technology

Oral-B released the Guide for $230 in August 2020 but bricked the ability to set up or reconfigure Alexa on the product this February.

The Guide toothbrush's charging base was able to connect to the Internet and work like an Alexa speaker that you could speak to and from which Alexa could respond. Owners could “ask to play music, hear the news, check weather, control smart home devices, and even order more brush heads by saying, ‘Alexa, order Oral-B brush head replacements,'” per Procter & Gamble's 2020 announcement.

On February 15, Oral-B bricked the Guide's ability to set up Alexa by discontinuing the Oral-B Connect app required to complete the process. Guide owners can still use the Oral-B App for other features; however, the ability to use the charging base like an Alexa smart speaker—a big draw in the product’s announcement and advertising—is seriously limited.

The device should still work with Alexa if users set it up before Oral-B shuttered Connect, but setting up a new Wi-Fi connection or reestablishing a lost one doesn't work without Connect.

Recently, music-streaming app company Spotify similarly announced that it’s discontinuing its first and only hardware this December. Spotify's Car Thing originally cost $90 when released to the general public in February 2022. Even companies dedicated to smart home products entirely can meet an abrupt demise, and if a company suffers from poor communication skills, customers can be left in the dark.

Meanwhile, Oral-B is pushing its latest toothbrush to capitalize on the latest AI tech trend. Without real detail, Oral-B claims its new $400 toothbrush has "AI position detection that tracks where you brush across all 3 surfaces of your teeth.” Like many, I'm skeptical about the toothbrush’s incorporation of actual AI; notably, P&G declined to comment to The Washington Post on what, exactly, makes the toothbrush "AI."