@pakopako@simtel20 I had also bought the two pack once upon a time and have been using one since then. It replaced a cheap battery operated brush and the difference is vast. Way, way better brush.
@pakopako I have bought a few of the $30-ish toothbrushes, and those have survived longer than the sonicare diamond that I mentioned that died (never mind the other sonicare 5xxx model that arrived DOA but that I only used after a few months - never again, soniccare!)
I’ve got the guts of an old Interplak (bought out by ConAir) toothbrush that used a multi-tuft approach on their brush heads. I found it to be a superior clean since it was essentially a floss and brush. (Imagine a manual toothbrush, take away half the bristles, then make the remaining ones different heights, and have every one individually rotate.)
Resoldering a new battery, reassembling the piston that controls the brush, and (I assume the biggest reason these models were never popular) remaking the brush head are all painfully precise. (And then the circuit controlling everything died, probably from humidity or surge.)
This is badass. Bought one last year from here. The little glass is cute and does inductive charge through it …but you don’t need it. The cheaper one without the app or glass charges and stands just fine and the app definitely does more for them than you (i.e. data collection and opt out advertising). And I don’t travel with it so the case isn’t a benefit to me (some models of these are charging cases…this one is not)
I bought the cheaper one for my wife after after I bought this one, and I’d go that route if I did it all over
@bakerzdosen Same here, including replacement heads at Costco. I’m embarrassed to say how long it was between my last “childhood” dental appointment and my first “adult” dental appointment (let’s say it spanned two decades), but I’m pretty sure that if I’d not been using the Sonicare toothbrush my mother gifted me early in adulthood, I probably would have had exactly zero teeth left to go to the dentist with. Genetics probably helped some, too, but my having avoided the expensive, painful stuff seems to be thanks in large part to Sonicare. (Conversely, I tried the fell-off-a-truck Quip brush that many of us waited a long time for, expecting to use it for travel, and it was an anemic piece of junk. For people who love it, more power to them, but others I’ve talked to have similar opinions: pretty much no comparison to a Sonicare.)
@bakerzdosen Thank you for the reminder about the warranty. The Sonicare 5100 I bought from SideDeal in February just died. I forgot that there was a longer warranty on these!
@bakerzdosen I totally agree and yes, it’s been way too long between dental visits. I have the old fashioned Sonicare brush, the one with the big heads (heh). I’m on my second one in 20 years, so that model seems to live longer. I have 4 replacement heads left and when those are gone I will buy a new one. I want one that beeps every 30 seconds to remind me to do each quadrant. I’m pretty sure I don’t need an app. I will keep Costco in mind, thank you.
@Vrysen the science in this area is very weak. Electric toothbrushes seem to be slightly better, on minimal/no data, but the speculation is that it’s the timer - you brush longer with electric. I’ve seen nothing to suggest different brands or generic vs oem heads make a difference (without evidence you can decide for yourself). I own a Sonicare and like it but mostly for the jollies - charging case (which this does not have) and glass. I mostly use generic heads (sorry Sidedeal)
I love these brushes. I’m still using my older style Sonicare with the old style, twist-on brush heads. I think they quit selling the old style brush heads so when my supply runs out, I’ll have to buy one of these new style heads.
@Plenny7 I just retired my older sonicare. Very short battery life after 5 years. Brush heads are still available at Costco. Got the newer style but not this one.
I just bought the twin pack of these from Costco, on sale for $160. Been a Sonicare user since 2003, and have had two of them die during that 20-year span. They are excellent toothbrushes, but longevity is increasingly questionable. However, considering that a dental cleaning just cost me $180, a root canal + crown = $2500, the price for these brushes seems within reason. There are cheaper models with fewer bells & whistles, but I like the multiple modes/intensities on this one. I ignored the app and turned off the various “reminders.” I bought a cheapie, light-weight version here a year ago, nowhere near as powerful, but great for travel.
