Oral-B Genius X and Oral-B Gum and Sensitivity toothbrush review

If you don’t have a toothbrush with Bluetooth, you’re really missing out. Yes, that might sound a bit strange if you’ve never actually used an Oral-B Bluetooth-connected toothbrush, but I’m here to say that having your toothbrush track your daily brushing (or lack thereof) will be a true turning point in your oral health.

The Oral-B Genius X Power Toothbrush and the Oral-B Gum and Sensitivity Toothbrush are two very similar toothbrushes, but they have unique features that make each unique. Both use Bluetooth to sync with an app on your phone, and both will track your brushing and give you updates on how well you brushed, how long the brushing session was, and offer a bunch of tips for how you can improve your brushing.

The difference between the two boils down to Artificial Intelligence. It’s hard to believe a toothbrush can have AI, but the Oral-B Genius X does. It recognizes your brushing style and helps you correct poor brushing behaviours. The Oral-B Gum and Sensitivity toothbrush doesn’t have AI, but it does track pressure and lights up when you press too hard on your teeth or gums. It also has different brushing modes and will offer you suggestions based on your history of brushing sessions.

The Oral-B Genius X  and the Oral-B Gum and Sensitivity are pretty amazing toothbrushes, and I’m already imagining a life where I don’t get a lecture about brushing every time I visit my dentist. Here’s a look at the Oral-B Genius X and the Oral-B Gum and Sensitivity Bluetooth-connected toothbrushes.

Appearance and features

If you’ve never picked up a toothbrush and thought, “Now that is a good looking toothbrush,” you need to take a look at the Oral-B Genius X. It’s black, which is pretty cool in itself, but it also has a light-up LED base that changes colour. My 16 year old son took one look at it and told me he was keeping it. I told him he was going to have to pry it from my hand.

A few of the features on the Genius X include:

• AI assesses your brushing style and narrows in on what you’re doing wrong, giving you tips on brushing the correct way
• 6 cleaning modes includes Pro Clean, Massage, Sensitive, Tongue cleaning, and Whitening
• Personal coaching via the Oral-B app shows you what spots you’ve missed in your mouth
• Round head removes 100% more plaque than a manual toothbrush
• Bluetooth instantly syncs your brushing sessions whenever your phone is near and the app is open
• Two weeks of use based on a single battery charge
• Includes carrying case, three brush heads, and a charger. The carrying case has a USB port and power connector built in so you can charge your phone while charging the case

The Oral-B Gum and Sensitivity toothbrush has features that include:

• Three modes including Daily Clean, Gum Care Mode, and Sensitive Mode
• Pressure sensor will light up when you brush too hard
• In-handle timer will vibrate when you should move onto a different part of your mouth or when you can finish your brushing session
• Connects via Bluetooth to the Oral-B app to give you feedback on your brushing session
• Battery lasts two weeks on a single charge
• Includes carrying case, charger, and two brush heads

The Oral-B Gum and Sensitivity toothbrush has more of a standard power toothbrush style. It’s white with a light on the handle that will flash when you’re using too much pressure on your gums. That light is a great visual reminder, especially if you really like to scrub at your teeth.

Testing Oral-B Genius X and Oral-B Gum and Sensitivity toothbrush

Did you know you should brush your teeth for two minutes every time you pick up your toothbrush? My dentist always told me that I should sing Happy Birthday in my head while brushing so I know how long I should spend cleaning my teeth, but it doesn’t take two minutes to sing Happy Birthday. Singing Happy Birthday doesn’t let me know which teeth I missed either.

Both the Oral-B Genius X and the Oral-B Gum and Sensitivity will teach you how to brush your teeth the right way. They can do this thanks to a very comprehensive app and Bluetooth connectivity built into the brush.

The real difference between these two comes down to a few unique features and how you can make use the app.

Setting up Bluetooth toothbrushes

To set up your Oral-B Bluetooth toothbrush, you just need to download the Oral-B app and turn the toothbrush on. The app will quickly find your toothbrush, and when it does it will set up a profile that corresponds to that brush. Syncing is almost instant, but you have to have your phone with you. If you don’t you can still sync your brushing sessions, but it will happen the next time you open the app.

The Oral-B Genius X app screen looks very different than the Oral-B Gum and Sensitivity app screen. There’s a few of the same options, but the AI built into the Oral-B Genius X is really amazing when you consider you can look at a graphic of your mouth and see in real time which teeth you’ve missed.

Testing out the Oral-B Genius X toothbrush

The question of whether or not you need AI in your toothbrush will be answered the first time you use the Oral-B Genius X toothbrush. In my case, the answer is yes. Yes I do, and now that I’ve used it I’m looking at brushing my teeth in a whole new way.

When you start using the Oral-B Genius X you’ll be asked to choose a colour for your toothbrush LED light. You can change the colour whenever you’d like to. To see how you’re brushing in real time you’ll need to have the app open, and you can watch the screen as you brush to see your Genius X at work.

