If you grew up using a conventional toothbrush – essentially a stick with bristles on the end – you may be surprised to learn just how long the electric toothbrush has been around. The first was designed in the late 1930s, but that model was a long way from the sleek, feature-packed and Bluetooth-enabled beasts you can buy today.
There are now dozens of ultra-advanced versions on the market, but which ones are worth your cash? For the past two months, my teeth have become figurative guinea pigs to help you find the answer to that question. I put a bunch of electric toothbrushes from Oral-B, Philips, Suri, Ordo, Silk’n, Foreo and more through their paces to separate the best from the rest. Here are my conclusions.
At a glance
Why you should trust me
As well as having the physical qualities required to test electric toothbrushes (my own teeth and a reliable toothpaste budget), I’ve been testing electronics – phones, drones and everything in between – for more than a decade.
Also – and I’ll put this delicately to prevent you from closing the page in justified disgust – as someone who has to wear a retainer every night after Invisalign treatment, the toothbrushes weren’t short of nasties to clean during testing. They’ve seen things, man.
How I tested
I doubt many people include the four minutes spent brushing their teeth as a highlight of even the most tedious day, so spare a thought for the months when it became my life’s obsessive focus. Fortunately, and purely by chance, this coincided with a dentist’s visit in which I appeared to have undergone a Damascene conversion to good oral hygiene, so it did have its upside.
Anyway, the process was actually pretty simple: brush, brush and brush again, taking note of mouthfeel, grip, cleanliness, the features that appealed and those little things that made me irrationally grumpy. I used plaque-disclosing tablets, which turn your teeth a charming shade of pink and blue to reveal areas where plaque resides. Even the cheapest brushes did a good job of removing the blue, though, even if they didn’t feel as clean, so this test proved unhelpful.
Ultimately, while every brush I tested was leagues ahead of manual toothbrushes, I ordered them based on performance, features, feel, stamina and – perhaps most importantly, given how close the final results were – value for money.
A quick note on that: toothbrush recommended retail prices (RRPs) are often what you’d call “aspirational”. They’re frequently on offer, and even £500 models regularly go on sale for less than half price. It’s worth clicking through and checking what today’s price is on the off-chance.
The best electric toothbrushes in 2024
Best electric toothbrush overall:
Spotlight Sonic Pro
The Spotlight Sonic Pro is a great all-rounder, with excellent features and a price that doesn’t verge on ridiculous. Founded by two sibling dentists, Spotlight has only two toothbrushes at the moment, and the Pro model tested here delivers on every metric that counts.
Why we love it
First of all, the Spotlight Sonic Pro performs an impressive clean. Its four modes range from 30,000 (gentle) to 50,000 (polish) brush strokes a minute (BPM). That makes it the second most powerful sonic brush I tested, and the two that delivered more have RRPs starting at £400. While not completely necessary for a healthy mouth, such speeds help provide that “fresh from the hygienist” feeling, even when your teeth are crying out for a thorough clean after a day mainlining soft drinks.
It also packs a pressure sensor to make sure you’re not brushing too hard and potentially damaging your gums, and there are four lights just below the head to show how far you are into your two-minute brushing cycle.
Flip the heads over and you’ll find a tongue cleaner, plus it comes with a handy travel case too. While this doesn’t charge the brush, the magnetic USB-C charging base is pretty compact, and a single charge can last up to 70 days, which is above average for an electric toothbrush. Even at the higher speeds I was using it at, it didn’t show any signs of slowing down during the testing period, so that feels accurate.
If you can do without the pressure sensor, progress lights, tongue cleaner and polish setting, you are likely to be just as happy with the non-Pro version and can save a few quid.
It’s a shame that … modes aren’t labelled on the brush itself, even if you can easily feel the difference.
Type: sonic
Modes: four (gentle, clean, white and polish)
Power: 50,000 BPM
Pressure sensor: yes
Battery life: up to 70 days
App: no
£150 at Look Fantastic
£150 at Amazon
Best value electric toothbrush:
Icy Bear Next-Generation sonic toothbrush
There were three strong contenders in the £50-65 price bracket that I was considering for the best-value pick (the £49.99 Ordo Sonic+ and £50 Silk’n SonicSmile Plus were the others), but I ultimately chose the £65 Icy Bear because it was the only one to come with a pressure sensor. In fact, this was the cheapest toothbrush I reviewed that had one.
