I could not cease myself from laughing. A sudsy giggle. I used to be brushing my enamel, however this was no unusual toothbrush I used to be utilizing.
It was the Feno Smartbrush — and with its 18,000 bristles, it was navigating all of my enamel, prime and backside, on the similar time. The vibration was startlingly completely different.
All the decrease a part of my face was shaking, from my gumline to the bottom of my jaw. It felt like a therapeutic massage for my enamel, cheeks and the craniofacial muscle tissue surrounding my mouth. Foamy residue escaped onto my chin and chest.
The Feno Smartbrush is a mouthful.
It was a mouthful. In a great way.
For an anxious, teeth-grinding grownup like me, the foolish visible within the mirror of my mouth vibrating for 20 seconds was well worth the feeling that got here together with it. Plus, it eliminated all these tough goji berry remnants that at all times appear to evade my common electrical toothbrush.
The Smartbrush is a U-shaped system, with prime and backside sections just like the mouthguards that athletes use, hooked up to a fist-sized deal with that holds the facility supply and a digital camera. It is the flagship product of Feno, a 3-year-old firm pushed by the idea that “transformative oral well being know-how” is on the cusp of a breakthrough second.
It was created by Dr. Kenny Brown, an oral and maxillofacial surgeon who’s additionally Feno’s CEO and a co-founder. He designed it to handle issues he noticed firsthand along with his sufferers.
“We imagine oral well being is your general well being,” Brown tells me once we meet at BioscienceLA, which for Feno doubles as a nonprofit group for well being tech corporations and its brick-and-mortar. “Relating to oral hygiene, sufferers are inclined to fail in two facets: time and approach.”
How many people actually put within the 2-plus minutes of brushing that dentists suggest? And are we actually placing brush to tooth as successfully as we should always? Feno cuts the time to only 20 seconds, and its Smartbrush does the give you the results you want.
It is a radically completely different strategy from the traditional choices out there for oral care at house, and retails at a wide ranging $299 for a three-month starter package. There are different high-end, high-tech units, together with Curaprox’s U-shaped Samba robotic toothbrush and the Philips Sonicare Status 9900, which packs some AI right into a extra standard-looking electrical toothbrush.
However neither of these units has Feno’s customization options, like six variations of its U-shaped, top-and-bottom mouthpiece. Feno additionally stands aside in monitoring and analyzing your brushing habits and your mouth as a complete, with reviews by way of a $10 month-to-month Feno Plus membership supposed to help long-term preventive care.
Brown’s coaching and expertise is one other differentiating issue.
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What you get with the Feno Smartbrush
I did my trial with the $299 Founder’s Version bundle, which accommodates the Smartbrush (comprising the Feno Smarthandle and SnapCharger), a TrueFit Mouthpiece, three tubes of mint-flavored XyFoam toothpaste, a tongue scraper and three months of Feno Plus for entry to personalised well being insights and digital oral well being teaching.
First, I despatched in selfies of my mouth by way of Feno’s FitKit, an app that enables the Feno workforce to map, measurement and pair it with one in all six mouthpieces, and waited for my photos to be analyzed and permitted. The package arrived within the mail every week later, in a big, well-designed field.
After the unboxing, I downloaded the Feno app and linked it to my newly charged Smartbrush. (The Apple MagSafe-like charger attaches to the again of Feno’s Smarthandle, wanting fairly like a stethoscope.)
Right here, I used to be capable of customise my Feno expertise. I might change the velocity and time of the comb whereas the AI tracked my brushing cadence. The vibration of the comb allowed me to maneuver it across the sides of my mouth, which offered a nice jaw therapeutic massage within the course of.
You utilize the Smarthandle to take a scan of your mouth.
Over the subsequent two weeks, I used the Smartbrush twice a day for 20 seconds at a time. As soon as linked to Feno’s Wi-Fi community (this is not going to have an effect on your property’s web connection), I might additionally join my Smartbrush to Feno’s app, which monitored my brushing and scanning cadence.
After brushing, I positioned the Smartbrush 10 inches from my face and pressed a button to seize and ship knowledge regarding my oral well being to Feno’s workforce for suggestions. With common use, the reviews come again each two weeks with insights concerning the situation of your enamel, gums, tongue and mushy tissue, plus a digital well being rating, abstract evaluation of your mouth and suggestions to enhance or modify your mouth scans. With consistency, the embedded scanner will be taught your mouth and be aware any adjustments that happen.
“[Over time] you are going to have the largest longitudinal knowledge set on the mouth, actionable knowledge made as easy as attainable, in order that it may be achieved as simply as as soon as a day,” Brown stated. “You possibly can then get perception into what’s taking place in your mouth.”
Feno will ship you common reviews on the state of your oral well being.
Feno’s evolution
After my trial run with the Smartbrush, I visited Feno’s amenities, the place the product is examined, packaged and shipped out, to talk with Brown concerning the system, its AI integration and the state of oral well being care.
