Oclean X Ultra S review: The first talking electric toothbrush

One of the undisputed benefits of an electric toothbrush is that it can actively help you improve your brushing technique. Most models are equipped with timers and pressure sensors, while more advanced toothbrushes also use features that help you track your brushing coverage, such as gyroscopes (movement detectors). Some models even use AI-powered software to analyze your oral care habits over time. What we have not seen yet, though, are electric toothbrushes that talk to you while you brush. Up until now, that is.

The Oclean X Ultra S is the first toothbrush to guide your brushing technique with voice prompts in real time — telling you, for example, when to switch your brushing position, apply more pressure or slow down your movements. That is because it uses bone conduction. This technology transmits sound vibrations from the toothbrush directly to your inner ear — not through an external speaker, but through the bones in your upper cheek and jaw.

Now, this is something entirely new. Bone-conduction technology tends to be used in certain types of headphones and hearing aids, but it has never made its way into personal grooming essentials. It is difficult to say if talking toothbrushes are just a gimmick or a sign of things to come, but the concept is worth investigating nonetheless.

Even if the voice prompts prove to be disappointing, the Oclean X Ultra S may still land a spot in our guide to the best electric toothbrushes. Its specs are impressive: this toothbrush dazzles with a touch screen, three different brush heads, a connected app and a sonic Maglev 3.0 motor that delivers up to a whopping 84,000 vibrations per minute. Not to mention, it looks surprisingly elegant.

Oclean X Ultra S electric toothbrush review

Oclean X Ultra S: Design

• Light, easy to hold and beautifully designed
• Colorful, responsive touch screen
• Three brush heads: Ultra Clean, Ultra White and Ultra Gum Care
• Comes with a travel charging case

Oclean has always put significant effort into designing its oral care products, and the Oclean X Ultra S may be the company’s best creation yet. This electric toothbrush ticks all the boxes for providing a comfortable experience, from customizable brush heads and a grippy handle to easy controls.

Cluttered bathroom shelves? No problem: The Oclean X Ultra S comes with a wall mount to help you save space. Going traveling? No fuss either: The charging travel case will keep the Oclean X Ultra S alive and kicking no matter where you are. This toothbrush may cost a rather steep $129.99, but you do get plenty of value for your buck.

Its sleek, elongated handle makes the Oclean X Ultra S easy to hold and maneuver around the mouth. Plus, this toothbrush comes with an IPX7 waterproof rating and does not get slippery when wet, making it very shower-friendly.

We also liked its touch screen. This is considerably bigger and brighter than the touch screen in the older Oclean X Pro Digital S model — brighter, slightly more responsive and easier to read. Interestingly, this little display can even display weather forecasts. Whether that is even useful is up for debate, but it is a nice touch nonetheless.

The customizable brush heads were another big point for the Oclean X Ultra S. Three distinctively designed brush heads are included with each toothbrush — the Ultra Clean, the Ultra White and the Ultra Gum Care — all of which provide a tangibly different brushing experience. For us, this is what distinguishes a mediocre product from a good one. Everyone’s dental needs are different, and it is rare to see an electric toothbrush that caters to a wide range of users.

The cost of replacement brush heads is the icing on the cake. Firstly, they seem quite long-lasting. After two months of testing our Oclean X Ultra S, the bristles did not show many signs of fraying and still had a good couple of months of life in them. Secondly, if you finally do need to replace them, one set costs around $29.99. While that is not exactly cheap, it is relatively affordable when compared to its competitors.

Oclean X Ultra S: Features

• Real-time voice prompts to guide your brushing
• App stores and analyzes your brushing data
• Built-in gyroscope tracks brushing coverage

The Oclean X Ultra S features several pre-set cleaning modes, including an intense three-minute Sunset Clearout, a shorter and more gentle Sunrise Soothing, and a heavy-duty Whitening Polishing for squeaky-clean teeth. There is also a personalized mode. When you sign up for the Oclean Care+ app, you complete a short questionnaire about your diet, brushing habits, needs and preferences, and your answers will determine the duration and intensity of your brush.

Whether our personalized mode was impeccably calculated is difficult to say, but we were satisfied with the results. It felt significantly different from the default modes and effective, too. The Oclean X Ultra S does a good job with its customizable features here.

This toothbrush features a six-axis gyroscope — a built-in device that tracks the movements of your toothbrush during brushing, picking up on any spots that you might have missed. This is then displayed as your brushing score. When you cover all areas of your mouth evenly, you get a full score of 100. If not, your score drops below 99 and you can see all of your under-brushed areas marked on a small picture of the jaw. This can be viewed both on the toothbrush’s touch screen or in more detail in the Oclean Care+ app.

Speaking of Oclean Care+, this app harbors a good deal of useful features. Most importantly, it offers an analysis of your brushing technique over time. With stats like brushing force and cleaning degree, you get an in-depth insight into how you use the toothbrush on a daily basis.

What’s more, the Oclean X Ultra S can then generate health reports and send them to your dentist for review. All graphs are shown in excruciating detail, but the explanations are laid out in simple terms, making this app accessible to both geeks and average users.

