people need to use an electric toothbrush but don't know how to -- kids and adults," Serval said, before demonstrating (on a set of plastic false teeth, thankfully not in a mouth at the time) the ways in which people wrongly use an electric brush. "I wanted to gamify the experience of brushing your teeth."

The Kolibree brush includes several sensors, such as an accelerometer, gyroscope and digital compass (magnetometer). This helps the app develop an understanding of each user's mouth and which areas are getting too much or too little attention, or if the brush is simply being used incorrectly.
Serval said he has worked with dentists to make sure the type of data the brush acquires is not only useful to users immediately while brushing, but to healthcare professionals who can use the information to advise patients on better brushing techniques. The brush's software has an API available for third-party developers to build apps and tools for the hardware as well.
It's an interesting concept, although not wholly new as companies such as Oral B have been developing electric brushes that connect to dedicated monitoring devices for a few years. But by using a strong visual app, this is an implementation of the idea that could well gel with health-conscious users, particularly those now familiar with devices like the Nike Fuelband or Fitbit for exercise tracking.
A working model of the Kolibree smart brush was demonstrated at CES and is hoped to launch in the second half of 2014 in the UK as part of a Kickstarter campaign. A number of models will be developed, ranging in price from €99-200 (around £83-165).