In February of this year, our 6 year old son started using a tooth brushing timer. He has been very good about using it for the full 2 minutes. When we were planning our trip to NYC for BlogHer 2010, I was trying to eliminate as many things as I could from our list of things to pack. If the plush Donald Duck had to come with us, then other things had to stay home. That is why it was such great timing for Radius Toothbrush to contact me. They were nice enough to send us 3 sets of Radius Intelligent Toothbrushes with travel cases to take to BlogHer '10 with us.
The Intelligent Toothbrush is a manual toothbrush that has a built-in 2-minute timer. You need only press the large button to hear a beep and see the indicator light flash. Then the toothbrush will repeat the beep and the flash every 30 seconds until your 2 minutes are up. This is the feature that attracted me to this particular toothbrush the most. The fact that it was recommended for children as young as 6 made it even more perfect for us.
The Radius Intelligent toothbrush retails for $8.99 each, but you only need to buy the whole toothbrush once. The heads, which are available in both soft and medium, are replaceable. They only cost about $5.49 for a 2-pack of replacement heads, which is the same or less than the cost of a standard manual toothbrush. This toothbrush is even smart enough to remind you to check your brush head for wear after 180 uses with a red light. If the bristles still look good, then you can reset the timer by holding the large button down for 5 seconds. Because of the way the handle is designed, the heads can be attached to accommodate both right and left-handed users.
Even though these toothbrushes are recommended for children 6 years old and up, I think the heads are too large for a child's mouth. The head measures 5/8" at it's widest point, 1-1/8" at it's longest point, and 1/2" high. Even as an adult, I found the brush head to be so large that I would be brushing both the top and bottom teeth at the same time. It took some getting use to. I think that offering a second size in replacement heads would solve the problem for anyone who wants to buy this toothbrush for a child or someone with a smaller mouth.
Both the Intelligent Manual Toothbrush and the Radius Toothbrush Travel Case are available in four different colors. To view the full selection of Radius manual toothbrushes, visit RadiusToothbrush.com, where you can purchase Radius products singularly or in multiple value packs. You can find out more about Radius toothbrushes and dental health by visiting the Radius Blog and the Radius Facebook page.
Thank you to Radius for sending us sample products free of charge to base this review upon.
