Grush iPhone App and Connected Toothbrush Make Brushing Fun for Kids

A smart toothbrush with a difference, Grush uses smartphone games to help children learn how to clean their teeth properly and to have fun doing it.

For many parents, cajoling the kids into the bathroom to get them to brush their teeth properly can be one of the most stressful moments of the morning. And while all kids will eventually learn to like brushing their teeth — or at least realize the benefits of a good smile and a toothache-free mouth — all the time they’re on this learning curve, damage is potentially being done.

The problem is, of course, that like so many things that are good for our health and well being, brushing your teeth is time-consuming and boring.

Enter Grush. What sets it apart from other WiFi-enabled sensor-laden toothbrushes coming to the market this year is that it is focused on making brushing fun, by turning it into a game: Grush is a portmanteau of “gaming toothbrush.”

So, although the brush is battery-powered and wireless, it’s manual. It works with a host of specially designed smartphone games in which adopting the right brushing motion in the right place will help complete a level.

So as well as being focused on getting kids to brush for a full two to three minutes, the games are designed to encourage the right type of brushing rotation and angle of attack. And of course the system can collect the data, and parents can choose to share it with the dentist. As for the phone needed to make everything work, it is popped into a waterproof holder and affixed to the bathroom mirror.

The project has just launched on Indiegogo and is looking to raise $50,000 in order to put the system into production in 2015. If it hits its target, a Grush — a brush, two replacement heads, a universal waterproof smartphone holder, two games, and a lifetime subscription to the cloud server where data is collected — will retail for $69.