Coaching you to brush better

There are 6 modes you can use with this toothbrush, and you can tap on the handle of the Oral-B Genius X to switch between them. There’s Pro Clean if you just want to turn on the brush and clean, Sensitive if you don’t like a lot of pressure on your teeth, and Whitening if you want to work on having whiter teeth. The Genius X also has a tongue cleaning mode where you can clean your tongue.

When you tap Coaching in the Oral-B app you’ll see a white circle that moves as you brush your teeth. You can also choose to see a graphic of the inside of a mouth, and it shows a tooth by tooth summary of spots you’ve cleaned.

If you’re using too much pressure, the toothbrush will flash and it will tell you in the app that you’ve used excess pressure. The toothbrush will tell you when to move on to a new spot too.

The timer will run for two minutes, and during that time you’ll receive feedback on how you are brushing. Tips will flash on the screen that you can read while you brush. You don’t have to brush with the app open if you don’t want to. You can just sync your brushing session after.

The AI in this toothbrush has been trained by thousands of volunteers who have had their brushing style built into the programming, so it has the ability to figure out your brushing style and help you improve pretty quickly. It keeps a history of your brushing and improvements, and at the end of your brushing session it asks you if your gums are bleeding. Once you say yes or no, it gives you a brushing score.

As you brush, you’ll earn achievements based on how often you brush and floss. Because it gives you a brushing score, you can see how you improve over time. To see your full brushing history, all you have to do is tap the day, week, month, or year and you can see a summary.

When you want to travel you can just pack up your Oral-B Genius X and take it with you in the included carrying case. The carrying case has a USB port so you can use it as a phone charger too. I think that’s a great touch.

Testing the Oral-B Gum and Sensitivity toothbrush

While it doesn’t have AI, the Oral-B Gum and Sensitivity toothbrush is no slouch in the brushing department. Just like the Oral-B Genius X, it will monitor your brushing session in real time. It won’t show you your mouth tooth by tooth and highlight the areas it missed, but it will beep at you to move onto a new area, track your session for two minutes, and even has a quick news ticker you can read while you’re brushing.

What I loved about the Oral-B Gum and Sensitivity toothbrush was how it was simple to use, but extremely effective at cleaning your teeth. It has different modes for brushing. You access these modes by pushing the power button on the toothbrush. If you have sensitive teeth and gums you can choose Sensitive mode. If you want to specifically clean your gums, you use Gum Care Mode, and you can just tap it once to turn on Daily Clean mode.

The amount of pressure you put on your teeth and gums can contribute to irritation, and the Oral-B Gum and Sensitivity toothbrush takes care of that by flashing red on the handle when you’re using too much pressure. It surprised me how often I used pressure, and now that I’m lighter on the brush I’ve noticed my gums aren’t as sore after I brush.

The app keeps track of your brushing data, and just like the Genius X, it will stay with you as you brush in real time. It has a graphic that shows the timer winding down as you are brushing. If you don’t want to have the app open when you’re brushing, you can sync the next time you open the app and you’re in the same room as your toothbrush. Sometimes you’ll have to turn the toothbrush on to activate the Bluetooth, but overall syncing is very quick and easy.

Should you buy Oral-B Genius X and the Gum and Sensitivity toothbrushes?

There are so many reasons to choose a Bluetooth toothbrush for yourself and your family, and I 100% recommend that anyone interested in better oral health should pick these two up. I’d choose the Oral-B Genius X for myself and my teens, and the Oral-B Gum and Sensitivity for my younger sons.

I feel the Oral-B Genius X is the perfect brush to correct a lifetime of poor brushing habits, and it’s a great way to get older kids to start focusing on brushing and learn to do so properly. With younger kids, having a Bluetooth toothbrush like the Oral-B Gum and Sensitivity means you can keep track of their brushing and how well they are cleaning their teeth.

The best part of testing these toothbrushes out was how fun it was to track my kid’s brushing sessions. One night I asked my 10 year old son whether or not he brushed his teeth. He said yes, but I knew he didn’t spend a ton of time on it. I had him testing the Oral-B Gum and Sensitivity along with me by switching out the brush head, and when I opened up the app and showed him his stats, he was shocked I knew exactly how long he’d been brushing (or not brushing) for. Needless to say, he now brushes for the full two minutes. He also likes to see his data, and he said the next time we go to the dentist he’s going to show him my phone so he knows he’s been brushing.

The only time I had a glitch with the Oral-B Bluetooth toothbrushes was when I stopped brushing mid-session and didn’t complete 2 minutes. I was brushing with the Oral-B Genius X and I wanted to re-start my session. Although I closed off the app several times, it still reverted to my original session and wanted to start the timer at 1:30 where I left off. I had to wait for an hour to pass and try again before it cleared that session and let me start over.

I  think our dentist is going to be blown away when we next visit, because these toothbrushes have transformed the way we brush our teeth. You can find the Oral-B Genius X and the Oral-B Gum and Sensitivity toothbrushes right now on Best Buy.