Oral-B Genius Pro 8000 Review

Design, usability, clean & general use

The mouth is the gateway to your body, through your mouth passes so much. A good oral hygiene routine can really affect you, your health and how you feel.

You probably have had a few occasions where your gums are sore and inflamed, you feel a bit run down and generally want to feel better with a more positive outlook.

You might be surprised how just 2 minutes of thorough cleaning twice a day can impact on this.

Investing in a good toothbrush certainly helps and whilst it does not have to be the Genius Pro 8000, this is one of the best available today.

There is a lot to this toothbrush. Who knew a toothbrush could be so complicated. Let me start by pointing out some key facts and features about the brush so that you understand what exactly the 8000 is offering and how it differs from many other brushes.

The 8000 was one of the best options available to us in the USA, and it still is very good. However, the newer Genius X is better, a more practical implementation of what the Genius 8000 offers.

There are a variety of cleaning modes, 6 in fact, and it comes with a good box contents, pressure sensor, multiple brush heads a travel case and built-in timer.

One feature that is heavily talked about and marketed by Oral-B is their app and the Bluetooth connectivity this brush offers.

It has been made available before but there have been significant improvements in the app and the technology built into the brush to have it work better.

The app uses the front facing camera on your smartphone to track the actual position of the Genius Pro 8000 inside your mouth when in use. It takes this data and displays this on the smartphone screen, giving instant feedback to highlight and direct you to where you have missed and where you need to clean next. It is almost like having a dentist or hygienist looking over your shoulder saying good, bad, brush for longer, you missed a bit.

As you might expect Oral-B know a thing to two about toothbrushes and have conducted many studies, with their Motion Tracking Study showing that up to 80% of people spend insufficient time brushing in at least one zone of their mouth and 60% of people either didn’t brush their back molars at all, or spent insufficient time brushing them, so you can see why the position detection technology exists.

Failing to brush your teeth properly can lead to all sorts of problems. It might start with a bit of swelling and inflammation and discomfort but over time this can get worse and require professional medical attention that can be painful and expensive.

This new brushing system is designed to help coach you and me to brush properly, in real-time.

Version 4.1 is the earliest version of the Oral-B app to support the Genius Pro 8000. The app will run on most Android or iOS devices. And uses Bluetooth on your phone and the Pro 8000 brush to pair. Your smartphone must have Bluetooth 4.0 as a minimum for compatibility.

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

The following video demonstrates the pairing process along with how to  use the Genius toothbrush:

The app is very comprehensive with lots of options, too many to go through completely in this review. It gives you all you need though to not only effectively brush your teeth, but to log the cleans and motivate you.

In 2018 ‘Gum Protection Technology’ or ‘Gum Guard’ as it is also referred to as was introduced.

Essentially, this is a software update to the smartphone app (available in version 6.0.1 of the app and above) that offers a special brushing journey, specifically designed to help improve your gum health over an 8 week period.

Bleeding gums are usually a sign of gum disease, which in many cases can be treated with a good oral hygiene routine at home.

The app is geared to help reduce and stop the bleeding of gums and help you turn your red, bleeding, sore and puffy gums to a nice healthy pink, bleed free gums.

You run through a series of screens, shown below that collect data and allow you or your dental professional to make custom adjustments to help achieve the end goal.

Naturally, Oral-B recommends selected products to help get the job done, but over the 8 week period the app will monitor, encourage and help you work towards achieving those healthier gums.

Setting up this Gum Guard mode within the app does disable some other cleaning modes, but you can end what Oral-B call a journey at any point if you like.

Your gums might be in good shape, but other areas of the mouth might need attention, this is where the  Professional Guidance feature allows you and your dental professional to work together.  Actually, share and discuss improvement areas and have your dentist program into the app extra brushing time and adjustments to your cleaning modes in your app.

