Because you don’t want someone else using your toothbrush on your account. Do you?
Edit to add: just thought of the implications. It’ll totally screw up your algorithm. Just like how now that my kids can get on YouTube in the living room, I only get suggestions for Minecraft videos. I don’t even like Minecraft.
This is hilarious. I laughed for some time.
“Log back in to continue your OralB brushing experience”
Who thought it would be a good idea to have an online toothbrush, who decided to log customers out after a period of inactivity, and why, for all that is sane in the world, would not being logged in stop you from doing anything at all with your toothbrush!?!
Yeah. Everything in tour homr with radio needs to be microwaved. Butlerian jihad now.
I am enjoying saying “Log back in to continue your Oral B brushing experience” in my best “customer-service/salesperson ad lady” voice. Like the kind of tone that’s so soullessly saccharine that it gives AI vibes
You serious, Clark?
I am what you would call a technology enthusiast, or what some people have dubbed as a gadget whore. I love little electronic devices that make my life easier. However, at no time in my life, will I ever need or desire a toothbrush that needs WiFi access or a subscription to some service. It really isn’t necessary or even useful. It’s like the old comic about the toilet that needs a phone app.
Reminds me of my Dyson fan. When I put it away for the season the battery inside the remote leaked and the remote is dead now. So I download the Dyson remote control app. There’s only an on button on the fan itself, so in order to sync my phone to the fan i need the original remote to navigate the settings and go to “sync”
So my dead remote is required to activate any other remote
But then how will you download the latest pulse patterns? You could be missing out on a more optimal brushing experience.
It doesn’t need it, it works totally fine without it.
(Also, FWIW, the toothbrush itself connects via Bluetooth, not Wi-Fi)
old comic
12-13-24
More like “Enshitify app”, amirite?
Deshittify, technically.
I think most of those toothbrushes use Bluetooth if you want to track your brush stats or something with like home assistant, mine came with that and I totally forgot until my home assistant pinged me one day to add the device, I got that toothbrush in like 2017 on some sale and I wanted an electric tooth brush
You jest, but smart toilets actually are a thing now… Though from what I can tell, they use remotes instead of apps. So no wifi or subscriptions, but you better not break that remote.
Whoa, you are not kidding. The toilet is powered (not so unusual for bidet toilets), but it looks like there’s no mechanical override. Just a ‘remote’ control panel with a flush button (among many other features). That I’m sure is hygienic.
The video is about how to bluetooth pair the remote to the toilet. There are so many points of possible failure here, I can’t even.
I love technology and gadgets!
Got this Cuckoo clock, and it never asks me to sign in.
I have a compass gadget in my car - never have to sign in
My propane camp stove - fun fact, no sign in!
I have a #2 pencil - I sign in with it regularly …
I own dozens of screws - brilliant tech helps me keep it all together, no sign in though
We’ve been doing great tech since the OG ‘Fire’. I’m beginning to think what we call the ‘tech’ industry has a very limited understanding of what tech actually is.
I used to be a gadgetwhore, now im recruiting for the butlerian jihad, and my values around this have not changed at all.
Escalator temporarily stairs
I hate capitalism
So, class war or butlerian jihad? Pick at least one.
Rhod Gilbert on toothbrush is worth watching if you haven’t seen it yet.
If you meet a man who has been logged out of his toothbrush, do not mourn him. He has chosen thus. He is exactly where he has desired to be.
But any man’s toothbrush logout diminishes me
Because I am involved in brushing my teeth
Mourn for this man, not for his choices but for his lack of them; a store selling expired milk should be put out of business by the authorities, not by a mob of post-poisoned shoppers.
That’s communist talk. Those shoppers should have done their research before buying bad milk.
that’s communist talk, keep saying it
That’s free-market naïveté . No one has the time to be an expert in every field to always make the informed choice.
Do you read the labels on tangerines to check which antibiotics were used against citrus-greening? Do you even know if that’s something you should be worrying about? Is Anti-Microbial Resistance something to legitimately be afraid of when buying tangerines?
(I leave this as an exercise for the so-called informed reader…)
I hope you understand that my comment was sarcastic…
Plenty of progressives who lean on the “vote-with-your-wallet” rhetoric. Can never be too careful.
I wonder if it’s so you can get a calendar of usage tines. Could be handy to ensure kids are brushing for the right amount of time?
It does that plus map areas you are missing. Probably overkill for most but could be a good teaching tool as you suggest.
We have recently gotten ourselves some SURI toothbrushes and they are eco friendly, repairable, the heads are recyclable/ biodegradable. They also give a better clean than my old oral b electric. Quieter too. Highly recommend.
How repairable are we talking? Can the battery be replaced?
I have the cheapest oral-b (bought for under 20 euros about a decade ago) and it uses AA-batteries, a pair of rechargeable ikea 1900mah batteries last for about 100 cumulative minutes of usage.