Almost a decade back, Philips started getting feedback telling them that the urethane foam they’d placed in the air passages of their Respironics CPAP devices was degrading and shedding particles into the lungs of the users. A predictable pattern of denial, dismissal, and general refusal to admit there was a problem followed. Something that could have had a quick and easy fix to prevent harm was, instead, preserved and perpetuated, spreading harm to ever more of the users.
Making medical devices isn’t about helping people, it’s about making money, and Philips demonstrated that very-short-term money is the only thing they are about.
@heyitslauren@werehatrack They recalled those. I think they are having trouble getting the FDA to reapprove them as they, apparently, haven’t solved the problem yet.
@Kidsandliz This is one of Those Problems. If they change to a different material for the foam this late in the game, it’s an effective admission that they fucked up the first time - and then hid the fuckup behind a smokescreen. (Which they totally did.) Plaintiff attorneys love discovering that. But if they’d acted as soon as the first few reports came in, there probably wouldn’t have been enough plaintiffs to worry about.
In a far less public problem at a tiny scale, I once asked a plant manager if his interest in solving the problem on his forklifts was more or less important than having someone to blame for the problem. He said he’d take the solution. Repair cost per unit including the labor to drill 6 holes and cut a piece of angle iron was under 20 minutes, less than $40 per truck (in the '80s with a non-Union shop.) The factory was not willing to be displeased with me for keeping the customer loyal and getting his issue handled - and they apparently had met with utter failure trying to solve the problem via coordination with the manufacturer of the component that was failing. I do not know if my fix ever made it into production. I doubt it.
I got the blue-black special edition version of this same toothbrush back in July. I upgraded from just a manual toothbrush, so take that bias in mind, but I love this thing. You don’t need all the modes, but it cleans well and it’s nice that it tells you both when you’re brushing too hard and when you’re done. It also looks really nice on the counter and the battery life is really long, so you can travel easily without the charger. I have never downloaded the app - it works fine.
@adj16 Got that one too. Seems fine. I never messed with the app either. What I like about these new models is the separate intensity button. My old ones I wanted to leave in “Sensitive” but when trying to mess with on/off it often reset me to the main/normal setting. These new ones seem good. No battery issues so far but only a few months.
@Kidsandliz That is a good deal for authentic “W3” heads. There is a complex chart of Sonicare heads which has been posted before but I can’t dig it up now. The W3 is the “whitening” head which has medium/hard bristles for scrubbing teeth.
I have gum issues and prefer the softer heads. This one seems to come with the “G3” which is the gum care softer bristle version. It’s nice that you have a choice but when you buy a pack make sure you like the one you are getting.
In previous deals some have pointed out that some Sam’s Club deals are the “2” versions which are considered not as good but I’m not sure what the difference is. (Well, “of course, 3 is better than 2, it’s a whole 1 better…”). I am waiting for one that goes to 11.
@poolejd trying to (re)make my own brush heads, I can understand that a significant amount of cash had to be spent on the manufacturing equipment, the research to develop it, and the labor to assemble it. And the labor in procuring the raw materials.
And the rest of the cost is owed to the marketing department.
(Don’t mind me, I just rant whenever I see “doesn’t this cost a corporation nothing” … because I realized that it is true, they’ve finished making a system that costs them nothing … but only because the corporation is paying as little as possible to the human labor who mine, mold, and ship the parts that make the finished product.)
@poolejd
Short version 1: Because they can.
Short version 2: They figure that if you didn’t blink at the price of the whole unit, you’ll view the price of the brush heads as chump change.
Version 2 is reinforced by the fact that the people making the price decisions usually make at least three times as much as anyone here except maybe Snapster and one other. To them, the list price is chump change.
October 17, 2023
4:41pm ET
PACKAGE RECEIVED AT DHL ECOMMERCE DISTRIBUTION
CENTER
Grand Prairie, TX
October 13, 2023
2:06pm ET
EN ROUTE TO DHL
ECOMMERCE OR AWAITING
PROCESSING
Carrollton, TX
October 13, 2023
2:00pm ET
DHL ECOMMERCE CURRENTLY
AWAITING SHIPMENT AND
Why does it take four stupid stupid days to get what I purchased to DHL???
