Update 8/9/17: Philips has finally combined all the best features of their best brushes into one flagship product.
We’ve been lamenting for years that Philips forked the top of their toothbrush line, but those days are behind us now. The Philips Sonicare Diamondclean Smart integrates the connected, app-based coaching from the Flexcare Platinum Connected into Philips’ best brush, the Diamondclean.
The new line starts at $200 for the 9300 package. The infamously cool/ridiculous charging cup is present and accounted for, though if you want the USB-charging travel case that should be standard on all brushes, you’ll have to bump up to the 9500 SKU. The 9700 offering just packs in more brush heads and an exclusive colorway.
Another thing we’re thrilled to see included once you bump up to the 9500 level is tongue care. We’ve been shouting from the rooftops about tongue scrapers forever, and it’s great to see Philips pushing tongue-specific brush heads and modes.
While your old brush heads will work with the new line, Philips has microchipped the Diamondclean Smart-branded heads so that 1) the brush knows what issues you’re focusing on and 2) the brush can tell you when to change a head, without the app. This set off some alarm bells for us, but we confirmed that this update will not result in brush head price hikes.
Philips’ Sonicare Flexcare line ranks among your favorites, and the app-supported Platinum Connected is the best smart toothbrush you can buy.
In all likelihood, you don’t brush your teeth often enough, long enough, or well enough, and you probably also don’t floss, or don’t floss correctly. Unfortunately, the myriad gimmicks found in electric toothbrushes these days do little to help with those issues. In fact, they don’t do much of anything.
I was one of the first people to try out a Philips Sonicare Flexcare Platinum Connected (a mouthful!), and have been brushing with it ever since. The Connected currently retails for around $170 without the UV Sanitizer (you don’t need it), and if you’re not using the app, the Connected is indistinguishable from any premium electric toothbrush.
It’s good then the app is amazing, and changes the toothbrushing game if you actually use it. The Connected app tracks where you’re brushing (and not brushing), how long you brush for, where you’re using too much force, and more. The app will also keep track of when you need to replace brush heads, and your dentist can even use the app to view your brushing data and make notes of where you need to make changes.
What the app can’t do is brush for you, and you’ll need to bring your phone within Bluetooth range of the toothbrush for it to work. $170 beats the hell out of a life of trips to the dentist, but if you’re already a great brusher and have few oral issues, you can get a great electric toothbrush for $20. I also need to flip the desk for a moment and complain about the Connected not coming with the charging cup from the Diamond Clean.
The Connected is compatible with the full suite of Sonicare brush heads, many of which are available through Amazon Subscribe and Save. The Connected also doesn’t support multiple users, something we hope to see fixed in an app update.
The Oral-B 7000, which I used for a while before I got the Connected, has more limited location detection features than the Connected. We’ll be getting the new Genius Pro 8000 in our mouths as soon as we can.