Resetting the timer in my toothbrush
nonnullish.pages.dev
nonnullish.pages.dev
I actually use a toothpaste with low RDA (abrasiveness) of 40-48. (VITIS)
List of RDA values: https://www.familydentisttree.com/abrasive-toothpaste-whats-...
People's preferences, habits and uses vary a lot. Since you are asking for an advice, I think you fit the stereotypical user that would never want to reset the counter.
For my personally I feel like I should replace it based on my habits and needs, not when forced by some hardware.
--
I always "pre-brush" - I brush my teeth with the brush, water no paste.
Rinse.
Brush again with paste.
Rinse.
I always use hot water.
I floss a lot. and I use peroxide as a mouthwash occasionally.
But you should have a pretty good idea of the state of your brush's bristles and everything in general without the need for a freaking counter, e-waste and toxic chemicals that device will leave behind.
I also keep a box of bamboo biodegradale tooth brushes on hand for guests and travel/camping/hiking.
Of course this advice may have been tailored to my needs somewhat.
https://nypost.com/2021/07/13/dentist-warns-to-never-use-mou... https://askthedentist.com/mouthwash-risks-and-alternatives/ https://www.rd.com/article/health-danger-mouthwash/
Not all mouthwashes and toothpastes are equal, therefore this categorical statement is wrong, and nothing has been “debunked”.
The mouth wash I use is the one recommended by my dentist, it is not anti bacterial and it has 0.2% fluoride.
The last article you posted simply lies:
> Mouthwash contains an antiseptic compound called chlorhexidine.
No it doesn’t. Not all mouthwash contains that. I recognize it though, because it’s what I use as an antiseptic alcohol to clean bruises.
Why would a bruise need cleaning? A bruise is always caused by internal bleeding into the interstitial tissues which does not break through the skin.
I believe they, restated, indicated that they are aware of the alcohol content, because they use it to clean wounds to the skin.
The reason I mentioned alcohol is that chlorhexidine is often combined with alcohol in products used for cleaning wounds, but you are correct, it’s not an alcohol.
Regardless, the point of my comment was not on how to properly clean wounds, but that you do not need to rinse your mouth with “wound-cleaners”, not all mouthwashes contain this and that means that the statement that mouthwashes are “debunked” is complete nonsense.
What has been “debunked” is that you should not use mouth wash [...] that is anti-bacterial.
Fact: that is approximately all mouthwash. Sure maybe there is some whitening only stuff or other specialist cases, but practically speaking ~everything commonly available as mouthwash is anti-bacterial (source: just checked >20 products at major retailers).
It appears that our comprehension is mutual.
More info in a sibling comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38758871
But interestingly in your comments here and elsewhere about brushing, I see no mention of one of the most -- if not the most-- important kinds of brushing, which is using a flossing brush with, crucially, the right technique, which is not much like other brushing, plus baking soda and a drop of 3% peroxide. Most dental offices aren't teaching this at all, but there is plenty of review of standard brushing "at the gumline and on the surfaces of the teeth", as well as plenty of new and hyped imaging types or surreptitious promotion of dental products...* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cow6wNRJqoo
This is in addition to standard brushing.
I fear mixing sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) with a bit of low concentration peroxide is more or less going to cancel each other out chemically and the suspension is going to have an abrasive effect on the plaque/ tartar buildup but also your tooth enamel. However I am going to ask about it.
Hydrogen peroxide can whiten your teeth a bit but can also cause higher sensitivity. On its own it shouldn't hurt and it will act as a disinfectant but probably shouldn't be used long term on a regular basis. If you have an infection I would recommend using chlorhexidine < 2% concentration (2 % is only prescribed and is really disgusting, 0.2% can be bought in a pharmacy without prescription and is obviously not that strong but also far less disgusting). You probably should not use it for longer than ~2 weeks but as it has a hardly bearable taste you will happily stop using it as soon as possible.
The 4-6 minutes and 1-2 minutes interdental is based on an estimate by a professional dental hygienist. The most correct instruction of course being that you should brush your teeth until they are clean.
I brunch ONCE a day for 2 minutes with an electric toothbrush and have essentially perfect tooth health. I also floss every day. My dentist at my most recent checkup said “whatever you’re doing just keep doing it”
It is different in each country, but usually a dental hygienist has a slightly different viewpoint than a dentist. Some dentists don't care that much for gum health - they make money repairing/ extracting teeth after all and some are little too greedy. Dental hygienists are evaluated based on how well they prevent damage and further health issues/ heal the existing problems. They make more money initially when they perform deep scaling (if they are legally allowed to do that in that country) or later when your teeth are healthy doing clinical whitening. Regular dental hygiene is only mildly lucrative. Good deep scaling is exhausting however so you cannot do more than a 2-3 deep scaling patients per day if you are thorough. You have to fill out the day ideally with normal hygiene, ideally stabilized patients where it is more a checkup. Whitening is the best bang for the buck so to say. Not exhausting, more money per time than regular hygiene session.
