Hello, This is Your Toothbrush Speaking

Gaming dental hygiene is now a thing.

The Internet of Things leverages chip technology, data analytics, and the cloud to make machines that not only work for us, but know us. A toothbrush called Grush extends the inroads of IoT technology into our daily lives.

Grush makes a children’s toothbrush that connects to both a mobile game for kids and a dashboard for parents, in a bid to ensure youngsters learn the proper way to clean their teeth.

Why Brushing Is a Hard Habit to Teach

Getting children to brush properly, and for long enough, is a familiar struggle for many parents. Yet the habit matters: the American Dental Association recommends brushing twice a day with a soft-bristled brush, and replacing the brush every three or four months.

Tooth decay can start as soon as a child has teeth. The U.S. National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research notes that people of all ages can get tooth decay, and that young children are at risk of a severe form called early childhood caries. Getting the routine right early is one of the simplest ways to prevent problems later.

That’s the gap Grush set out to fill: turn a chore children resist into a game they want to play, and give parents a way to see whether it’s actually happening.

How Grush Works

An embedded Intel chip in the toothbrush collects dates, times, accuracy, duration and other usage data. That information is relayed to IBM Bluemix via a JavaScript runtime, allowing the toothbrush, the mobile game app and the parental dashboard to work together in real time.

The Watson Analytics platform interprets the data and determines whether the user is about to stop brushing before all the teeth have been properly cleaned. If that’s the case, Grush will alert the kid (and his or her parents) that there’s more work to do.

This is what makes Grush an Internet of Things product rather than just a toothbrush with a timer. The brush is only one part of the system. The sensors gather the data, the cloud stores and analyzes it, and the apps turn the results into something useful: a game score for the child, and a progress report for the parent.

From Smart Camp to the Global Entrepreneur Program

Grush and IBM first connected in 2014 at Smart Camp, where the fledgling IoT startup impressed judges. Grush later joined IBM’s Global Entrepreneur program, where the startup has used Bluemix to develop and scale its cloud-based smart toothbrush and smartphone app.

Using the IBM Cloud Architecture Center allowed Grush to refer to IoT, data analytics and mobile material and expertise as it worked, skipping some of the trial-and-error process in developing its interactive device.

For a small hardware startup, that kind of support is valuable. Building a connected device means getting hardware, firmware, mobile apps and cloud services all working together, and each one is a specialty of its own. Reference designs and expert help can save months.

The platform names have changed since. In late 2017, IBM retired the Bluemix brand, and its services now sit under the IBM Cloud name.

Kids, Data and Trust

A connected toothbrush for children raises a question that every family IoT product faces: what happens to the data? A brushing log seems harmless, but it’s still information about a child’s daily routine, collected by a company and stored in the cloud.

In the United States, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) sets rules for online services that collect personal information from children under 13, including getting verifiable consent from a parent. Any company building smart products for kids has to design with rules like these in mind from the start, and parents are right to read the privacy policy before handing over the brush.

The Internet of Things Since 2016

When Grush was getting started, a connected toothbrush still felt novel. Since then, connected devices have become ordinary. IoT Analytics, a market research firm, estimates that the number of connected IoT devices reached 18.5 billion in 2024, and expects it to grow to 21.1 billion in 2025 and 39 billion by 2030.

As those numbers climb, the products that last are usually the ones that solve a real, everyday problem, like getting a seven-year-old to brush properly, rather than adding a chip for its own sake.