A vibrating toothbrush is provided with vibration-isolating zones that substantially isolate vibrations in the head and reduce vibrations transmitted to the handle without sacrificing structural integrity around the vibration-isolation zones. Such zones may generally comprise neck material that is reduced in cross-section, thinned, replaced by dampening material, or removed altogether to create transmission-inhibiting voids. The vibration-isolating zones may be further supported by the housing of the vibratory element to maintain the structural integrity around the zones and to thereby alleviate weakness conditions that might subject the toothbrush to fatigue and breakage.

Oral hygiene monitoring system is disclosed to track motion and orientation of an oral hygiene device. The control system may process data output from a motion sensor to determine position and orientation of an oral hygiene device with respect to a user's mouth. In some examples, the system may use machine learning techniques to identify position and orientation, brush stroke type, and other specific actions.

A powered toothbrush includes a handle, a power source disposed in the handle, a head including a cavity disposed at a distal end of the handle, an electrically conducting element disposed in the cavity and electrically connected to the power source, and a movable cleaning element connected to the head and movable relative to the cavity. The movable cleaning element includes a tooth cleaning support member, a tooth cleaning element mounted on the support member, and a ferromagnetic member. Application of an electrical current to the electrically conducting element generates a magnetic field at the electrically conducting element. The magnetic field selectively at least one of attracts and repels the ferromagnetic member to move the movable cleaning element relative to the electrically conducting element.

The toothbrush includes a handle portion which includes a power drive system (14) and further includes a brushhead assembly (20), which includes a brushhead arm having a brush element (21) at a distal end thereof A drive train assembly (12) is responsive to a drive signal from the power assembly for converting the action of the power assembly to a motion of the brushhead assembly. A magnet (30) is secured to the rear of the drive train, with a Hall effect sensor (32) mounted within the magnetic field produced by the magnet as the toothbrush moves in operation. Pressure on the brush element produces a phase shift of the Hall sensor output. A processor (15) determines the value of the phase shift of the Hall sensor signal as pressure is applied to the brush member and produces a signal indicative of the pressure applied by using stored information (71) which relates phase shift to pressure for the particular appliance.

A handheld tool includes a handle; an implement mount configured to detachably accept and to rigidly hold a user-assistive implement; an actuator assembly mounted to the handle to physically manipulate the implement mount relative to the handle; a first sensor disposed to sense an orientation of the handle; a second sensor disposed to sense an orientation of the user-assistive implement; a controller disposed in or on the handle and coupled to the actuator assembly and the first and second sensors; and memory coupled to the controller. The memory stores instructions for identifying a type of the user-assistive implement attached to the implement mount, selecting a behavior routine based upon the type of the user-assistive implement identified, and manipulating the user-assistive implement relative to the handle according to the behavior routine to aid performance of a task with the handheld tool.

A system for classifying the usage of a handheld consumer device having a sensor and an analyzer. The sensor determines usage data at successive time instants and provides a temporally successive sequence of usage data during a usage session. The analyzer classifies the usage of the device with respect to at least one set usage classes and assembles a temporally successive sequence of input tuples of usage data relating to a predetermined time period of the usage session, each of the input tuples having at least one element representing the usage data at the respective time instant and for inputting the sequence of input tuples into at least one artificial neural network arranged to output at least one output tuple comprising a number of elements in accordance with the number of usage classes, each element of the output tuple representing a prediction value that the usage of the consumer device at the given time instant relates to a respective usage class.

The invention relates to a toothbrush that is produced by AFT and has a head part and at least one carrier element connected thereto. A front surface of the head part is formed by the top surfaces of the at least one carrier element and has a non-planar three-dimensional configuration, or is capable of assuming such a configuration during intended use. The invention also relates to a process for producing such a toothbrush.

A method of monitoring oral health including deriving a health profile of a user from information obtained from a sample taken from the user; displaying a representation of the health profile on a display, wherein the representation of the health profile includes a list of undesirable oral health characteristics that are detectable from the sample and a graphical depiction of an oral cavity divided into a plurality of regions; and wherein in response to selection of a first one of the undesirable oral health characteristics, the representation of the health profile indicates which regions of the user's oral cavity are affected by the first one of the undesirable oral health characteristic.

A powered toothbrush includes a handle, a power source disposed in the handle, a head including a cavity disposed at a distal end of the handle, an electrically conducting element disposed in the cavity and electrically connected to the power source, and a movable cleaning element connected to the head and movable relative to the cavity. The movable cleaning element includes a tooth cleaning support member, a tooth cleaning element mounted on the support member, and a ferromagnetic member. Application of an electrical current to the electrically conducting element generates a magnetic field at the electrically conducting element. The magnetic field selectively at least one of attracts and repels the ferromagnetic member to move the movable cleaning element relative to the electrically conducting element.

A vibrating toothbrush is provided with vibration-isolating zones that substantially isolate vibrations in the head and reduce vibrations transmitted to the handle without sacrificing structural integrity around the vibration-isolation zones. Such zones may generally comprise neck material that is reduced in cross-section, thinned, replaced by dampening material, or removed altogether to create transmission-inhibiting voids. The vibration-isolating zones may be further supported by the housing of the vibratory element to maintain the structural integrity around the zones and to thereby alleviate weakness conditions that might subject the toothbrush to fatigue and breakage.