I remember when electric toothbrushes first went mainstream. They were big, heavy and the battery life was horrible.
But recently there has been a surge of a new generation of electric tooth brushes, and the Oclean Air is one of the recent additions to that group of products.
This "smart" toothbrush offers Bluetooth connectivity, an app to control and monitor use and sonic cleaning - but does it work? Is it any good?
This is our Oclean Air review - read on to see my honest feedback and find out if it is worth your hard earned money.
Disclaimer: this product was sent to me at no cost by Gearbest, however this review is completely honest and my genuine opinion.Click For Article Contents:
Oclean Air Review
Cleaning Ability
The effectiveness of many toothbrushes can be reliant on the user having the proper technique, the Oclean air takes some of the "skill" required out of it by providing different "brushing plans" via the app.
These brushing plans adjust the operation of the toothbrush automatically so that it will perform as well as possible.
Just some of the plans you can choose from are:
- Sensitive cleaning
- Strong whitening
- Gum care
- Quick cleaning
The Oclean app will ask you a few basic questions such as your age, if you are a smoker, whether you drink coffee etc. From this it will recommend a few different brushing plans for your teeth. If you don't like the sound of the plans it suggests, then you can choose one of the 20 plans built into the app.
Alternatively you can customize the cleaning experience even further by adjusting each plan to your liking. Apparently there are over 100 different brushing plans you can design in this way. It does seem though that while it's great to have flexibility, this feature just complicates what should be a simple job.
The brushing action itself is quite impressive. This brush itself moves at 40,000 strokes per minute (which is at the high end of the sonic range for toothbrushes). These high numbers generally don't impress me, but I was impressed by the quality of the clean that it delivered.
Now, I will admit that the cleaning power of a toothbrush is hard to judge without consulting a dentist before and after - so by no means is this an expert opinion. But I certainly found that the amount of food particles caught between my teeth was less after using the Oclean Air, as opposed to my regular electric toothbrush. My teeth also felt much cleaner and this is of course a good sign.
Check Price Now on Gear BestBattery Life
The advertising for the Oclean Air claims that it can go for 30 days of use without charging.
I did some limited tests to gauge if this was an accurate claim. I ran the toothbrush for 25 minutes straight and according to the app, the brush had 80% battery left. If we assume that the average person brushes twice a day for 2.5 minutes each time, then the Oclean air should be able to go about 25 days before needing a recharge.
Now while this does not quite meet the advertised 30 days, it is impressive none the less.
I was a little disappointed that the toothbrush came only with a USB charger and not a USB power adapter. After all, who has USB ports in their bathroom?
App Functionality
One of the most touted features of the Oclean Air, is the smartphone connectivity. Unfortunately this is the main area of disappointment when it comes to this toothbrush.
For the this review I tested only the Android app which I found to be buggy and confusing. There is also an Apple app, and from reading the reviews on the app store, it looks to be just as frustrating.
My first annoyance with the app was the fact that I was forced to create an account with a verified email address before I could use it. As far as I could see, there was no way to skip the registration process so was forced to go through with it.
The setup wizard was quite easy to follow and connecting to the toothbrush easy, by answering some simple questions the app suggest some brushing plans for you and will upload them to the brush. But this is where the ease of use ends.
The main complaint I have with the app is that there seems to be no way to get live data from the toothbrush to your smartphone while brushing. All the data is downloaded after you finish brushing by pulling down to refresh the page (which was not at all obvious). Once you have refreshed the page, the data is downloaded to your phone and you can view the various stats and recommendations as provided by the app.
This data may be useful to you, depending on what you are interested in. But I really think that the ability to see live data such as brushing duration, pressure control and brushing plan stage would extremely helpful and much more useful than having it only available once brushing is finished.
The app also offers the ability to further customize your brushing plans, but the user interface to carry out these advanced actions is far from intuitive and quite hard to navigate.
One thing that I was impressed with was the fact that you do not need to be connected to your smartphone when cleaning to save your data. The toothbrush itself will save the data and then download it to your phone the next time you open the app.
Updating the firmware on the toothbrush is possible through the Oclean app, so it may be that they add the live data feature in the future.
The Oclean Air is not that much bigger and heavier than an old fashioned manual toothbrush and I can't envision anyone having trouble holding this device.
If you aren't used to electric tooth brushes then you may find the sensation of 40,000 brushes a minute a bit uncomfortable on your mouth and teeth to start with - but this quickly passes as your body gets used to it.
Other Features
There are a few other notable features that should be mentioned here.
The IPx7 rating means that the Oclean air is almost fully waterproof and can be easily cleaned. There is also no risk of water damage to the internals of the product.
If it is possible for a toothbrush to be stylish, then the Oclean Air is probably it. It would look great in any bathroom whether it's of an older style or more modern.
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