Brushing teeth to be gaming fun in 2015

So for my other gig I traveled to the International Consumer Electronics Showcase in Las Vegas. While I was there primarily for the other gig, I did swing by some of the kid tech booths and see what’s coming up this year.

There’re three different companies coming out with gamifying dental health. At least two of the companies claim to be the first with this technology, but who knows. The premise behind all of these is a toothbrush with enough sensors to tell where it is in the mouth, connected to a phone or tablet that tells you what to do or plays a game with you.

At least two of the three were electric vibrating toothbrushes, and two were aimed at younger folks while a larger commercially known toothbrush brand had more of a tooth-fitness approach.

Dentist telling your kid to get the back teeth and gums better? You can set the apps to concentrate on that. The games I saw reminded me a bit of Temple Run, although each proprietary connected toothbrush seemed to have their own types, so there’re probably a load of them coming out.

Overall it’s a good idea, but I’ll be interested in seeing what actually comes out of it and whether it helps or we end up with a slew of reports of cell phones getting doused in the sink or dropped in the toilet by accident.

Could be something great to do with one of those old phones you’ve got laying around that still have more capability than all the computers on the planet in the 1960’s combined.

Perhaps a smart-mirror, throw in something like Face Cake and a brushing app, go to town.