Specs
Product: Philips Sonicare DiamondClean Toothbrush With App
Model: HX9911/75, HX9911/76, HX9911/78
Condition: New
Works with the Philips Sonicare App
What’s Included?
Price Comparison
$220 at Kohl’s
Warranty
2-year Limited Warranty
Estimated Delivery
Monday, Oct 16 - Wednesday, Oct 18
Bought two a while ago. One died after a year. Not worth the money, even on sale.
@simtel20 was the clean better than with the Colgate 360 Sonic brush? That’s a much cheaper brush ($5~10) but it uses AAA batteries you can replace.
@pakopako @simtel20 I had also bought the two pack once upon a time and have been using one since then. It replaced a cheap battery operated brush and the difference is vast. Way, way better brush.
@simtel20 The insides of these are all similar so you can fix the fancy ones with the guts from a cheap one.
@pakopako I have bought a few of the $30-ish toothbrushes, and those have survived longer than the sonicare diamond that I mentioned that died (never mind the other sonicare 5xxx model that arrived DOA but that I only used after a few months - never again, soniccare!)
@cinoclav @pakopako I did buy a cheaper one… but it arrived DOA.
@cinoclav @pakopako @simtel20 I got two in an IRK that have worked OK for the scant use I’ve given them. I have no idea what brand they might be.
@ergomeh @simtel20 replacing and repairing is kind of a time sink.
I’ve got the guts of an old Interplak (bought out by ConAir) toothbrush that used a multi-tuft approach on their brush heads. I found it to be a superior clean since it was essentially a floss and brush. (Imagine a manual toothbrush, take away half the bristles, then make the remaining ones different heights, and have every one individually rotate.)
Resoldering a new battery, reassembling the piston that controls the brush, and (I assume the biggest reason these models were never popular) remaking the brush head are all painfully precise. (And then the circuit controlling everything died, probably from humidity or surge.)
Did these fall off a truck
The app is stupid. And the cup charger, that’s stupid too
This is badass. Bought one last year from here. The little glass is cute and does inductive charge through it …but you don’t need it. The cheaper one without the app or glass charges and stands just fine and the app definitely does more for them than you (i.e. data collection and opt out advertising). And I don’t travel with it so the case isn’t a benefit to me (some models of these are charging cases…this one is not)
I bought the cheaper one for my wife after after I bought this one, and I’d go that route if I did it all over
@CraigDanger how much cheaper was the cheaper one?
@pakopako I wanna say it was $50
Just glad it’s not a refurb. Not putting other people’s things in my mouth.
@soxnabox at least not paying to do that
“DiamondClean”?
Better hurry, baseball season is almost over.
I personally feel like I owe my dental health to Sonicare toothbrushes.
But, with that said, they do have a tendency to die sooner than you’d expect - especially given their price.
I tend to buy mine from Costco simply because they’ve actually encouraged me to return mine when they’ve broken shortly after the warranty expired…
With that said, a 2 year warranty does seem kinda nice.
@bakerzdosen Same here, including replacement heads at Costco. I’m embarrassed to say how long it was between my last “childhood” dental appointment and my first “adult” dental appointment (let’s say it spanned two decades), but I’m pretty sure that if I’d not been using the Sonicare toothbrush my mother gifted me early in adulthood, I probably would have had exactly zero teeth left to go to the dentist with. Genetics probably helped some, too, but my having avoided the expensive, painful stuff seems to be thanks in large part to Sonicare. (Conversely, I tried the fell-off-a-truck Quip brush that many of us waited a long time for, expecting to use it for travel, and it was an anemic piece of junk. For people who love it, more power to them, but others I’ve talked to have similar opinions: pretty much no comparison to a Sonicare.)
