At a glance
Expert’s Rating
Pros
- Good battery life
- Customised brushing modes
- USB charging
- Colour screen
- Bright pressure sensor
Cons
- Brushing feedback overcomplicated
- Pricey
Our Verdict
This brush is high quality, elegantly designed and it does everything – and more – you could want an electric toothbrush to do. If not all of the features hit, enough of them do to make this an excellent, if pricey, buy.
If you like a lot of tech in your electric toothbrush, Oclean is a brand to consider. Its electric toothbrushes are crammed with cutting-edge features.
The X Ultra S is no exception. In fact, it may be the first electric toothbrush that talks to you.
Design and Build
- Colour touchscreen
- Lightweight handle
- High-quality brush heads
The X Ultra S is an attractive brush, with a tapered, matt handle and full colour, touchscreen display. It comes in two colour options: back and pale green.
Beneath the screen is a button to power it on and off but you switch between cleaning modes by swiping the screen. When you brush, the screen will display a countdown timer, but the digits are small and it’s not easy to read while you’re brushing, which is not helped by the silvery film over the display.
Emma Rowley / Foundry
Emma Rowley / Foundry
Emma Rowley / Foundry
When you start brushing, a hideous image of an orange-red set of teeth will appear on the screen. As you brush, the onscreen teeth turn white. The aim is to show areas you miss while cleaning. Via the app, you’ll also get much more detailed brushing feedback.
At the base of the brush handle is a light ring pressure sensor that glows red when you press too hard. Overbrushing is a common problem, and this is one of the features we consider indispensable.
The brush is noticeably light in the hand, weighing just 110g against the Oral-B iO4’s 137g. That’s even more impressive when you consider its features and long battery life: there’s a lot onboard.
Emma Rowley / Foundry
Emma Rowley / Foundry
Emma Rowley / Foundry
It comes with a light-up USB charging base, a magnetic wall mount for the brush, and three brush heads: ultra gum care, ultra clean and ultra white.
I’m always a little perplexed when oral care brands do this, as most people will have a preference for one type and it would make sense to supply three brush heads of the most popular, universal kind.
Emma Rowley / Foundry
Emma Rowley / Foundry
Emma Rowley / Foundry
But the brush heads are well made, with a tapered silicone brush head that’s softer on gums and and a mix of silicone and nylon bristles.
Emma Rowley / Foundry
Emma Rowley / Foundry
Emma Rowley / Foundry
There’s also a USB charging case for travel, with space for the brush handle and two brush heads. It’s black and grey (or green and cream, depending on the brush colour you go for), with a vegan leather finish. It’s considerably higher quality than the hard plastic cases you get with even a high-end Oral-B iO. Nor do iO cases feature a charging port – and the brushes don’t offer USB charging at all.
Emma Rowley / Foundry
Emma Rowley / Foundry
Emma Rowley / Foundry
Oclean claims that the X Ultra S has a 40-day battery life, but this is likely only if you stick to two 2-minute brushing sessions per day.
If you share the brush, or brush for longer, it’ll be less. I used some of the custom programmes which can be three or even four minutes long. If you do the same, I think that two to three weeks is a more realistic battery life.
Performance, Features and App
- Range of brushing modes
- Customisable brushing
- Voice alerts during brushing
The X Ultra S is quiet in use and it delivers a good brushing performance. But that’s really just the start of what it can do.
Most electric toothbrushes offer you a straightforward choice of cleaning modes. You might have gentle, daily and gum care, for example. The X Ultra S is a bit different.
Using the touchscreen, you can choose between sensitive gum care, whitening polishing, scientific brushing (more on this later), unlimited clean, sunrise soothing and sunset clearout – which is a lot of options, and it’s not immediately clear what they all offer.
But there’s more. To make the most of the brush, you’ll need to download the Oclean app, make an account and pair your brush. This was quick and straightforward to do in our test.