Then there is the AI-powered voice guide. While this is the main selling point of this toothbrush, it is not necessarily its best feature. In all honesty, it took us a good couple of weeks to get used to the voice prompts, and even then, we were not too convinced by our chatty toothbrush. The Oclean X Ultra S sounds like a stroppy kid telling you off, and we mean that literally. Also, we were not always clear on what the voice guide actually said to us.

We found this verbal coaching somewhat disappointing. While the Oclean X Ultra S can give out several different voice prompts, we heard only two during two months of daily testing: “change area”, a reminder to move the brush to a different part of the mouth after 30 seconds of brushing, and “overpressure”, which indicates too much pressure is being applied.

Now, it is possible that our technique really was that good and we simply did not need further prompts, but this could also mean that the toothbrush did not track our movements closely enough. Either way, the Oclean X Ultra S succeeded at keeping us from brushing too hard and we can’t complain about that.

And while the voice prompts did not impress us, others may find them very useful. To give an example, most people can see when you apply too much pressure because the Oclean X Ultra S has a small light at the bottom of the unit that lights up red if that happens (when you brush in front of the mirror, you can’t miss it). However, this particular feature is of no use to people with limited vision, whereas voice prompts will be.

Secondly, these voice prompts are impossible to ignore. If you want to improve your brushing technique, the constant scolding of the Oclean X Ultra S could be surprisingly effective for changing your habits once and for all. That said, others may find this toothbrush immensely annoying for the very same reason.

Oclean X Ultra S: Performance

• Thorough clean without aggravating the gums
• Up to 40 days of battery life
• Quiet sonic vibrations

There is a lot to like about the performance of the Oclean X Ultra S, from its quiet, powerful motor and long-lasting battery to its 84,000 sonic vibrations per minute. The Oclean Care+ app also works well. Poor app connectivity and lags in data transfer were some of our main gripes with the older Oclean X Pro Digital Sonic, so it is great to see that these issues seem to be largely solved.

Battery life delivers on the promises, too. According to the manufacturer’s claims, the X Ultra S lasts up to 40 days on a single charge, and that proved to be right in our tests. We only had to recharge it once during the two-month testing period, and at the time of writing this review, our electric toothbrush still had 71% of battery life. We think that the Oclean X Ultra S has the hallmarks of a great accessory for frequent travelers.

We also liked that this toothbrush was relatively quiet. When we measured its noise levels with the Sound Meter decibel-counting app, we did not have a reading higher than 50 dB — equivalent to a typical conversation and quieter than many other sonic toothbrushes we tested. The voice prompts are understandably louder, but it is difficult to gauge exactly by how much. Most verbal cues will be uttered when you are brushing with your mouth partially closed, plus some people may have different sensitivity to bone conduction. As such, we decided against measuring them with a decibel-counting app.

Most importantly, the Oclean X Ultra S did a great job of cleaning our teeth. Brushing felt thorough and efficient, but not too abrasive on the teeth or gums.

On the other hand, this electric toothbrush stores only a week’s worth of data at a time. If you frequently travel without having access to the app, some of your brushing history may be lost.

Oclean X Ultra S: User reviews

The online user reviews for the Oclean X Ultra S are sparse, but mostly positive. This electric toothbrush scores 4.9 out of 5 stars on the Oclean U.S. website, with the rating based on just seven votes. Amazon‘s customer reviews, on the other hand, place this electric toothbrush at a lower 3.9 out of 5 rating based on four testimonials, with the only negative review mentioning what sounds like a faulty unit.

“No way to adjust the verbal ‘too much pressure’ warning. It even gave that warning when the brush was NOT in my mouth. Returning it after ONE brushing attempt. Frustrated cos I WANTED to like it,” the disgruntled buyer said.

Should you buy the Oclean X Ultra S?

✅ Buy it if: You want a smart electric toothbrush with exceptional customization, long battery life and loads of useful accessories. The Oclean X Ultra S is quiet, effective at cleaning your teeth and customizable to suit different dental needs.

❌ Do not buy it if: You are looking for a basic electric toothbrush on a budget. The abundance of smart features on the Oclean X Ultra S makes it undeniably more expensive than many other electric toothbrushes out there.

If Oclean X Ultra S is not for you

The Laifen Wave is a great alternative to the Oclean X Ultra S. While it does not have voice prompts or provide in-depth brushing feedback, this electric toothbrush dazzles with its widely customizable features, 30-day battery life and travel-friendly design. The best part? It costs half the price of the Oclean X Ultra S.

Want something even cheaper? The Bitvae R2 costs just $29.99, but it punches way above its budget-friendly price point. This rotating toothbrush offers five brushing modes, a pressure sensor and 30-day battery life, and comes with a whopping seven spare brush heads.

Looking for a premium model? Then you can’t go wrong with the Oral-B iO Series 10. This Rolls-Royce of an electric toothbrush may cost nearly three times as much as the Oclean X Ultra S, but it has some of the best smart features and AI-powered brushing feedback of all the models we have ever tested.

Oclean X Ultra S: How we tested

We spent two months testing the Oclean X Ultra S electric toothbrush, carefully assessing its design, features, brushing performance, connectivity to third-party devices and value for money. We also measured how loud it was with the Sound Meter decibel counting app, checked how long its battery lasted on a single charge, and tested its IPX7 water resistance rating by submerging the toothbrush underwater for the duration of a two-minute brushing cycle.