- This is the Philips Sonicare DiamondClean Smart,
the most capable electric toothbrush
Sonicare have ever made.
I've been testing it for a few weeks now,
and I'm here to give you my thoughts,
feedback, and opinion on this brush.
(chimes)
Being as feature-rich as it is,
there's a lot to cover with this electric toothbrush.
So I'm going to run through a lot of these points
quite quickly.
But the good thing to know,
is there's a full written review
that goes into a lot more detail
over at electricteeth.co.uk.
So you'll notice first of all
that I have got the black coloured brush here.
There is also a grey version,
and there's also a slightly more
premium blue coloured option.
The box contents do differ slightly.
With the grey and the black, the box contents is the same.
With the blue you get the inclusion
of a brush head storage compartment.
You can get full details of the box contents
over at electricteeth.co.uk.
So I really like the overall fit and finish,
and design of the DiamondClean Smart.
It evolves from the DiamondClean,
but now with the Bluetooth connectivity,
and Smart features built into the brush.
It's got a really nice finish.
It looks really high end.
It looks like it's out of a designer magazine,
and is going to fit in the most modern of homes.
It's a smooth-touch coating here,
with really good build quality.
It feels solid and nice to the touch.
It's a little bit disappointing
there isn't more in the way of grip.
So if the brush is wet, or you've got limited movement
in your fingertips, that can be a bit of a down side to it.
But it looks a million dollars.
We've even got the colour matched brush head here,
so the black matches in nicely with the body.
We've got a power button,
we've got a brushing mode button, and intensity button.
So this brush has five cleaning modes on it.
It also has three brushing intensities,
which you can change by this button here.
It's got a built-in timer for two minutes,
and a quad pace that goes off at 30 second intervals
to tell you to change quadrant in your mouth.
And at the end of the two minute cycle,
the brush automatically turns off to alert you to the fact
that you've been brushing for the two minutes.
Now different cleaning modes
may last for different amounts of time.
The two minute applies to the standard clean mode,
but there are longer modes such as gum health on here
that actually last for three minutes and 20 seconds.
Now that has an impact on the battery that's built-in.
It's a lithium-ion battery.
Now on the box it's quoted that it'll last
up to 14 days, but in our testing we've actually found
it's lasted for up to 25 days
when you run it on the two minute clean
on a full intensity for two cleans a day.
So that's 100 minutes of usage time,
25 actual days of usage.
But if you're using the gum health mode all the time,
you may only get 14 days use from it.
Nonetheless, this is really impressive.
And if you're sticking to the standard clean mode,
it's going to be a lot better in the battery life
than a lot of the competition.
It's actually fairly lightweight as well.
It's not too heavy.
On the bottom here we've got a flat kind of plate.
That's for charging.
It goes into the charging glass.
It doesn't have the more traditional
sort of prong mechanism that goes in here.
And there's also a clever travel case,
which I'll come onto in a moment.
And also around the bottom here of this plate
is a pressure sensor.
Now this lights up purple when you're brushing too hard.
You see it can be damaging to the teeth
if you actually brush too hard.
And therefore you get an alert
via this pressure sensor that lights up purple.
When you relieve the pressure, the light will go off.
There's no option to actually customise the colour
of that light, or have it on all the time.
Now something that's really important to note
with the DiamondClean Smart and why it kind of has
the Smart name is the interchangeable brush heads.
So there are four new brush heads included
with the DiamondClean Smart.
They're available to purchase separately.
But the big difference here is that they have microchips
built into the actual brush head itself,
and that works in conjunction with the brush handle.
And when you put the brush head on,
it will automatically select
the best cleaning mode for that brush head.
Now you can override that and change the cleaning mode
and the intensity setting if you wish,
but it's a really novel feature.
So for example, the gum health brush head that is included
will automatically load the gum health cleaning mode.
It's a really small touch, but it's really neat.
It also goes a lot further than that
in that the brush knows how long a particular brush head
has been on the brush for, how you've been brushing with it,
and if it's time to replace it.
