The stupidest christmas present ever

[Excel Expert]

I would like to nominate the Oral B 6500 Bluetooth enabled toothbrush that is being advertised on the TV at the moment. It costs about £130.

How needs a Bluetooth toothbrush?

It boasts it does millions of calculations to ensure you have the best clean. That would be great if it wasn't using the same head as my £20 toothbrush. There is nothing sophisticated enough about the head to deliver actions - it just has a central spinning shaft that moves the head. So apart from speed the toothbrush cant actually change what it is doing.

It then brags about an app for the toothbrush. Looking at the app it boils down to being nothing more than a timer. Who takes their phone to the sink while they have a wash and brush their teeth. That is just inviting a phone v's water related accident.

My tip is buy the £20 toothbrush (form the same makers) and an egg timer. Save yourself £110 and your phone will live longer.

 

[Nuno]

You aren't an Oral B fanbois so you don't unnerstan.

 

[Excel Expert]

Far from it, I own an Oral B and will never go back.

I took a look at the site to see what I'm missing and I can't see anything that their £20 version does with an egg timer. The business end, the head, is the exact same one as the one my £20 one uses.

I seem to be missing something as I really don't understand why a toothbrush needs to talk to my phone or why it costs £110 more.

What am I missing or not getting? (genuine question as I just don't get it)

 

[Paul Murray]

Someone will buy it, and that someone will thereby justify its existence. I often look at things and wonder "who would pay money for that", but people do! I blame the people who are really into their gadgets and technology, even if that product is slightly pointless, they have to have it because it's new and "future-thinking."

 

[Excel Expert]

I should be their ideal client then Paul LOL, I have just about every gadget under the sun

 

[Paul Murray]

Perhaps I'm just anti-technology?

 

[Nuno]

Two points:

Early adopters and gadget freaks drive the market, and the market decides whether it wants the new gadget/gizmo/whatever. Without innovation there is no march forwards.

Companies like Braun follow a business model of continuous product innovation in order to maintain a premium branding and thence market share and premium pricing. As do companies like Gillette: do we really need 4 blade razors? No. But they sell at a premium.

To paraphrase the American lefty phrase of 'check your privilege': check your serotonin. Too little leads to grumpy old men.

 

[Deleted member 226268]

.

No no no.......You need the "Professional" model.
The Limited Edition Pro 6500 ........Limited edition....Professional.

Limited.
Exclusive.
Professional.
Bluetooth ultra cleaning.

You can now " Professionally" clean your teeth.....ONLY £ 250.....for dumb suckers.
You can broadcast in real time to the entire world that you are cleaning your teeth.

Store the results on your computer....track schedules..take real time videos...send the results
to your granny in Australia.

Isn't technology just wonderful.

How did I ever survive with that pack of three brushes from Poundland ?

http://www.engadget.com/2014/05/01/oral-b-smart-toothbrushes/

.

 

[MikeJ]

Surely you'd connect it to your iPhone? An apple a day keeps the dentist away, and all that?

 

[Nuno]

On form this morning MikeJ.

 

[garyk]

Most mid-range ones (£30-50) have a timer on them anyway.

 

[Nuno]

Most mid-range ones (£30-50) have a timer on them anyway.

But you can't change the ringtone can you?

 

[Excel Expert]

Most mid-range ones (£30-50) have a timer on them anyway.

My grandsons £14 one plays a tune for a set time so I dont even think you need to go that expensive.

Anyone else noticed the strange pricing methods used on these as well. For 6 weeks or so you will see them full price in Boots and half price in the supermarkets. At the end of the 6 weeks Boots will go half price and the supermarkets will go full price. PCWorld and WHSmiths do something similar with products like Norton anti-virus. It means for half the year they are on sale

 

[MikeJ]

It's so they can claim the "half price" tag.

It's really common on supermarket wine. There was an article in the Telegraph a year or so ago.

(edit to add....)

Here you go....

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...eware-supermarket-wine-at-bargain-prices.html

 

[Excel Expert]

Totally agree what it is for MikeJ - I always find it odd that unrelated companies must work in unison to set these deals up. PC World must work with WHSmiths with Norton products, Boots and the Supermarkets on Oral products and so on. They may not talk directly but I suspect the manufacturers orchestrate it all.

Isnt that get dangerously close to price fixing?

 

[Nuno]

Just the manufacturer using an offer to gain/maintain market share. If they only offered it to one major they would soon find their products on the bottom shelves of the others, with decreasing orders and sales.
No collusion by the majors is needed, just information to let the market work. Much duller than nasty businessmen, (is this a business forum BTW?), orchestrating price fixing to rob the poor downtrodden masses, but Occam's razor probably has it again.

 

[Excel Expert]

You maybe right Nuno, I could well be over thinking it. It just sticks out on these few products and I don't see it elsewhere. For example on any white goods, TVs or any other electrical goods. I know if I want to buy Norton and its £50 in PCWorld I go to Smiths and get it for £25. I also know without looking that if a toothbrush is £50 in Boots it will be £25 in Asda.

It will all be in the law and above board in those terms, and price fixing is probably overcooking the terminology.

From my experience of working for the big supermarket's and some of their big suppliers, it will be the manufacturers orchestrating it all. They will know they can do a promotion for X weeks in one store and then rest it while the other store puts it on sale.

From the Competition Commission side I would guess I cant see them being entirely happy that it is within the spirit of the law, even though it is clearly within the letter of the law. While you have two huge high street store's passing a sale back and fore it prevents the smaller operations from getting a look in. You don't see many local chemists selling these electric toothbrushes - perhaps they cant compete with all this going on. So the scenario starts to become borderline anti-competitive

 

[garyk]

I would like to nominate the Oral B 6500 Bluetooth enabled toothbrush that is being advertised on the TV at the moment. It costs about £130.

How needs a Bluetooth toothbrush?

It boasts it does millions of calculations to ensure you have the best clean. That would be great if it wasn't using the same head as my £20 toothbrush. There is nothing sophisticated enough about the head to deliver actions - it just has a central spinning shaft that moves the head. So apart from speed the toothbrush cant actually change what it is doing.

It then brags about an app for the toothbrush. Looking at the app it boils down to being nothing more than a timer. Who takes their phone to the sink while they have a wash and brush their teeth. That is just inviting a phone v's water related accident.

My tip is buy the £20 toothbrush (form the same makers) and an egg timer. Save yourself £110 and your phone will live longer.

sounds amazing, just off to buy one....

 

[Karimbo]

to be honest, people do either press too hard or dont press hard enough. Brush for 30 seconds tops when they should be brushing for 3 minutes.

An electronic device does help - although i'm not sure why it needs a bluetooth device - I guess it's to plot your esage and send it to your phone so you can produce spreadsheets to geek out about.

It's a bit pointless. I do have a sandtimer in my bathroom which counts down 3 minutes I use it to make sure I'm brushing long enough.

People are so fixate don their phones these days, perhaps the bluethooth is meant to send a tweet to your phone to publish via the phone up "just brusing my teeth with [brand name here]",

 

[Alan]

I prefer a manual Reinast -> http://www.reinast.com/buy lol

 

[RodriVLR]

Is a better present than the Slurry which where selling amazon during the black friday.