Frontiers in Public Health (Sep 2015)
Playbrush - Transforming Toothbrushes Into Gaming Controllers
Abstract
Playbrush is a UCL alumni startup company that helps children with their daily oral hygiene. We are developing a smart hardware device that transforms any conventional manual toothbrush into a gaming controller, so children and young-at-hearts can play fun & instructional mobile games while brushing. Brushing teeth is still a huge problem in our society, especially among children. Tooth decay is the single-most reason children between 5 and 9 are admitted to hospital. Various public health experts and dentists have recently warned about the state of oral health in the UK. With Playbrush we have tested toothbrushing behavior with over 300 children and found that motivation and education are the keys missing in the current system. Over 50% of our testers have stated that brushing teeth is boring, annoying or a waste of time. Poor toothbrushing not only leads to discussions among parents and children, it also leads to frightening and painful dentist appointments and increased treatment costs. That’s why we came up with Playbrush, a simple technology solution to encourage children and teach them about proper oral hygiene. Out technology consists of both hardware and software. The hardware attaches to almost any conventional manual toothbrush via its elastic head. While the child is brushing it detects the brushing behavior and sends it in real-time via Bluetooth LE to a smartphone or tablet. On this device the data is processed and translated into unique simple games, which react to the users brushing. Using these games we help children to brush more regularly, longer and more accurately. We are supported by UCL, the Eastman Dental Hospital and various renowned dentists in the UK and Austria. So far we have tested Playbrush with over 300 children, who love what we do – and so do their parents and most dentists. Most of them enjoy brushing with Playbrush more than normal toothbrushing, and over 85% were brushing for at least 2 min. We could even convert a lot of our early testers to Kickstarter backers last May, when we raised GBP 40k (pre-orders) from our supporters without any marketing budget. Playbrush has been recognized by media outlets all over the world, including the Guardian, the FT, ITV, Pro7, Focus and many more. In addition we were invited as speakers to the Royal Society of Medicine, the World Gamification Meetup, UCL and Advantage Austria. We now closed our Seed Round and are starting our first production batch to deliver and sell first products just before Christmas. We strongly believe that toothbrushing is fundamentally broken and it needs a shift in education, motivation and behavior to encourage children to focus more on their oral hygiene. Via games we are able to foster intrinsic motivation and build a positive atmosphere around dental health. Playbrush is the perfect tool to engage with children and create a new positive brushing experience.
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