Dyson CameraJet Electric Toothbrush Review

Design and features

• USB-C charging dock
• Integrated camera for flossing
• Works with the MyDyson app

As you’ve no doubt already read, the Dyson CameraJet is a sonic toothbrush with a built-in flosser. It’s not the first toothbrush to do this, but Dyson’s approach is certainly better.

The last time that I tried a toothbrush with a built-in flosser, the results were horrible. While the brush vibrated, the flosser kept firing at a pretty quick pace, filling my mouth with liquid. It was like being waterboarded by a dentist.

The Dyson CameraJet is different, as it uses a camera for gap detection. Mounted at the top of the brush head, the 100k pixel camera shoots at 28fps, and is designed to look for gaps in your teeth, firing only when it spots one.

Not only does that target the areas that actually need flossing, but it reduces how many times the jet fires, so you don’t end up with a mouth full of mouthwash and toothpaste.

For all of this to work, Dyson has had to come up with a new toothbrush head, which has a plastic bubble for the camera, protecting the sensitive electronics from water ingress.

Brush heads should be replaced every three months, but a built-in RFID chip, like that on the Philips Sonicare 9900 Prestige, lets you know when it’s time to change.

There’s one choice of brush head, with a pack of two costing £25. The brush heads have dual bristles (angled for better plaque removal) and sonic dampeners that make them more pleasant to use when under the 245 oscillations per second.

They are well-sized, fitting over teeth with ease, but small enough that the heads are easy to get to the back of your mouth or behind your teeth.

Below the toothbrush head is the Anti-gravity tank, which takes 12.5ml of mouthwash. Dyson recommends that you use its non-foaming mouthwash (sample provided), but you can use any mouthwash. Again, non-foaming is best, as it helps keep your mouth clear for the camera.

The Anti-gravity tank has a balloon that inflates to keep the mouthwash under pressure, so jet mode always works, no matter the angle you hold the brush at. Each tank should last for a brushing session (or may even hold too much liquid).

That’s all very clever, and it works, but there’s immediately an annoyance: refilling the Anti-gravity tank.

You can pull the tank off and refill using the small hole underneath, but this is fiddly, and you must remember to hold the tank upside down while reattaching the toothbrush body to avoid spilling it.

It should be easier to refill the tank using the provided charging dock, which has a 200ml reservoir for mouthwash.

Clip the toothbrush into this, and hold the button on top, and mouthwash is pumped into the Anti-gravity tank. Brilliant, right? Well, not quite.

For the pump to work, the dock needs to be plugged in. You know how pretty much every bathroom has a two-pin razor socket, built specifically for bathrooms and the source of power for toothbrush chargers for decades? Well, that’s the type of connector that the Dyson CameraJet doesn’t support.

Instead, there’s a USB-C cable underneath, and no adaptor in the box. So, unless you’ve got a USB-C port in your razor socket, or you’ve got a suitable adaptor that fits securely, you’ll need to charge the Dyson CameraJet outside of the bathroom and remember to top the mouthwash up before you go into the bathroom.

That’s not ideal, and it’s a little annoying that Dyson didn’t fit a two-pin connector on its brush. Besides, who wants their toothbrush constantly on charge anyway?

If USB-C was a must, then surely there was a better option. If the dock wasn’t plugged in, for example, then couldn’t the toothbrush’s own battery power the simple pump? Having to move the dock for toothbrush charging (roughly once every 7 days) wouldn’t feel so bad.

When it comes to brushing, there are a few choices to make. By default, the Dyson CameraJet uses automatic jet flossing and brushing. There’s a choice of three brushing levels, depending on the intensity that you like, and a choice of automatic or manual flossing.

It’s also possible to turn off flossing and brush only, or turn off brushing and floss only in automatic mode.

Settings done, it’s time to get into brushing. Dyson recommends using its own toothpaste (again, low foaming), and suggests that you hold the brush level to your teeth, moving in slow oval shapes.

Haptic feedback tells you when to move on to the next area (Dyson suggests splitting your mouth into three sections: both sides and the front), and also if you push too hard.

There’s also the MyDyson app, which gives you brushing guides and even the option of a live feed from the camera, so you can see what the brush is doing.

Cleaning Performance

• Incredible deep clean when used properly
• Easy to make a mess
• Needs careful use to activate flosser

Getting the Dyson CameraJet Electric Toothbrush to work properly is a bit of an art. My first attempt at brushing was quite disappointing. Instead of finding the gaps between my teeth and clicking into action, the flosser barely fired.

Things get better with practice, not only in how you hold and move the toothbrush, but also in how you move your mouth. Get the right angle, move the brush slowly, and the camera finds a gap; then, with a click and a burst of mouthwash, it’s flossed.

There’s a light to help the camera see in the dark, but it still needs the right angle to see. With my mouth open, the CameraJet does a better job finding gaps, but it also sprays mouthwash everywhere and all over the bathroom mirror, which is far from ideal. I found the trick is to adjust my lips as I brush, giving the camera enough space and light to find gaps, while containing the mouthwash explosion. It mostly works, but there are times when it’s hard to do this, and some degree of mess feels almost inevitable.

It helps to use the app and live-stream the brush. When you can see what the camera sees, it’s easier to adjust how you brush to make everything work.

Using this mode the first time, I found that water on the brush head had left a bead behind, blocking the camera’s view; a quick wipe down cleaned everything up.

Get the combination right (and it’ll probably take you over a week to do), and the clean is brilliant. My mouth felt fresher and cleaner with this toothbrush than with a regular electric brush-only model; no fuzz or film on it, and the gaps were properly flossed.

It does help using Dyson’s own-brand toothpaste and mouthwash. Using other brands, the amount of foam was too much, and I spent a lot of time pausing the clean to spit before carrying on. Another brand’s low-foaming solution could work, but I’ve not tested that.

Flossing-only mode is a slight disappointment. It feels odd to run a still toothbrush over my teeth, with only the occasional click when the flosser kicks in. The CameraJet is much better when used in one, as it’s supposed to be.

Dyson recommends removing all liquids and rinsing the brush after use. If you’ve brushed properly, then there shouldn’t be much mouthwash left behind. If you find that there’s quite a bit, try only part-filling the reservoir before starting a clean.

Should you buy it?