Oral-B Guide Review

Design, usability, clean & general use

The Oral-B Guide smart brushing system comes packaged in a fairly conventional box that clearly highlights the fact that Alexa is built-in and that included is a Genius toothbrush.

As I mention in the section ‘What is Oral-B Sense & Guide?’ unless you are very familiar with Oral-B brushes, highlighting that this is a Genius toothbrush probably does very little, if anything, it just confuses.

In short, it is one of the top of the line models Oral-B offers.

A card inlay inside the box calls out key features and gives a QR code to scan to download the app.

There isn’t too much plastic which is good to see, but there is also a lack of useful accessories.

I have listed what you get in the box above, but the 2 main parts of interest are the handle and the smart charging stand.

The handle is not quite a perfect cylinder shape. It is slightly thinner to the rear than it is to the front, which helps give a comfortable handle shape to hold onto.

At the top of the handle is the metal shaft to which the interchangeable brush heads slide on and off, more on those shortly.

Below this is the customisable LED SmartRing come pressure sensor.

The 360 degree ring can be lit 1 of 8 colors of your choosing.  It remains this color when the brush is in use, unless the pressure sensor is activated, at which point the light turns to red.

The pressure sensor helps prevent you or me from doing lasting damage to the teeth.  You don’t need to scrub the teeth with lots of force.  So if the brush detects too much pressure, the system alerts you by turning on the light, but also slowing the brush motor and changing the sound the brush produces.

You will also see the lights on the smart charging base lit red too.

Once the pressure is relieved, the light goes out and the motor returns to full speed.

Running down the length of the handle is a long rounded rectangle panel that is silver/platinum colored.  Within this are the main controls and icons.

In the upper third of the panel is a similarly shaped yet smaller rubber panner that is home to 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.  Continue to press this until the desired cleaning mode is reached and the indicator illuminated. Each cleaning mode is backlit with a white light when selected.

You must turn the brush on before being able to change the cleaning mode.

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 white 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.

The Genius toothbrush is water resistant, so a rinse under the tap, exposure to moisture such as toothpaste and saliva is all fine.

Sealed inside the handle is the rechargeable lithium-ion battery and the electronics that make this toothbrush so capable.

The Genius toothbrush cleans the teeth exceptionally well.  It is clinically proven and has been awarded the American Dental Association’s seal of acceptance.  Part of this is thanks to the small round, brush heads that Oral-B use.

Supplied with the Oral-B Guide is just 1 x CrossAction brush head.  This is just one of a range of heads available from Oral-B.  Our guide to Oral-B brush heads explains more should you care to take a look.

These heads offer an oscillating rotating and pulsating motion.  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.

I certainly have no complaints on how well it cleans the teeth.

Remember to replace your brush head at least once every 3 months or 90 days if not sooner. 

Blue bristles on 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 explain how each of these differ in detail in this post on Oral-B cleaning modes.

Whilst Daily Clean is the default mode, you can choose any cleaning mode you like based on your preference.

As I mentioned above, icons, rather than the cleaning mode names depict each on the handle.  If you want to select the whitening mode, you need to remember that it is the diamond icon on the handle that is whitening mode.

Typically each cleaning mode lasts for 2 minutes, the time dentists recommend brushing for.

The Genius has a professional 2 minute timer and 30 second pacer (quadpacer) built-in.  

The principle behind tooth brushing is that you spend 2 minutes brushing the teeth in total, this includes all surfaces.

To ensure you give equal attention to the teeth, you spend 30 seconds cleaning each quadrant of the mouth.  Those quadrants are, upper right, upper left, lower right and lower left.

When you have brushed all 4 quadrants for 30 seconds each, you will have brushed for a total of 120 seconds/2 minutes.

Because the Genius has a timer and pacer built-in, what happens is that as soon as you turn on the toothbrush, the 2 minute timer is activated.  As 30 seconds passes a short stuttering sound is heard, the brushing sensation changes and the Smart Ringe flashes.

This is your alert to move from one quadrant to another. This is repeated 3 times.  

On the 4th occasion (2 minutes total brushing time) a long stuttering sound and flashing light indicates the end of the recommended 2 minute clean.  You can then turn the brush off.

Should you stop brushing at any point, turning the brush off, but then resuming within 30 seconds the brush will resume the timer.

Statistics tell us that the average American brushes for 45-70 seconds per day.  This is less than half the recommended total daily brushing time.

Features like the timer and pacer are designed to help encourage you and me to surpass these stats and brush for 2 minutes twice a day.

The inclusion of Oral-B Sense into the Guide, is essentially where things are taken to a new level to try and help us achieve the goal of 2 minutes of brushing.

The charging stand not only recharges the toothbrush, but it shows you via lights on the edge the quadrant of the mouth you should be cleaning.

Turn the brush on and a white light will shine in the upper right edge of the stand.  

After 30 seconds, a second white light will shine in the lower right edge, then the bottom left edge after 60 seconds and the upper left edge after 90 seconds.

When 2 minutes have passed all 4 will flash green.

These lights illuminate/change at the same time you get the pauses in the brush head motion on the toothbrush.

The very intention of these is that they act as very clear visual clues as to how long you have been brushing for.

A Bluetooth connection between the toothbrush and the charging stand keeps the two in sync.