And if it is time to replace it,
it will actually light up a little icon here
on the brush handle to alert you to that fact.
Which I think is really good.
Now at the time of recording the only down side
is these individual brush heads are extremely expensive.
Now Sonicare tends to be a little bit more expensive
than their competitor Oral-B.
But at the time of recording,
a pack of four brush heads is 54 pounds.
That's 13 pound 50 each,
which is quite frankly astronomical.
I understand you've got to pay for innovation
and convenience, but that's a lot to actually pay.
So the clean that it offers is really good.
I couldn't fault it really.
My teeth feel clean after use.
It's an excellent brush.
Of course one of the big features here,
is the Bluetooth connectivity and Smart functionality.
So this does pair with your smartphone,
be that an Android or iOS.
And via the app you can see, in real-time,
your cleaning performance.
So it gives an onscreen visualisation of your teeth,
and where to position the brush,
where you could spend more time brushing.
It gives you tips, tricks, and also logs those cleans.
And you can see some important data about your brush,
how long each particular brush head has been used.
You can even set particular journeys
if you particularly want to achieve
whiter teeth or remove plaque.
There's lots of functionality built into the app,
and it works really well indeed.
It's actually a nice setup that Sonicare have got.
One of the down sides is there is no actual stand
for your smartphone, so if you want to see
the onscreen activity in the application,
you actually have to hold your smartphone in your hand.
It'd be nice to have sort of a desktop mount
or something like that.
Oral-B actually offer a mount
with many of their electric toothbrushes
that have Bluetooth connectivity.
Another really nice addition
that sets the Sonicare DiamondClean Smart apart
is the travel case.
We have it here.
It's finished in a soft touch leather
that opens up via magnets.
It's got the ability to hold the brush
and up to two brush heads in the box.
But what's really clever about this,
is the fact that it's got a USB cable built into it.
It's accessed by a removable panel
on the bottom of the brush.
And you've got 60 centimetre length of cable.
And what you can do is connect this to
a USB socket or charger
to actually charge the brush in the case.
You don't necessarily need the typical two-pin socket
that you might have in the bathroom.
Now although the brush does have a very good battery life,
and can be charged via the charging case,
it does take up to 24 hours to charge.
And you don't get an awful lot of feedback
via the battery icon down here.
It's a white bar.
It can be a little bit hard to see.
It will turn yellow when there's approximately
10% battery life left.
And it will bleep about six times
when there is no power left in the brush at all.
But it'd nice to be get a little bit more feedback,
maybe a percentage.
You can't even get that through the app.
It will tell you whether it's high, medium or low,
but no percentage feedback.
So this brush, at the time of recording,
which is just after launch,
actually has a retail price of 360 to 380 pounds
subject to which variant you buy.
Now there was a launch offer
that meant you could buy this for 260 pounds.
Whether that will continue or not, I don't know.
But we like to, at Electric Teeth,
work out the cost of owning this brush over time.
And we worked out even at the discounted price
of 260 pounds, when you consider the price
of the replacement brush heads you'll need
over a three year period,
it works out about 37 pence per day to own this brush.
Now that may not sound all that expensive,
but when you compare it to most other
electric toothbrushes they're at least half that
if not even under 10p for some brushes.
You're not going to get necessarily all the same
Smart features, but they are at least
half the price of this brush.
I really love what it offers; it's excellent.
I mean it feels great, and if money was no object
this would be my brush of choice.
It really pushes the innovation,
and allows you to have better oral healthcare via the app.
But you're paying an absolute premium for it.
And although we give this a five out of five rating
for the features and performance,
the price at the moment is certainly
what holds it back from us giving
a wholehearted recommendation.
So excellent if you can afford it,
but if your budget can't stretch that far,
there are much better and cost-effective
alternatives out there for you.
So there we have it, that's our review
of the Philips Sonicare DiamondClean Smart.
If you like this, be sure to give it a thumbs up.
If you want a lot more detail,
head over to electricteeth.co.uk
where you'll find a full written review
that accompanies this video.
Thanks for watching.
(chimes)