If you want the most cutting-edge electric toothbrush available, the X Ultra S is it
In the app, there’s a number of ways to tailor the brushing performance to your preferences. For a start, you can take a quiz on your dental health and get a smart suggestion. Or you can choose from one of 14 cleaning modes (for example, braces, super whitening or travel). You can even create your own custom mode, specifying brushing time, mode and intensity level.
This may seem like a lot of fuss just to brush your teeth, but I really liked the ability to customise brushing and the mode I created felt effective and left my teeth clean.
The X Ultra S also provides brushing feedback, both in real time and afterwards. While you’re brushing, it delivers AI voice guidance: it’ll talk to you via bone conduction to correct your technique.
To enable this feature, choose the scientific brushing method mode and prepare yourself. Because the first time a little voice from inside your mouth says, “Overpressure” or “Move on to the next section”, it’s a bit of a surprise.
When you’ve returned to your body, post-shock, you might wonder how effective this is. True, it’s hard to ignore a voice coming from your own head, but it’s not always clear what the voice is saying. If you have music on while you’re brushing, you might find it impossible to decipher what your toothbrush is asking you to do. And, let’s face it, it’s deeply unsettling.
I can’t help but hope it’s feature that won’t catch on.
As well as alerting you to brushing too hard, these voice alerts will also let you know to move on to brushing another section of your mouth and correct your brushing technique.
In the app, you can also see your remaining battery life percentage, which is handy, and how long you’ve been using your current brush head.
There’s also a huge amount of brushing feedback. Arguably, too much. Every brushing session is logged and analysed. The key form of feedback is the “Brushing Clover”, a graphical illustration of your brushing success, measuring length of session, frequency and giving you an overall brushing score out of 100.
This is useful, in a gamifying sort of way, in that it’s quite addictive to try to improve your brushing score and could be a handy tool for anyone looking to overhaul their brushing technique, or who forgets to brush regularly.
In the app, you’ll also see a map of your teeth. After brushing it’ll show areas you’ve neglected. But there’s a question of how accurate the brush’s position detector is. The app regularly showed that I neglected the left side of my mouth, but never the right, even if I only swiped around that side and spent much longer on the left. But my dentist has never mentioned this as a problem. So, do I have a problem with the way I brush, or with the brush’s position detector?
Altogether, though, there’s a lot of good information here. But like most dental care apps, my guess would be that most people will abandon it in the longer-term.
Emma Rowley / Foundry
Emma Rowley / Foundry
Emma Rowley / Foundry
Price and Availability
In the UK, this is undoubtedly an expensive electric toothbrush. It has an RRP of £199.99 and you can buy it at this price from Oclean’s website. It’s even pricier at Selfridges, at £219.99.
This brush is undoubtedly one of the most feature-packed we’ve tested, and if you want the AI voice alerts, you won’t get them anywhere else. However, if you’d be happy with a luxury brush with a colour screen, a choice of brushing modes, pressure sensor and app compatibility, you can buy the Oral-B iO8 for £150-£170. You can read our iO8 review to find out if it’s a better fit for you, but bear in mind that it doesn’t have USB charging and its battery life is much shorter.
In the US, the X Ultra S is available from Oclean for $129.99, which makes it a more tempting buy.
If it isn’t the buy for you, have a look at our round-ups of the best electric toothbrushes and the best cheap electric toothbrushes for more options and buying advice. We’ve also got an Oral-B specific chart, to help you choose the best Oral-B brush for you.
Should you buy the Oclean X Ultra S?
Oclean’s X Ultra S has a huge number of impressive features. I particularly liked the USB charging and USB travel case, the well-designed brush heads, the on-handle screen and the ability to customise brushing. I’m not sold on the AI voice alerts and I have some doubts as to the pinpoint accuracy of the position detection system.
However, it’s undoubtedly the most feature-packed electric toothbrush we’ve tested, and it’s light to hold, quiet and effective. Altogether, if you want the most cutting-edge electric toothbrush available, the X Ultra S is it.