The point of this timer is probably (I don't know that for a fact) to push most people to brush much longer than they would as most people still brush for only 30-45 seconds a day.
I was actually shocked by how user friendly the whole experience is. It never prevented me from doing anything "not recommended", it'll warn me, sure. But then go right back to accepting my imput.
So there is a health danger, perhaps? Not sure how likely.
(Some municipalities use a lot of UV, and less chlorine and other chemicals to kill bacteria. And people on wells generally have no chlorine. In such cases, there is nothing to slow standing water bacterial growth.)
When it comes to actual safety issues, it's better that things not work when unsafe.
Not too long ago there was a story on HN about hospital patients getting sick from bacterial growth in ice machines.
And water filters are breeding grounds for bacteria. That's actually the main reason for replacing your Brita filter every 3 months, not its filtering efficacy.
You think electrical devices should have DRM that detects if you opened them, and bricks the device until you bring it to an "authorized" repair shop? Because if that's not what you had in mind, then we are in charge of managing electrocution. Banning sale of dangerously defective devices (what you were probably alluding to) is completely different to devices disobeying their owner.
So I suspect they are concerned about liability.
Just like the cliché about (safety) regulations are written in blood, I assume all these "commonsense" measures are because someone pulled a stupid, got people hurt, and then won a lawsuit.
Then, per the settlement/judgement, mfg has to add another baby bumper.
"WARNING: This plastic bag is not a toy. Do not sufficate yourself!"
Okay, now I won't. Thanks for the head's up.
Having said that, I'm not sure why a filter is needed. Is your tap water not already filtered enough?
It is kinda sad how much effort went into this "functionality", how much it increases the cost of the device, but selling replacement heads is their primary business. Maybe the brushes would be more expensive without the NFC reader and timers.
The recommendation generally is to replace your tooth brush semi-annually, which this basically reminds you to do.
Every time I turn it off, the Philips Sonicare plays a loud series of beeps, near my head, at times of day when I'm just waking up or about to sleep, for a toothbrush head that is well within its lifespan.
The only supported way to stop the beeping is to throw out the current toothbrush head, and pay Philips more money for a replacement that isn't needed yet.
In any case, the user manual that helpfully ships with every genuine Sonicare, and is also easily accessible online, succinctly describes the steps to disable the beeping:
1. Put the handle on the plugged-in charger. 2. Press and hold the power on/off button while the handle remains on the charger. 3. Keep the power on/off button pressed until you hear a series of two short beeps (after 4-5 seconds). 4. Release the power on/off button.
But, as an actual Sonicare owner: when it beeps for replacement, the head is truly overdue for that. In fact, I synced the replacement schedule of my manual toothbrush (which sees an equivalent duty cycle in my case), and every time I look at both brushes, I have to admit: yup, those need replacement!
You discuss this as if it was one static unchanging thing, when it is likely at least 10-20 different things.
Is it likely that either is the case? Probably not. If anything, they would make a new firmware as part of a product launch.
I mean, the whole device is basically a speaker. It can beep if it wants to.
Are you sure? On mine, the manual shows how to turn off the "Brush head replacement reminder": https://www.documents.philips.com/assets/20201024/46fe48eae7... (p.16-17). Might your model have a similar feature?
OK, that is annoying. Mine doesn't do that. I only got the annoying beeps a few times around the time the timer expired. Ever since only the different color light.
There are many brand names on there, but hey, I am doing fine.
But every time I swap brush heads after it reminds me, you can feel how much more effective the stiffer bristles are.
It's not like razor blades where it becomes really obvious from tugging that they need to be replaced. Brushes just slowly get softer and, if you're like me, you just don't notice.
I don't see how they could easily change the password, except for perhaps using a custom tag that would only allow incrementing the values with the existing password (which would negate the point of changing the password). Otherwise it would lock existing brushes out of saving the time too. This, combined with how 99% of the users won't be tevh-savvy enough to know how to write to the tag, means there's probably not gonna be any change until they come up with a new incompatible type of brushes.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miswak
[2] If everyone would switch to twigs, we could save thousands of tons of waste every single year. "The global electric toothbrush market size was USD 3.16 billion in 2022 and is projected to grow from USD 3.27 billion in 2023 to USD 4.37 billion in 2030"
[1] "Its bristles lie in the long axis of the stick, whereas those of a toothbrush are placed perpendicular to the handle. Thus, it is difficult to reach the lingual surfaces of the dentition with a miswak. Another disadvantage is related to the habitual use of miswak for a prolonged period... reported that chewing-stick users may excessively scrub the anterior teeth, which are located in the area of primary concern, while ignoring the posterior teeth. " https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3723367/#:~:tex....