There are features like integration with your calendar so you can see your day’s agenda, news, tips and tricks, so you stay interested when cleaning your teeth. Although for me, on occasions it can be a bit distracting from you ensuring you brush correctly and you may want to customize the settings to avoid some notifications.

Of course, the big part of this is the Position Detection Technology which uses the smartphone’s camera, the app and the brush to show on screen visually where you have and have not cleaned and shows you how to brush all zones in the mouth evenly and equally. Anyone of any age can use and learn from the feedback it gives.

Whilst a toothbrush plays a vital role in oral hygiene the routine and way in which you clean does too. This app makes it easy to see and represent in real-time just how good, or bad you are doing.

Challenges are presented to you allowing you to obtain a score based on how well you brush and improve your habits. Brush better and for longer and you ate on the road to success. Gain badges for achievements and share socially if you chose.

If you have perfected your technique you may have less to gain than others, but I was impressed at just how well the app works and monitors you clean, it still had areas where I could improve!

The app is deeper and more intelligent too. You can customize the brush and personal goals through the app gaining more suitable tips and advice along with product suggestions. For example, if you wish to whiten your teeth the app will advise and amend your routine to achieve the goal. You can choose from the Fresh Breath Gum Health, Plaque Fighter, Whitening and Ortho Care journeys.

Online backup is another feature. With an Oral-B account, you can never lose data and even share with compatible services for additional insights and benefits. As the app logs data over the days and weeks, it is impressive to see through the logs how your habits and brushing time changes.

Whilst you need to launch the app each time to use it the brush itself can store the data for up to 20 cleans meaning you do not need to always have the app to hand.

The connection and transfer are fairly reliable and I have yet to run into any real problems.

The app is not designed for or really geared for multiple users.  If you share a brush handle, to make the Oral-B app work for multiple users, you need to turn off the automatic syncing in the app settings and each user must use the app in real-time when they brush and have the app installed on different phones.  It works, but is not ideal at all.

Now I have spoken about all the magic that is the Oral-B app for tracking the clean, you need to hold your smartphone at face height to actually do the tracking. Easier said than done.

You could hold it in your hand, but unless you have some super power that means you can hold your phone perfectly positioned for 2+ minutes and clean your teeth, then the provided smartphone holder will come in use.

Best described as a smartphone holder you would use in a car and attach to the windscreen, used in the home and attached to a mirror!

It is a more clinical and perhaps suitable in white; more fitting for the bathroom scene. The suction cup will attach to mirrors and in some cases tiles. Do make sure it is secure before mounting your phone! There is a lever to lock it in place and unlock the hold along with a tab on the suction cup to further release the holder.

Whilst the holder has remained attached to my mirror and not fallen, I know many are concerned about it failing and an expensive smartphone being broken as a result.

The universal holder has the Oral-B logo on it and an arm that can be adjusted to fit many smartphones of varying sizes from 58mm wide through to 83mm wide. If you are using a Samsung Galaxy S series or an Apple iPhone 6S Plus even, it will fit. There is then a full 360 degree rotation option. For some phones, the button placement may interfere with the adjustable arms to do consider this when docking the phone.

It is a practical addition and can move with you. That said, you are likely to mount it and leave it as I assume you generally speaking brush your teeth in the same location each time.

The particularly house proud may not like the holder on show, but for the sake of your teeth and oral health let go any reservations you may have about what the neighbors or family members may think about a smartphone holder in the bathroom. I am wondering if there is another solution?

In my bathroom, I ended up with the suction cup being sort of in the middle of the mirror which was a bit annoying, due to my height and the mirror position. There is also the fact that if you share this brush with others, although they may have the app on their phone and may need to change the placement of the suction cup, thus making it cumbersome and a lot of effort.

It is also worth noting, whilst it is perfectly possible to share a brush handle, the handle can not differentiate between 2 users, so your data synced to the app will be wrong.

