One-minute review
The Colgate Hum Smart Rhythm Sonic Toothbrush is a great basic introduction to the best electric toothbrushes, especially for its super-low price. It’s simple to use and surprisingly good at improving oral hygiene habits.
If this isn’t your first smart electric toothbrush, and you normally pay far more for your oral tools, you might find the lack of features limiting. There are no specialist heads; neither will you find any in-mouth position detection of the type found in top-end models; plus the batteries will need replacing.
However, for those coming from an analog toothbrush, or even an electric toothbrush that doesn’t come with a companion app, there’s plenty of good stuff to be found here.
The app offers tools to help you improve more general oral hygiene, such as recommending achievable goals to be completed in specific timeframes, and while there’s no location detection, guided cleans are still encouraged and they certainly improved my routine.
Colgate Hum Smart Rhythmic Sonic: Price and availability
The Colgate Hum Smart Rhythm Sonic Toothbrush (opens in new tab) is available from the Colgate website, with prices starting at $29.99 in the US and £24.99 in the UK for the model with replaceable AAA batteries. There’s a rechargeable model available, too, priced at $69.99 in the US and £59.99 in the UK.
The Colgate Hum Smart Rhythm is available worldwide from other suppliers such as Amazon, although it’s listed as “Currently Unavailable” in certain markets such as Australia. If that changes, we’ll update this review.
Colgate Hum Smart Rhythmic Sonic: Design
- Simple vibration head rather than oscillation
- Plastic travel case included
- Well-designed Colgate Connect app
The Colgate Hum Smart Rhythm package includes a plastic travel case, two AAA batteries guaranteeing 90 days of charge of a single brush head (although bundle packages with multiple heads and replacements are available), and the unit itself. A single button allows you to turn the unit on and access its two modes: a normal-strength mode for everyday cleaning, and a less powerful mode for sensitive areas.
The brush head is a simple vibrating head rather than an oscillating unit with a motor. The handset also features a light to indicate when it’s on and when charge is running low, and a Bluetooth chip to connect to the Colgate Connect App.
The app is incredibly well designed, with a connected brushing experience (more on this later) and additional tools, such as the Journal page. You input your information into the Journal, including how many times you floss or use mouthwash, and the Journal will offer a schedule to improve your oral health habits.
If you brush your teeth twice a day, but only floss or use mouthwash around once a week, the Journal can prompt you to do so twice a week. If you already hit those numbers, it can prompt you to do it every day. It’s a good strategy for keeping teeth and gums healthy through making gradual changes. The app also logs your brushing sessions automatically, and can set tasks to help you identify whether you’re brushing properly through demonstrations and brushing for the appropriate amount of time.
Through all of these things, you’ll accumulate “smile points”, which you can redeem at Colgate for items such as extra brush heads and toothpastes. However, each point is equivalent to one cent, so you’ll be brushing for a while before amassing enough points to buy yourself a new brush head.
Colgate Hum Smart Rhythmic Sonic: Performance
- Good connected cleaning performance
- No true position tracking (but not expected at this price)
- Multi-dimensional movement lacking
Once the device was on, connecting the brush to the app on my phone was easy enough. The guided brushing experience was initially impressive: just like Oral B’s connected toothbrushes, the guide highlighted an area in my mouth which I should focus on brushing and how, for an appropriate amount of time before moving on.
During our tests, it proved a decent habit-breaker, and a useful guide and reminder on the amount of time I should spend in each oral ‘zone’.
However, the Colgate Hum doesn’t deliver a true guided brushing experience (as in, it can’t determine where the brush is in my mouth, nor whether I’m brushing correctly) since the information being relayed to the app only covers the length of time for which the toothbrush is switched on.
Nevertheless, for $30, I wasn’t expecting the same experience as a toothbrush costing 10 times the amount, plus the Hum proved a satisfying budget option of a guided brush that still helped me to pay more attention to the process of brushing my teeth.
The dual vibration settings were useful, with the full-strength one certainly powerful enough to blast away any leftovers sitting between teeth. The Hum is leagues ahead of an analog toothbrush. But the brush doesn’t have the multi-dimensional movement of its more expensive peers, nor does it provide any indication that you’re not brushing correctly.
Two AAA batteries should last for around 90 days before they need replacing, and while we were unable to verify this was the case, following several weeks of brushing, the toothbrush is still going strong, displaying the same level of power it did at the start of testing.
