Oral-B Smart 5 5000 Review

Design, usability, clean & general use

What makes a brush appealing to one person, might not be what another person finds nice to look at or hold.

For example, Philips Sonicare DiamondClean is a much more minimalistic looking toothbrush in my opinion than the Smart 5 5000.

However, personally as clean looking as they are, I like the 5000 as in my mind, it is just a touch more practical.

With the 5000, running down the handle is a piece of soft touch rubber.

It is white in colour, but it is grippy and has a series of ridges around the power button that help hold and guide you to the controls of the brush.

The DiamondClean does not have this.

On the back of the handle is a harsher but still practical, series of grips. Raised plastic notches, give the fingers sticking points on the upper half of the handle.

For me, these are small practicalities that make a big difference in everyday life.

A brush can look the part, but if you feel uneasy using it what’s the point?!

Now the standard Smart 5 5000 does look very clinical in all white. Aside from the white rubber grip, the plastic body is a gloss white too.

Like the models below it in the range, the button and icon layout is identical.

Positioned almost at the top of the handle is a power button that is white in colour with a grey/black power icon on it.  This icon helps it stand out against all the white. It has a nice resistance when pressed.  Not too soft that it can be accidentally activated, but not too firm it is difficult to press.

Above and below this power button are contours in the rubber that drive the eye and the finger/thumb to it.

The lower third of this Oral-B smart toothbrush handle has the Bluetooth, Oral-B and Braun logo in grey/black as well as a battery and charging icon below them.

These icons are transparent and have an LED light behind them that illuminate at certain times.

There are 2 parts to the brush, the handle I have been describing, that has all the clever bits of technology in, and the detachable brush head.

Sealed inside, these parts are protected from water and moisture.  This means that the brush is water resistant and can be rinsed under a tap and used in a shower.

I would always advise on avoiding submerging the brush below water, for example in a bath.

On the very bottom of the brush handle is a recess, into which the pin on the charging stand connects to.

Right at the top of the brush handle is a metal prong, this is what the brush head connects to and feeds the power from the brush motor.

Just below this metal prong on the rear side of the handle is the pressure sensor.

A plastic panel that is a red/orange colour, it sweeps up over and down the neck of the handle.

When you brush, sensors within the brush detect if you are being a little firm and applying too much force to your teeth.  When it detects this, it activates the pressure sensor.

This means that the LED sat behind the panel lights up so you notice the bright red light.

You should also notice that the speed of the brush head will decrease and the sound of the motor will change.  This is nothing to worry about.  It is programmed to do this, until such time as the pressure is relieved.

It does this to protect you.  You see, applying too much pressure when brushing is a big issue and it causes more damage than you might think.  A brush need only skim the surface of the tooth and gums.

Just relieve the pressure and the light will go out and the motor power up again.

Don’t worry if you activate it often, over time you will learn and avoid doing lasting damage to your teeth.

One of the main appeals of the Smart 5 is the multiple cleaning modes that it offers.

It offers 5 in total.

They are:

• Daily Clean
• Pro Clean
• Sensitive
• Whitening
• Gum Care

Remember the order of these, you will need to refer to this in a moment.

Each mode works slightly differently, with differing levels of oscillations, rotations and pulsations to achieve different cleaning effects on the teeth.

For example, Sensitive mode reduces the number of movements to be softer on the teeth and gums.

You can find much more detail on each mode and how they compare in our cleaning modes explanation.

To activate each cleaning mode, you have to use the power button on the front of the brush.

Remember the list above, this is the order of the cleaning modes.

Press the power button once to turn it on.  Daily Clean mode will launch.

Press it again to change the mode to Pro Clean.

Press it a third time to activate Sensitive mode.

A fourth time to get whitening and a sixth for Gum Care.

A seventh and final time will turn the brush off.

You can press and hold the button for 2 seconds at any point to power it off.

Now, I don’t know if you have spotted the 2 issues I have.

The first is that to change to any of the cleaning modes, you first have to power the brush on and the second is you need to remember the order.

I suspect over time you will learn this, but where can you refer to this order?

The manual is the only place.  Thus for some time, you are probably going to need to keep this nearby until you are proficient with the order.

It would be nice to have another button and/or a way of selecting the mode prior to actually turning the brush on.  Sadly this is not the case.

Do remember to put the brush in your mouth before powering on and changing modes otherwise the toothpaste might go flying across the room.

The more premium Genius AI has a benefit in that the brush handle has icons that show the cleaning mode selected.  However, you still need to switch the brush on to change mode.

One other difference is that the AI will remember the last cleaning mode used and will launch back into that, but the 5000 will not.

This means if you want to use the Gum Care mode most often on the Smart 5, it is a total of 6 times before you are ready to brush.

A bit of a negative, maybe the 5000 can win you back with the fact that when you are using it, it is very good and your teeth and gums do feel good post clean.

The handle offers some 16 days of battery life and is lightweight.

When the battery built into the brush begins to deplete, the charging icon will flash Red.

You do not get anything more detailed from the handle.

It would be nice if you had a green light to suggest a good amount of remaining charge or yellow for less than 50% for example, but no such luck.

Even better would be a little LED display that showed the exact battery percentage (%).  Or in the case of the Smart 5, the app picked up the information.

The battery icon will flash green when the brush is on charge.

As I previously mentioned, the brush heads are interchangeable on the Smart 5.  In the box, you do get 3 different styles of heads.

Each brush head can actually be used with any of the cleaning modes, but some heads work best with specific modes.  For example, the 3D White head will work best with the Whitening mode.

To fit or remove the brush head simply align the metal with the hole in the shaft of the brush head and push the two together until you hear and feel them clip into place.