The lights will even change to red, like the SmartRing on the handle to alert you when you are using too much force.

As you brush, the toothbrush handle is collecting data, like many smart toothbrushes today.  

Unique to the Oral-B Guide and Oral-B Sense enabled products is the way in which brushing data is then handled.

Bluetooth sends the data to the smart charging stand.  The stand connects to the wireless (WiFi) connection in your home.  It then securely sends this data to Oral-B’s cloud services, once you have signed up for an Oral-B connect account via the smartphone application.

For the more technically advanced, do be aware, the Oral-B Guide supports 2.4GHz WiFi only. Given this is a product launched in 2020, this is somewhat disappointing.

The Connect app on your smartphone is then sent this data, providing the smartphone is connected to the internet.

Unlike all other Oral-B toothbrushes, there is no Bluetooth connection between the phone and the toothbrush.  With Sense, the connection is between the toothbrush and the stand.

This means you do not have to rely on having your smartphone nearby when brushing your teeth.

It also means the data is not shared in real time.  You can’t see via the app how well you are brushing at that specific moment like you can with the likes of the Oral-B iO.

Oral-B Connect is the free app that you need installed on your device.  It can be downloaded from the Apple or Google app stores.

Notifications will be generated by the app when appropriate to provide any useful tips, tricks and feedback necessary.

By signing up for an Oral-B Connect account (essential for this to function), you will too receive a number of introductory emails that are designed to encourage and educate.  They are a nice touch, and are particularly useful to new electric toothbrush users.  I do think there is scope for improvement in these though. Most particularly in the weekly summary emails which calculated that I had brushed for a total of 0:00 minutes each week during my testing period…not so!

The app logs all the brushing data so you have a record of this.  You can then review your performance yourself or share with dental health professionals.  It is all very clever.

I could talk in detail about the Connect app, but this would make the review very long. Screenshots shared below demonstrate a lot of the detail.

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The whole principle of Sense and how it operates is commendable.  It does make you think and review your brushing in a way you might not have previously.

I think there is scope for improvement however. I don’t really know why Oral-B has created a whole new ‘Oral-B Connect’ app, when it probably could have just been merged into the default ‘Oral-B’ app.  2 apps on the relevant app stores is confusing. I suspect it is to do with the way in which the data is shared, via WiFi rather than Bluetooth.

Ultimately, I really do like the implementation of Oral-B Sense. 

I think it is engaging and requires less compliance like other attempts by Oral-B.  It is easier to switch to this approach than it might be to the setup used by the Genius X for example.

The bold lights on the charging stand are surprisingly obvious and really help encourage longer brushing at a glance.

Most will like and benefit from the smart charging stand. It is the app that will divide most.

It does too surprise and confuse me slightly why this approach?

Oral-B have multiple approaches, each with their own subtle differences across their range of Bluetooth devices.

The Oral-B Pro 3000 and Pro 5000 have a different approach to the existing Genius Pro 8000.

Both of these are different to the Genius X.  And then there is the Oral-B iO which is implemented slightly differently again…..!

Of course, where the Guide is truly unique is that this smart charging stand actually has a speaker built-in and is equipped with Amazon Alexa.

This means that you can be brushing your teeth and getting updates such as the news, playing your favorite music, controlling your smart home, setting reminders and much more.

It certainly works.

The speaker functionality of the Guide is essentially the same as an Amazon Echo dot might be.  The difference here is this is built into the stand that recharges your toothbrush.

The speaker quality is satisfactory for what you need it to do.  You have the choice of 12 different volume settings (controlled via the stand itself) and the loudest is good enough to be heard behind the noise of the Genius brush itself. 

I think using this as part of your morning routine is where you will get most value.

It is certainly one of the most convenient and cheapest solutions to get such in your bathroom, particularly when you consider this is water resistant, unlike most other alexa enabled speakers.

It doesn’t work only when using your toothbrush, you can benefit from Alexa at any point providing the stand is plugged in.

Of course there is a microphone built-in, but you can disable this as and when you like via a button press.

It is a novel idea.  Not everyone will need or want this in their bathroom, but if you think you could benefit from it, the Oral-B Guide is the only product to offer such.

For what could be considered a more premium brush, you don’t get many extras in the box.

Unlike the standard Genius 8000, there is no travel charging case included in the box with the Guide.  In fact there is no travel case at all.  This is a real shame and a bit of an oversight in my opinion. 

There is nothing stopping you taking the Oral-B Guide with you when you travel, be that the handle only or the charging stand also.  You will just need to find your own solution to protect it.

Rather disappointingly just 1 single brush head is provided.  It would be nice to have at least 2, if not 4 in the box for this price.

Being an Amazon exclusive product, there is the option to subscribe to brush head refill deliveries with Amazon dash replacement services (DRS) so you get them just when you need them.

Make no mistake about it, the Oral-B Guide solution is a pleasure to use on a daily basis.

It is very capable, if a bit over engineered for some.

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 to resolve.

What Oral-B has tried to do is encourage and educate in an intelligent way that doesn’t nag or really get in the way. And because the Sense technology is core to the charging stand, there is that constant reminder that many need to brush for the right amount of time. It tries to stop oral health becoming an expensive problem.