@bakerzdosen Thank you for the reminder about the warranty. The Sonicare 5100 I bought from SideDeal in February just died. I forgot that there was a longer warranty on these!
@bakerzdosen I totally agree and yes, it’s been way too long between dental visits. I have the old fashioned Sonicare brush, the one with the big heads (heh). I’m on my second one in 20 years, so that model seems to live longer. I have 4 replacement heads left and when those are gone I will buy a new one. I want one that beeps every 30 seconds to remind me to do each quadrant. I’m pretty sure I don’t need an app. I will keep Costco in mind, thank you.
I ended up getting an AquaSonic at about half the cost. Same set up, but no app.
@Vrysen the science in this area is very weak. Electric toothbrushes seem to be slightly better, on minimal/no data, but the speculation is that it’s the timer - you brush longer with electric. I’ve seen nothing to suggest different brands or generic vs oem heads make a difference (without evidence you can decide for yourself). I own a Sonicare and like it but mostly for the jollies - charging case (which this does not have) and glass. I mostly use generic heads (sorry Sidedeal)
I love these brushes. I’m still using my older style Sonicare with the old style, twist-on brush heads. I think they quit selling the old style brush heads so when my supply runs out, I’ll have to buy one of these new style heads.
@Plenny7 I just retired my older sonicare. Very short battery life after 5 years. Brush heads are still available at Costco. Got the newer style but not this one.
I’ll save $90 and pass on these.
My diamondclean is over 3 years old & still going strong.
Love it.
I misread this.
“14 Total Settings,” but 4 [Modes] x 3 [Intensities] = 12. Is this the new math that the kids are talking about?
@JWhirly Perhaps there are two modes of “off”.
@werehatrack ah yes, “off” and “really off/dead battery.” Good call. That’s marketing math for you!
I just bought the twin pack of these from Costco, on sale for $160. Been a Sonicare user since 2003, and have had two of them die during that 20-year span. They are excellent toothbrushes, but longevity is increasingly questionable. However, considering that a dental cleaning just cost me $180, a root canal + crown = $2500, the price for these brushes seems within reason. There are cheaper models with fewer bells & whistles, but I like the multiple modes/intensities on this one. I ignored the app and turned off the various “reminders.” I bought a cheapie, light-weight version here a year ago, nowhere near as powerful, but great for travel.
My confidence in Phillips has taken a hit recently with the revelations about their CPAP machines.
@werehatrack what’s this now?
@heyitslauren https://www.npr.org/2022/10/25/1131380992/phillips-cpap-recall-sleep-apnea-foam-particles
Almost a decade back, Philips started getting feedback telling them that the urethane foam they’d placed in the air passages of their Respironics CPAP devices was degrading and shedding particles into the lungs of the users. A predictable pattern of denial, dismissal, and general refusal to admit there was a problem followed. Something that could have had a quick and easy fix to prevent harm was, instead, preserved and perpetuated, spreading harm to ever more of the users.
Making medical devices isn’t about helping people, it’s about making money, and Philips demonstrated that very-short-term money is the only thing they are about.
@heyitslauren @werehatrack They recalled those. I think they are having trouble getting the FDA to reapprove them as they, apparently, haven’t solved the problem yet.
@werehatrack holy pete, that’s wild
@Kidsandliz This is one of Those Problems. If they change to a different material for the foam this late in the game, it’s an effective admission that they fucked up the first time - and then hid the fuckup behind a smokescreen. (Which they totally did.) Plaintiff attorneys love discovering that. But if they’d acted as soon as the first few reports came in, there probably wouldn’t have been enough plaintiffs to worry about.
In a far less public problem at a tiny scale, I once asked a plant manager if his interest in solving the problem on his forklifts was more or less important than having someone to blame for the problem. He said he’d take the solution. Repair cost per unit including the labor to drill 6 holes and cut a piece of angle iron was under 20 minutes, less than $40 per truck (in the '80s with a non-Union shop.) The factory was not willing to be displeased with me for keeping the customer loyal and getting his issue handled - and they apparently had met with utter failure trying to solve the problem via coordination with the manufacturer of the component that was failing. I do not know if my fix ever made it into production. I doubt it.
