Do your children happily open their mouths wide when you show them a toothbrush and toothpaste? We’re very happy for you. Sadly, ours aren’t quite so eager…
Perhaps Grush can help. It’s the name of a new toothbrush created by a San Francisco company of the same name. You can’t buy it yet: they’re trying to raise $50,000 on crowdfunding website Indiegogo to launch it.
Grush? It stands for “Gaming-Toothbrush”, and the idea is to help children feel enthusiastic about dental hygiene by turning the twice-daily brush into more of a game. And we don’t mean the one that involves chasing zipped-lipped kids around the house waving a toothbrush at them…
The Grush brush is “a high quality toothbrush that doubles as a motion sensing gaming wand controller” according to the Indiegogo listing.
“The sensor detects every movement during brushing, such as stroke, intensity, rotation, and gestures, and transmits this information wirelessly to Grush Games running on a mobile device which is mounted on the bathroom mirror with a universal and waterproof cellphone holder.”
The games will be designed to run on iPhone and Android devices, and promise to score children on how well they play – by which Grush means how well they brush every single gnasher in their mouth. You’ll be able to check how they’re doing through a separate “parental dashboard” app.
Games mentioned on Indiegogo include Monster Chase, Toothy Orchestra and Brush-a-Pet, while the Grush brush will come with replacement heads – just in case you’re wondering if you’ll have to buy an expensive new brush every six months.
The way crowdfunding works is you pledge as much money as you want to help the developer hit their target. In this case, $30 gets you a brush and two replacement heads when it’s ready to ship in March 2015, while $115 gets you a family kit.
The rewards go right up to $10,000 if you’re really keen: that’ll get you a meal in San Francisco with the Grush crew, the chance to give feedback on their design plans, and four “personalised engraved Grush brushes”.
With 45 days left in the campaign, Grush has already raised more than $10,000 of its $50,000 total. We think it’s a fun idea, so will be following its progress over the next month and a half.