Yup, you need to send it back to them but for a few quid (or included if you have their replacement head subscription) they will change the battery for you.
Oof, I’m not sure I’d call that repairable. That’s iPhone levels of repairable.
It’s a lot better than other electric toothbrushes whilst retaining waterproofing.
Communism is when no toothbrush… Capitalism is when no toothbrush…
Why did you have to login in the first place? What’s an “Oral-B brushing experience”?
You can use the Oral B with some electric brushes to see where you have brushed and where you haven’t to help you with not missing anything.
You have brushed in New York and Philadelphia this week!
Suspicious activity has been detected in your toothbrush in Hong Kong. Your account has been locked for your security.
For brushing in Asia, please upgrade your Oral-B account to the Oral-B premium account for just 5 € / month!
Goddammit, Oral-B, I told you I was traveling this week!
sets up VPN to trick it into brushing from home
You have brushed in New York and Philadelphia this we
Sorry, not sure what you mean by this (not a native English speaker)
It’s a data collection joke.
“where you have brushed” -> either “where in your mouth” or “where you were when brushing”
It’s the experience of a toothbrush collecting data about your daily routines to sell for profit.
Who is interested in that data other than Oral-B and their competitors though? Oral-B isn’t collecting that data to sell to itself, and they certainly wouldn’t want their competition using it
You see, they’ll sell this information to your health insurance company, so that your premium will increase if they think you brush too seldom or not thoroughly enough.
Exactly this, but it will be sold the other way around, you’ll get a gift or a discount if you log+link data
The amount of information that can be inferred, especially when coupled with more data from other “brokers”, is crazy. You might be flagged as a depressed person if you skip brushing some/most days. The time you wake up and go to work might be an indication of your social status, together with how often you replace the head.
Ah yes, there’s a whole line forming to buy data about teeth brushing, it’s like a gold mine.
Yeah, it’s not like there’s money in dental products… Oh wait.
Tooth brushes are under one euro. Tooth paste is around one euro. Both last like a a couple of months. Floss and inter-dental brushes are a couple of euros.
Not everything is implants and high tech drills, the consumer products to take care of your teeth are cheap as fuck. Unless you volunteer to buy the toothbrush with leds, Bluetooth and timer, but that’s a tech toy, not a dental product.
An over engineered toothbrush is a dental product just as much as a very cheap one and there are for sure greedy people interested in trying to get people to log their brushing data on a corporate cloud and later link together their insurance and their dental habits at some point and there are for sure people willing to pay for detailed brushing data. It’s just the very beginning of it all still. Give it 20 years, your insurance company or dentist will ask you how come you’re not logging your brushing.
I disagree, I’ve heard the same thing about many other things and haven’t seen any of those happen. I guess we’ll see in years?
Have you ever seen how expensive braces are?
That’s not the product that’s expensive, it’s the dentist salary you’re paying (and I don’t thing you are going to buy braces online).
You joke, but I guarantee there’s a market. Consider health insurance companies that see an opportunity to charge everyone more unless they can prove their good brushing habits via app data.
I think it’s a conspiracy theory. The vast majority of people use manual brushes. Of those who use electric ones, a majority use dumb ones. Of those who use smart ones, some people don’t use the app. Or don’t bother opening the app every time they brush. Those who register probably don’t provide insurance info. The data they collect is basically useless for individual cases, and definitely useless on a bigger scale.
My take is that it’s a gimmick to help sell you more expensive brushes when you are browsing and comparing them.
It’s not about user-led synergy. The personal data market is slurped up by those that already have and are building correlations. Just because a user didn’t report anything to their insurer doesn’t mean an insurer sure as shit isn’t going to want the data if they can link it to the user whatsoever, so long as it will make them more money.
This is hypothetical, of course, but it’s the way the market of data brokers works.
Yeah, my understanding is that companies generate this data and just sell it unprocessed to data harvesting companies who link it with other data they’ve been sold. Companies seeking targeted info can then request data with varying levels of depth.
Like a company may request a list of emails of users who are very good (or bad) about brushing their teeth everyday to target ads at
sudden prick sensation when brushing teeth
robotic female voice: The user has been injected in the gums with a lethal poison that will approximately kill in two days. Please renew your subscription to receive the antidote injection.
I mean, it looks more like you got logged out of your app.
For now.
I found a 350€ OralB toothbrush in a shop recently in France.
I couldn’t believe the amount of bullshit you have to cram in to up a toothbrush to that level of price.
Pic :
Does it come with a “feminine stimulation” accessory?
I have two of these i bought for $30 each
I use a website that has auctions near me that sell Amazon abandoned packages. I find these often
My sister, a dentistry student, got one in a promo event. It glows when you walk by to remind you to brush. Drove me nuts.