Feno’s prototyping area, success heart and firm workplace all sit inside the well being tech hub’s lengthy, single-story brick exterior; blue and inexperienced letters learn “BioscienceLA” throughout its home windows.
Inside, shiny white plaster partitions and squeaky-clean flooring make up the constructing’s smooth, fashionable inside.
Dr. Kenny Brown is the creator of the Feno Smartbrush.
That is the place members of the equally passionate core workforce — eight folks, together with three dentists — will be discovered. (It is also the place Brown will be discovered chatting on the cellphone with clients about postpurchase suggestions.)
Our dialog occurred in Feno’s prototyping workplace, the biggest of the three areas I toured. Close by, 3D printers for prototyping emit a soothing hum and ambient orange glow. Bodily evolutions of Feno’s TrueFit Mouthpiece deceive my proper.
As an oral surgeon and entrepreneur, Brown is an anomaly, a Black oral surgeon in an trade the place just below 4% of dentists, dental specialists and oral surgeons are Black. Along with his creation of the AI-powered Smartbrush, he is additionally a pioneer. He radiates a ardour for oral care — and humanity.
(We’ll take a second right here to acknowledge one other pioneer, Dr. Bobbi Peterson, the Shark Tank-famous orthodontist who invented the Massive Mouth electrical toothbrush.)
Brown estimates that almost 50% of American adults have some type of gum illness and persistent irritation. Feno, he says, might tackle this problem with “full mouth,” U-shaped merchandise.
“The thought is best, sooner, simpler — nevertheless it additionally ranges a enjoying area,” Brown stated. “Doing this on a know-how entrance exhibits, ‘Look, these options are for everybody.’ On the finish of the day, it is to serve others.”
The TrueFit Mouthpiece design
The TrueFit Mouthpiece started with over 20,000 affected person digital impressions to tell a mouth-sizing algorithm, which translated into over 100,000 designs of assorted shapes, widths, heights and bristle configurations.
“It may be extraordinarily dangerous and costly to make hundreds of prototypes. We used a mix of scientific data, digital impressions, generative AI know-how and 3D printing to assist us create [ours],” Brown stated. “Efficacy is the primary factor. If it does not work, it does not matter.”
The design of Feno’s mouthpiece went by way of many iterations.
Brown and his workforce used generative AI — customized algorithms written with design software program Rhino 3D and Grasshopper — to check and optimize for the best mouthpiece, together with options like “bristle contact with tooth surfaces and your gum line.” These iterations grew to become a number of hundred 3D-printed prototypes, examined once more on sufferers to make sure scientific requirements.
As we speak, Feno has six TrueFit Mouthpiece variations that differentiate in dental arch, jawline and oral cavity dimensions, relying on clients’ wants. Whether or not that is arch width or depth, a crooked tooth or gum recession, the purpose is that each one 18,000 bristles in your Feno TrueFit Mouthpiece contact your entire enamel — 250 strokes per tooth — so you may brush your enamel inside 20 seconds. The Smarthandle will pause and provide you with a warning to melt your brushing stress if want be.
The TrueFit Mouthpiece connects to Feno’s Smarthandle, which makes use of digital camera imaginative and prescient, synthetic intelligence that may analyze visible knowledge. Every time you scan your mouth with the Smarthandle’s embedded scanner, it tracks indicators of poor oral well being or abnormalities that want consideration and compiles it into a knowledge report.
Whereas these insights are usually not thought of diagnostic, Feno has a dentist quality-checking info for precision and accuracy.
“We actually attempt to be intentional about what we’re giving clients,” Brown stated. “Seeing folks and assembly them the place they’re at is the perfect type of care, one thing you can’t seize with any tech. That is humanity.”
My expertise with the Feno Smartbrush
For me, in that two-week trial run, the Smartbrush labored.
My gums have been initially sore (Feno notes this may occur) however my enamel felt… purified, as if all 18,000 bristles, vibrating in varied instructions, had extracted all of the plaque in my mouth.
As new to the market as Feno is, there’s quite a bit but to unfold about how nicely the Smartbrush performs and what the oral analytics reveal over time. At $299 upfront plus $10 a month, this method is asking you to make a major funding. Nonetheless, I am intrigued by this progressive strategy.
After my trial, I made a decision to maintain my Smartbrush. For the final three years, I have been instructed by two completely different dentists that I’ll want veneers earlier than I am 40. (An alarming assertion for a 29-year-old who’s had braces twice.) Each six months, I depart my checkup more and more anxious about what’s taking place inside my mouth — or, to Brown’s level, my physique — with no answer or long-term plan. Perhaps that is the beginning of 1.
As at all times, as a savvy shopper, it is best to do your analysis, discuss to your dentist and contemplate your consolation stage with spending on a dear cutting-edge system.
Alongside brushing your enamel, twice a day.