Even for me, even as someone writing about toothbrushes, I find it hard work and difficult to make set up the smartphone in the holder with the app, a bit of a chore and although it may take 15-30 seconds, that’s around 25% of the time I would spend cleaning my teeth.

It is not to say I have not found a routine, but I have not perfected it and am finding that I may use the app more in the evenings than the morning and probably in total using it 50-60% of the time.

But even with a commitment to use it in the evenings, the app needs to work and to a point it does, but I feel the position detection technology and the overall experience is not there yet that everyone will take the time to use it.

There are silly quirks, like the smartphone holder having full tilt and swivel capabilities, but the phone must be perfectly upright for the position detection to track, making the holder mobility almost redundant.

You need to be almost statute still for the app to track effectively.

I found it unable to accurately track where I was in the mouth. It was close but often registered in the wrong area. I think this was in part by me tilting my head, opening and closing my mouth more or less as I moved around my mouth.

Practice will allow me to get better but how much practice and how ‘still’ should I stay.

Much of this has been addressed with the new Oral-B Genius X however. No camera needed, all the technology is built into the brush handle.

As you brush there are fading blue sections on-screen that do act for encouragement and at times the app gets it right, encouraging you to spend more time here and there with a mix of praise and positive feedback.

I found myself at times, spending more time cleaning my teeth (this is a good thing to a point) to try and ensure I got all areas of the mouth. However, in doing so, due to the app not registering the areas quite correctly, I ended up spending more time in certain areas of the mouth than others. This resulted in the app thinking I had done a splendid job when I know I had not.

For those who know they have bad habits could use this combination for a few weeks to learn, understand and perfect their clean, but I see very few committing to this and using everyday.

Even with my desire to make it work, it has taken over a week to get close and I still don’t find it perfect. From that, I feel that for most the effort for the reward is too high.

This is perhaps not how Oral-B envisaged or planned the usage, but there is only advantages to be gained from using it occasionally than not at all. Even a few times a week it reminds you and helps perfect your brushing habits.

The good news is the brush store your clean history for the last 20 cleans so you can still retain a lot of data even if you do not use the app all that regularly. The best data will be for those who use the app all the time.

If you are to look closely at the Genius Pro 8000 there have been seen some improvements in comparison to the Pro 7000 which it supersedes.

Slimmed down a little in the profile to the older 7000, the Genius has a more uniform cylindrical body, similar to but larger than the handle size found on the Pro 100 and 3000.

Solid and premium feeling in hand the brush is 24cm tall and around 3cm wide and deep and weighs in at 140g.

The battery is fixed internally inside the handle and offers up to 12 days of battery life.

Unlike the Pro 7000 and even the Pro 1000 the Oral-B 8000 is available in Black color only (additional colors introduced October 2018).

The provided brush heads are white in color as is the smartphone holder, yet the smart travel case is Black. Would it not make sense to have it all in Black? If nothing else a color matched brush head?! This seems not to be any trouble for brands like Sonicare.

I think it detracts from the overall design a little.

I understand the smartphone holder being white as typically this is a common color in a bathroom.

Despite this small niggle the plastic and rubber construction of the brush feels and looks good. The plastic is resilient to the water, bacteria, and toothpaste that it will come into contact with.

A fully sealed brush it can be used in the shower, rinsed off under a tap, etc without issue. Avoid complete immersion in water, it’s not designed to survive such treatment.

The front of the brush has become a little busier compared to other brushes, but this is, in my opinion, a step in the right direction. Models like the 3000 have no way of clearly telling you which cleaning mode is active/selected but you can, sort of, with the 8000.

A break in the plastic body makes way for a tall, essentially rounded rectangle shaped panel. Within this is a similarly shaped yet smaller rubber panner in the upper third that has the power button and cleaning mode button.

Below this are icons for the different cleaning modes, well 5 of the 6 available anyway. Daily Clean, the default and go to cleaning mode has no icon. Why?! It is just odd and confusing as it looks like there are only 5 cleaning modes, not the available 6.