Perhaps it is good to have some basic knowledge how a cavity/ caries comes to be. From that you can derive whether you are on the right or wrong path to a reasonable dental hygiene. I would like to add that you can assume nobody is immune or has a resistance to caries.
When we eat or drink the bacteria gets nutrients (any form of sugar) and builds up plaque and the bacteria create an acid. Because the plaque stays on our teeth above and even slightly bellow the gums (gingiva) and the bacteria likes to live there the effects are strongest where the plaque is. The bacteria and the resulting acid over time cause demineralisation, dissolves the calcium in the teeth. After some time this leads to decay which we describe as cavity/ caries. Also, the plaque can solidify into a build-up of tartar/ calculus which further provides a nice habitat for bacteria, causing gingivitis (inflamation of the gums - they become red and swollen) spreads the sulcus, basically splitting gums from the teeth over time which results in periodontitis, which is basically loss of the bone and other problems below the gums. Periodontitis can also exacerbate other illnesses such as diabetes, cardiovascular illnesses, possibly some allergies (active research). This can really only be fixed by a professional dentist or dental hygienist since removing the tartar, especially under the gums, is a precise and demanding. The procedure can be painful without local anesthetics.
If you don't want all that do brush your teeth correctly each day. The 2 minutes number is myth again - do brush until the teeth are free from plaque. It is easier with a sonic/electric toothbrush, e.g. by Phillips or Oral B iO should be ok too. The brushing technique is very important, most people do this wrong. The brush should be at 45° to the sulcus (half of the bristles is on the gums the other on the tooth). Obviously also brush the top of the teeth. Each tooth basically has 5 surfaces, top and 4 sides. Don't forget to use correctly sized interdental brushes. Your dentist or dental hygienist should be able to help you find the correct sizes for specific spaces between teeth. (You will probably end up with TePe or Curaprox and probably more than one size.) You can use a solo brush too, which brushes exactly one tooth at a time. The bristles of the brush should be as soft as possible and removal of bigger amounts of plaque are done by spending more time instead of force/ pressure/ hardness/ abrasiveness. In addition to not replacement of interdental brushes, you can also use a super floss (the middle is made of a fluffy material) but learn a good technique so you don't hurt your gums, throw the thin waxed floss in the trash especially if you are not super handy/ careful as to not cut your gums. Also, the floss does not clean premolars and molars properly because of the shape of the teeth in interdental space (because of their concavity, imagine that the surface is basically made of two pillars).
Do have a regular appointment with your dentist and dental hygienist. 2x a year should be enough with good hygiene. If you have more problems, the frequency of appointments will of course vary. They should definitely do at least intraoral x-rays each preventive appointment and a OrthoPantomoGraph in ~2 years.
> you obviously have many misconceptions about dental hygiene/ brushing teeth
What misconceptions do you see? I go to the dental hygienist twice a year already and my oral health has never been better since using the Miswak in lieu of an electric toothbrush.
Of course, you could explicitly ask if your dental hygiene is spotless. In any profession where you need to be nice to customers people tend to say fewer bad things or put them euphemistically. Clarity can get lost.
I was skeptical about it at first, but it does the job just fine because the jet is more powerful than any of the electric oral irrigators.
While I'm not doing it anymore, a ketogenic diet also had a huge effect on the buildup of plaque.
The concept of getting locked out of one’s toothbrush head is so absurd it might as well be dystopian.
This equipment is not necessary for a toothbrush "minutes used" counter, but unfortunately, there is no off-the-shelf alternative.
How did they reverse the brush head password algorithm?
https://youtu.be/EPytrn8i8sc "Hacking the Phillips Sonicare NFC Password" (buried three links deep)
However, making the same video with screen capture would require a good amount of editing to also show the toothbrush. Here everything seems to be in one take. I don’t blame him; as easy as it is now, editing is still time consuming.
They are simply more familiar with it, and while some may be aware screen capture exists, it usually requires some setup, and knowledge of a macro.
You, a clever toothbrush-hacking genius: haha, the head is new again!
I've been caught out on this more than once and I'm not the only one. I make sure it's fully charged and pop it in my travel bag. Then when I'm 2000 miles from my charger I find out it refuses to start!
I get TAG CONNECTION LOST whenever I try and write with an iPhone 15 Pro.
Philips sonic card brush, recent mfg.
If you are having trouble with the last step of OTHER > ADV COMMAND, separate the two steps.
Instead of pasting: 1B:C3:05:5C:30,A2:24:00:00:02:00
Try to separate them into separate steps.
1B:C3:05:5C:30 then A2:24:00:00:02:00
After that one worked, and one didn’t. The second one needed the command again, this time it worked as one.