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Oral-B bricking Alexa toothbrush is cautionary tale against buzzy tech
(arstechnica.com)
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this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2024
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presumably the reason that people paid $230 for a $30 toothbrush was the $200 smart speaker that doubled as charging base. Once that feature is remotely disabled, we can say that the device as a whole (smart speaker that can charge a generic toothbrush, bundled with a generic toothbrush) is essentially bricked
I just wanted to point out that Oral B's basic electric toothbrushes still range from $45-$80, so it's not quite as cheap as you say it is. Your point still stands in its entirety. The only thing that makes this product different from the $45 model is the Alexa functionality, and taking that away makes it effectively not the same product.
Oral-B electric toothbrushes start at 10€ over here — the model with just one speed and only one brush included, that works with 2xAA batteries. I use mine with rechargeable AA and honestly I've forgotten when I got it. Could be 10 years.