Press the power button once to power the brush on and press and hold for 2 seconds to turn the brush off. The button requires a firm push, meaning it is difficult to accidentally power on or off.

To change the cleaning mode it is a case of pressing the cleaning mode button (downward facing arrow) under the power button and continuing to press until the desired cleaning mode is reached and the indicator illuminated. Each cleaning mode is backlit with a white light when selected.

Gone is the blue light as seen on the Pro 7000 and now it is white light. I preferred the blue, but white is probably more appealing to all users in general.

To switch cleaning modes you must have the brush powered on and cannot press the cleaning mode button to cycle through them before powering the brush on. I see why this is but to change mode you need to look at the handle and need to do this before applying toothpaste and water to the brush head.

Models from other brands allow the cleaning mode to be selected and then the brush powered on.

In the lower third of this front panel is a Bluetooth icon, a battery icon made up of 3 bars and then finally the Oral-B and Braun logos.

On the rear of the brush is a contoured rubber grip which assists when holding the brush for grip, especially when wet.

The base of the brush is sealed but has a recess into which the prong on the charging stand fits to charge the brush.

On the neck of the brush is where you find the LED SmartRing which will illuminate red when the pressure sensor in the brush is activated and will at other times (when powered on) shine one of 12 different colors set by you through the Oral-B app.

If using the app at the same time as brushing, the screen on the app will also illuminate red and tell you to reduce the pressure should you apply too much to the teeth.

This sensor looks to reduce and stop gum and tissue abrasions that are caused by excessive pressure application when brushing the teeth. A fairly gentle glide across the tooth surfaces is all that is needed, with some manual brush users applying up to 2 times the amount of required pressure.

The brush will automatically reduce the head speed and stop the pulsation until the pressure is reduced. Triple detection and alerts should quickly make you aware when you are brushing too hard.

There is the pressure sensor light, the sound of the motor and the message within the app to tell you to change that rushing approach.

Although not new to Oral-B toothbrushes, a noteworthy and easily overlooked design feature is the rounded brush head. Small and compact you can generally get the brush head into all the hard to reach areas of the mouth, which is not as possible with some other brush heads shaped differently.

The brush heads provided with the Genius Pro 8000, use an oscillating rotating and pulsating motion as shown in the following animated image.

This is a proprietary technology that helps clean tooth by tooth reaching areas that are often missed.

The dynamic 3D movement helps adapt to your teeth as it oscillates, rotates and pulsates to break up and remove up to 100% more plaque than a manual toothbrush.

3 brush heads are supplied with the Oral-B 8000. They are just 3 or a larger range of available heads. The interchangeable design makes it easy to swap them out every 3 months or when you want to use a specific head for a specific cleaning mode (although any cleaning mode can be used with any brush head).

Remember to replace your brush head at least once every 3 months or 90 days if not sooner. You can have the app remind you of this, or why not set up a scheduled delivery through Amazon?

An Oral-B brush head will fade in color as it ages giving you another visual indicator that it is time to replace the brush head.

The 6 cleaning modes available on the 8000 are:

• Daily Clean
• Gum Care
• Sensitive
• Whitening
• Pro-Clean
• Tongue Cleaner

I cover all of these in more detail in this post on Oral-B cleaning modes.

All these modes, with the exception of Pro Clean are standard cleaning modes found on previous/other Oral-B models, although not all have every mode.

The Pro-Clean mode replaces what was known as Deep Clean mode that is available on the Pro 7000.

Pro-Clean provides an intense clean feeling with 3,000 more movements per minute than the more standard Daily Clean mode.

You can choose any cleaning mode you like based on your preference.

Typically the cleaning modes last for 2 minutes each and this ties in with what is recommended by dentists. There is a built-in timer which has 2 modes, the standard 2 minute or professional.