App?
Dear God…
@PocketBrain A shoelace or toothpick app cannot be far away.
@PocketBrain @werehatrack Bluetooth speaker laces a product we have not yet seen on meh. Any day now…
@ergomeh @PocketBrain Self-adjusting laces like Back To The Future, controllable from the app; just barely plausible, and lets hope they stay that way.
@PocketBrain @werehatrack sadly, laces with BT to control LEDs might be tempting…
@PocketBrain @werehatrack
(Back in my day, we invented Velcro for this)
@pakopako @PocketBrain OFFS.
“With App”???
How much for the NO-APP version?
Nevermind… I have my Oral-B, so I’d probably pass on this one anyway.
I got the blue-black special edition version of this same toothbrush back in July. I upgraded from just a manual toothbrush, so take that bias in mind, but I love this thing. You don’t need all the modes, but it cleans well and it’s nice that it tells you both when you’re brushing too hard and when you’re done. It also looks really nice on the counter and the battery life is really long, so you can travel easily without the charger. I have never downloaded the app - it works fine.
@adj16 Got that one too. Seems fine. I never messed with the app either. What I like about these new models is the separate intensity button. My old ones I wanted to leave in “Sensitive” but when trying to mess with on/off it often reset me to the main/normal setting. These new ones seem good. No battery issues so far but only a few months.
Side Deal is selling 6 replacement heads for $35 minus a penny.
@Kidsandliz That is a good deal for authentic “W3” heads. There is a complex chart of Sonicare heads which has been posted before but I can’t dig it up now. The W3 is the “whitening” head which has medium/hard bristles for scrubbing teeth.
I have gum issues and prefer the softer heads. This one seems to come with the “G3” which is the gum care softer bristle version. It’s nice that you have a choice but when you buy a pack make sure you like the one you are getting.
In previous deals some have pointed out that some Sam’s Club deals are the “2” versions which are considered not as good but I’m not sure what the difference is. (Well, “of course, 3 is better than 2, it’s a whole 1 better…”). I am waiting for one that goes to 11.
@Kidsandliz @pmarin Good information, thanks!
Bought my 2nd Philips Sonicare so I could keep it with my travel bag - love them!
With that, have never understood why the replacement heads cost so dang much - what do these things cost to make, like $.25 each?
@poolejd trying to (re)make my own brush heads, I can understand that a significant amount of cash had to be spent on the manufacturing equipment, the research to develop it, and the labor to assemble it. And the labor in procuring the raw materials.
And the rest of the cost is owed to the marketing department.
(Don’t mind me, I just rant whenever I see “doesn’t this cost a corporation nothing” … because I realized that it is true, they’ve finished making a system that costs them nothing … but only because the corporation is paying as little as possible to the human labor who mine, mold, and ship the parts that make the finished product.)
@poolejd
Short version 1: Because they can.
Short version 2: They figure that if you didn’t blink at the price of the whole unit, you’ll view the price of the brush heads as chump change.
Version 2 is reinforced by the fact that the people making the price decisions usually make at least three times as much as anyone here except maybe Snapster and one other. To them, the list price is chump change.
@poolejd @werehatrack
https://giphy.com/gifs/lucille-bluth-banana-oblivious-yJu2jIQZgPubm
@pakopako @poolejd Bingo.
October 17, 2023
4:41pm ET
PACKAGE RECEIVED AT DHL ECOMMERCE DISTRIBUTION
CENTER
Grand Prairie, TX
October 13, 2023
2:06pm ET
EN ROUTE TO DHL
ECOMMERCE OR AWAITING
PROCESSING
Carrollton, TX
October 13, 2023
2:00pm ET
DHL ECOMMERCE CURRENTLY
AWAITING SHIPMENT AND
Why does it take four stupid stupid days to get what I purchased to DHL???