Oclean X Ultra S is a very clever portable electric toothbrush

Once upon a time I owned a portable electric toothbrush made by Panasonic. It was very simple and overall perfectly cromulent... but it did not have a swappable brush head so once it died you'd have to buy a whole new one to replace it. That seemed pretty wasteful so I've been back in boring manual travel brush land ever since.

At home I do use a fancy Braun electric toothbrush that doesn't have a good enough travel case or battery life to cope with going away on trips. So when Oclean offered to send out its new X Ultra S "WiFi Smart Sonic Electric Toothbrush" with "AI Brushing Navigation" I thought it was worth a test drive.

I hadn't heard of the Oclean brand before but a little research shows it was founded in 2016 and is purely focused on oral hygiene products. Electric toothbrushes, water flossers, and UV sanitisers, and it has won a whole bunch of design awards for its kit. The company has a kids range, a basic range, and the smart range – and this is where the X Ultra S jumps in. Those entry models start at $80 while the X Ultra S is a $450 pack that comes with the toothbrush, three brush heads, the charger stand, a travel case, and a magnetic holder you can attach to the wall (it's very simple and clever and looks great).

The basics

The three brush heads included are like a sample pack for the firm, medium, and soft heads available so you can try them all and then decide which way to go when ordering replacement packs. At two for $49.95 they're more expensive than I would have hoped for compared to other electric brush brands that sell refills at your local supermarket. Every conversation I've ever had with a dentist has said you should always buy the soft brushes because brushing is all about the gums, so here we have the "Ultra Gum Care" option as the path I would recommend.

The X Ultra S claims its Maglev 3.0 motor gives it "3X more plaque removal" and it certainly feels excellent to use. The battery is a big selling point for travellers, claiming 40 days of charge life and it fully recharges in 4.5 hours. Its travel case is also a charger that uses USB-C so you can effectively keep this thing charged forever on the road while stored in its case. It's a very good little setup.

The smarts

So what makes this electric toothbrush so smart? Turns out it is a Bluetooth and WiFi enabled toothbrush with an app for iOS and Android to track your brushing performance. The WiFi notes that it is for 2.4GHz network antennas only, so if you've really tried to drop all older WiFi from your network then this isn't for you. But for most people this isn't going to be a drama.

Download the Oclean Care+ app and you get a personal brushing report, but also feedback directly on the toothbrush itself that scores your brushing and a visual ID on the areas you have missed. It can also deliver audible feedback that tells you if you're going too fast or pressing too hard (the audio uses bone conduction tech so it is clear to you without annoying your housemates). A red light on the end of the brush is also a nice and simple visual reminder if you are pressing too hard.

At setup, the app asks a few questions about your tooth whiteness and if you drink a lot of tea, coffee, smoke, etc. It then offers 3D views of a mouth as it encourages you to brush in just the right way. The brush also ran a few firmware updates because isn't it great to live in a future where our toothbrush has firmware?

I find the visual readout right there on the brush that shows areas you have missed to be a particularly helpful point regardless of using the app. Electric brushes make it easy to reach every corner of your mouth and it can be easy to not notice you've missed one particular section just because of how you hold your brush. So for me this is a solid point of value that doesn't require much setup. It is very likely that most people will use the app for a while and then not bother because they just want to get on with the two minute job of keeping their teeth clean, so it's these direct read out features that feel most likely to become a normal part of your routine.

For iOS users, you can also set up the X Ultra S so that it sends your brushing data to Apple Health, which means you have the track record for reference over time.

The AI (?)

Of course, it wouldn't be a product in 2024 if it didn't write the letters 'AI' somewhere on the box. This is how they're saying the brushing navigation system works, but really, it's the general feedback on mouth position that is a solid win for this toothbrush – whether that's really AI powered or not.

Researching is beginning to suggest that while businesses love writing AI all over everything normal people are getting put off by the term. For this toothbrush, I can happily suggest you just don't worry about it and get on with enjoying the fact it's a good toothbrush.

So in the end, this is a very excellent smart toothbrush. It's a lot of dough to spend but I do think more people would have far better oral health if they were using an electric toothbrush. You can certainly get that by going for a basic model, but if you want the fancy mouthfeel and the tracking that helps you know you've covered everything, this is a good place to get that.

Being that time of year, the Oclean X Ultra S is getting a 50% off sale for Black Friday, so at half price it's a pretty great deal. If you're reading this some other time in the year you can keep this in mind to watch for sales because they're clearly happy to bust out the good pricing when the time is right.