With the 2 minute timer it signals with a long stuttering sound and a flashing light of the smart ring that the 2 minute brushing time has come to an end.

With the professional mode (came preset out of the box) the quadpacer on the Oral-B genius toothbrush kicks in.

A short stuttering sound and flashing light of the Smart Ring at 30 second intervals takes place to alert you to move to the next quadrant of your mouth. A long stuttering sound and flashing light indicates the end of the professionally recommended 2 minute clean.

The timer memorizes the elapsed brushing time, even when the handle is briefly switched off during brushing. Anything longer than 30 seconds paused and the timer resets

You can change which timer profile you have enabled by following the direction in the manual.

There is no denying my teeth always feel cleaner with an electric toothbrush clean than that of a manual brush and the Genius will remove up to 100% more plaque than a manual brush.

Just as important as actually cleaning twice a day for 2 minutes is how you clean the teeth. Follow this guide for the best approach to deliver the most effective results.

Included in the box with the Genius is a charging stand, but also a molded piece of plastic complete with a lid which offers a home to 4 additional brush heads. This protects them from dirt and dust and vies a safe place to keep them. Ideal if you use different brush heads or have brush heads for different users.

The charging stand fits alongside this brush head storage compartment for a neat arrangement on a shelf or work surface. The charger connects to the socket and supports 110-130v.

When the brush requires a charge the last battery bar within the translucent battery icon on the lower third of the brush handle will flash red. It will then light up when charging.

If the power in the handle is extremely low, the battery will require at least a 30 minute charge.

The travel case included with the Genius Pro 8000 is branded and can be considered smart. Rather than a cheap yet functional piece of molded plastic, the travel case here is much more capable.

Larger than I expected the case is well designed and color matched to the brush. Soft touch material all round, a large plastic release button to open it up with gloss plastic end caps to the case.

Containing a USB port, this case not only allows the 8000 and up to 2 brush heads to be protected during travel, it also allows the brush to be charged in the case.

This means you do not need to take the charging dock with you if you feel you will need to charge your brush whilst traveling.

In the box comes a multi-voltage (100-240v) power adapter which connects to the proprietary port on the case and charges the Genius Pro 8000.

Connect the USB charge cable for your smartphone to it and you can not only charge the brush but your phone too, when the mains power adapter is connected to the case.

You may think why or how silly, but this means if going away you need to take 1 power adapter and a USB cable rather than 2 power adapters and a docking station. Thumbs up all round from us here at Electric Teeth.

If I were to get critical this isn’t a great way to charge your phone up fast, but ideal for overnight and a great reminder to use the Oral-B app (as if you would forget)!

And when you do use the app, the case cover has a clip designed to hold your smartphone in place too! Pretty nifty. If your phone is no thicker than 12mm.

It would have also been great if the case used a more standard Micro USB charger, rather than a proprietary connector. This would mean that if you misplaced your Oral-B power adapter it would be easy to find an alternative. I do also think the 2 pin configuration is misjudged considering it is more likely that you will charge the brush via traditional sockets when traveling than from the standard shaver socket.

I should also be clear in that there is no battery built into the case it will not charge the brush handle unless mains power is connected.

An accessory I loved that comes provided with the Pro 7000 but not the Genius is the Smart Wireless Guide. Essentially a portable clock and timer that shows your cleaning mode, how well you are brushing (via a smiley or sad face and star rating) and how long you have been brushing for.

Powered by 2 AA batteries it could sit on a shelf or attach to a wall with an adhesive pad and was a small unobtrusive addition to the kit that worked well. It does nothing more than what the app does, but I believe a very convenient solution to encourage better cleaning when the app is not in use. Sadly it is not included with the Genius.

As a molded brush with virtually an all in one design, maintenance is not simple on this brush other than a rinse and a wipe. However, it should not really be required. Should something go wrong, there is as standard a 24 month warranty is provided with the Genius Pro 8000. This covers the battery too.