I had just about given up on smart toothbrushes when the especially cute Colgate Hum arrived at my door.
Over the last few years, it seems that the toothbrush companies got together and decided we should all start shelling out several hundred dollars for brushes with internet-connected capabilities. The problem—besides the fact that you can buy a six-pack of manual brushes for less than $5—is that the tech rarely backs up the claims.
But even though I grumbled to myself while using other smart brushes—the Oral-B iO, which I gave a 4/10 rating, had a too-thick brush head and a clunky app with accuracy problems—all of my negative issues with the product category were resolved with the light and compact Hum. The best part? It’s only $70 for the rechargeable model (the version I tested), or $50 if you’d rather get a AAA-battery-powered one. That's not pocket change, but it's about what you’ll spend on a decent electric toothbrush without any app connectivity or smart features. If you've been eyeing electric toothbrushes, this is the one to get.
You can buy a Hum right now from Colgate's site, or order it from Amazon if you don't mind waiting until mid-September, which is when Amazon will start shipping them. If you go with the latter, you'll get an extra brush head, but it costs about $5 more than buying the brush and two extra heads directly from Colgate. No matter where you purchase, it comes with a travel case and is available in three appealing colors: blue, green, and purple.
In an effort to improve oral hygiene, smart toothbrushes track your brushing habits—like which teeth you're not cleaning as diligently and how long you spend brushing—and present that data to you in an app that connects to your brush over Bluetooth. Until now, there have been problems with accurate brush tracking, and the companion app had to be open during a brushing session for any data to be recorded. When testing other smart brushes, I spent more time trying to get these apps to recognize where I was brushing than I did on actually improving how I brushed. The Colgate Hum is the first one I tried that delivered on its promise to make brushing better.