Pull the two apart to release them.

It is important for your oral health to replace your toothbrush head every 3 months or sooner if your bristles are frayed.

Official Oral-B brush heads are recommended and they all have something known as indicator bristles.  These are blue coloured bristles that will over a 3 month period gradually discolour.

When they are a very pale blue or white it is time to change.  It is a clever reminder system.

The interchangeable nature of the brush heads does mean you could use other brands brush heads, such as Molarclean for example.

Do be aware fading bristles are not necessarily a feature of other brands and Oral-B themselves do not encourage use of alternatives.  However, there is money to be saved.

There are 6 main styles of brush head:

• CrossAction
• FlossAction
• 3D White
• Sensitive
• Gum Care
• Precision Clean

Want to know the differences in detail? Read our comparison of Oral-B brush heads.

All of the brush heads provide a good clean.  My personal favourite for everyday use is the CrossAction head.

Despite being noisier than most other brands, I personally prefer the clean offered by Oral-B.  It feels like a deeper clean.

Studies have suggested Oral-B’s oscillating and rotating technology is superior, but there are studies that side with Sonicare.  It’s more about what you prefer.  Either way, you will get a better clean than a manual brush.

Most cleaning modes on this brush for 2 minutes.

Hopefully, you know that the recommended brushing time is 2 minutes, twice a day.

If you didn’t or are guilty of not brushing for as long as you should, the Smart 5 can help in 2 ways.

The first is the built-in timer and quadpacer.

Imagine your mouth broken up into 4 sections. Upper right, upper left, lower right and lower left.

You should spend 30 seconds cleaning each section.  The pacer helps you keep an even brushing time on these 4 sections.

At 30 second intervals, the brush will provide an audible warning via a slight pause in the brush motor at to tell you to change quadrant. Once the 2 minutes are up 3 brief pauses in the brush motor will be heard and felt.

Brushing for the full 2 minutes is very important, but just as important, if not more so, is the right technique. Make sure you learn how to clean your teeth properly.

The second way in which it helps is through the more powerful Bluetooth connectivity and smartphone app.

It is by no means a new feature, it has been on brushes since the Oral-B Pro 6000, but in the last 18 months or so it has undergone a good deal of improvement.

It is now found on more brushes as there is a greater call for ‘Smart’ and ‘Connected’ products.

The 5000 is an Oral-B smart toothbrush.

The idea behind this connectivity is to essentially be a little like having a dentist or hygienist looking over your shoulder saying good, bad, brush for longer, you missed a bit.  It is about education for better cleaning rather than telling you that you have got it all wrong.

To take advantage of this, you need an Android or iOS smartphone and Bluetooth 4.0 on your phone.

Download the appropriate app and install it on your phone.

You can download from iTunes here and Google Play Store here.

As good as the app is, I feel this is too one of the negatives as some will not see the point of using it or find it more hassle than it’s worth.  You don’t have to if you don’t want to.

If you feel you won’t use it, you may want to consider if the Smart 5 is for you, you will be paying for a feature you won’t necessarily use.

It takes a bit of practice to get in a routine of having your phone with you when brushing.  If you forget it or don’t have it to hand, don’t worry.  The handle will store the data for the last 20 cleans and sync this to the app, the next time it connects.

The app is very comprehensive with lots of options. It gives you all you need though to not only effectively brush your teeth, but to log the cleans and motivate you.

There are features like integration with your calendar so you can see your days’ agenda, news, tips and tricks, so you stay interested when cleaning your teeth.

At times I have found these distracting, you may want to customise the settings to avoid some notifications.

You can also set personalised modes which can disable cleaning modes on the brush handle too.

Sadly the app does not show the battery power of the brush handle.

The main feature of the app is the on-screen timer and guide that shows you where to brush and how well you have brushed.

Because brush heads are interchangeable it is possible to extend the value of a toothbrush by sharing the handle amongst a number of users.

However, if each user intends to use the Bluetooth feature, then it is essentially necessary that each user has their own handle.  The 5000 cannot handle multiple user tracking (there is an option, but its far from ideal).

This one user principle applies to all Bluetooth enabled brushes I have tested to date.

As a result, this is one of the reasons why the dual handle package exists as you get 2 brush handles, meaning 2 users can now track their cleans.  

Extra items that come in the box with both the Smart 5 5000 a charging stand and brush head storage compartment.

The charging stand is fairly self explanatory, but I explain more about this in the battery section of the review.

As 3 brush heads are included with the 5000, the provided storage compartment holds up to 4.

Complete with a lid, it protects the heads from splashes but allows airflow around them to allow them to dry and stop bacteria buildup.

The way in which this compartment has been moulded is such that it fits perfectly around the charging stand, to create a kind of desktop home if you like for the brush handle and heads.

Rather annoyingly there is no travel case included. It would be a very welcomed addition, if you are going away for a night or maybe even a week. I really think Oral-B have missed a trick here.

They could too have included some form of stand for a smartphone.

It need not be a suction cup style supplied with the Genius 8000 or 9000, but a countertop option would have been a nice alternative.

Not including one means you basically have to hold your smartphone with you in the bathroom or perch it on a countertop somewhere if you want to be able to view the onscreen timer.

In the unlikely event, something goes wrong, there is as standard a 24 month warranty is provided with the 5000.  This covers the battery too.  

One final thing to be aware of is that there is a 180 day money back guarantee.  It is essentially like a trial, whereby you can buy and try the Oral-B smart toothbrush.  Should you not like it you can return it for a refund.  This is particularly useful if you are unsure whether an electric toothbrush is for you.