Why we love it
Oddly, the pressure sensor isn’t pitched as the main selling point, which is instead, rather confusingly, fingerprint recognition. This isn’t some kind of added dental security – it’s to prevent it from being activated in luggage without needing an extra case, and it works pretty well (with a perfectly angled edge and a lot of effort, I was able to turn it on without skin contact – but it’s not something you’ll do by accident).
Otherwise, it ticks all the boxes. The top of the handle glows white when in use, and flashes ominously if you’re pushing too hard, and there are a generous five brushing modes. At its maximum power, it hits a very respectable 40,000 BPM for a solid clean, too.
It’s a shame that … there’s no charging stand, and you’ll need to open up a flap on the base for USB-C charging.
Type: sonic
Modes: five (clean, whiten, polish, massage and sensitive)
Power: 40,000 BPM
Pressure sensor: yes
Battery life: up to 45 days
App: no
Best premium electric toothbrush:
Philips Sonicare Smart 9400
If you have a toothbrush budget most people could only dream of, then the Philips Sonicare Smart 9400 is the one to go for. I also tested the DiamondClean 9900, which retails for slightly more, but this is only marginally weaker and I actually slightly prefer the way it charges.
Why we love it
When I took the Sonicare 9400 out of the box, I thought they’d packed the wrong charger. It turns out that the handy rinse glass included in the package is how it charges. You rest the charging puck underneath it and the toothbrush charges through the glass when not in use. What a time to be alive.
With up to 62,000 motions a minute, it’s the joint most powerful sonic brush I tested (tying with the aforementioned DiamondClean 9900) and you can really feel the results after use. It has four modes – clean (with three intensities), deep clean, gum health and white – feels comfortable in the hand, and comes with a charging case if you don’t want to take the magical glass charger on the road.
It also connects to a rather excellent app to keep track of your brushing habits. Unlike with the DiamondClean 9900, where it’s the only way to cycle between modes, you don’t have to use it. But if you do, you’ll receive guidance on your brushing, showing the areas you’ve missed and giving you the option to spend a bit longer on them if needed. It can be connected with Apple Health for iPhone data nerds, and it’ll even automatically reorder brush heads for you if you want, so you’re never caught short.
It’s a shame that … it misses out on the sensitive mode of the DiamondClean 9900, so those with tooth pain may want to look elsewhere. Battery life is also rather stingy, thanks to the Bluetooth.
Type: sonic
Modes: four (clean, deep clean+, gum health and white+)
Power: 62,000 BPM
Pressure sensor: yes
Battery life: up to 14 days
App: yes
£160.99 at Amazon
£160.99 at John Lewis
Best oscillating toothbrush:
Oral-B iO3
This oscillating toothbrush (which moves the bristles in a circular motion, rather than vibrating like most other brushes here – see the buying guide below for more information) isn’t technically the best one you can buy, as you can probably tell from the fact that Oral-B’s iO line goes all the way up to the iO10. But because they all use the same motor and brush, and thus offer similar performance, this is the one I recommend: it jettisons unnecessary extras (like a connected app and screen) in order to simply deliver the features you need for a great clean.
Why we love it
It boasts three modes – daily clean, sensitive and whiten – and its round heads are small enough to get into tight areas. Most importantly, its pressure sensor won’t only tell you when you’re applying too much pressure, but also when you’re applying too little, via an easy-to-understand white/green/red lighting system in a ring at the top of the handle.
While it has fewer modes than the higher-numbered iOs, it delivers the same dentist-fresh-feeling performance, while retailing for a fraction of their optimistic RRPs.
It’s a shame that … at £15 for two, replacement heads are a touch on the pricey side. And, like all the Oral-B brushes I tested, it made me oddly dribbly during the brushing, so stay near the sink.
Type: oscillating
Modes: three (daily clean, whitening and sensitive)
Power: not disclosed
Pressure sensor: yes
Battery life: up to 18 days
App: no
Best electric toothbrush for sustainability:
Suri sonic toothbrush
Long before I filled my home with electric toothbrushes for testing purposes, I bought a Suri toothbrush because they’re the most sustainable option on the market. You could argue that’s not a huge achievement, given the industry’s love of lithium-ion batteries and replaceable heads, but Suri really does take this seriously and should be your pick if sustainability is your priority.
Why we love it
Suri has been working with ClimatePartner to offset 100% of its emissions (transport and manufacturing included), and it runs a free recycling scheme for its toothbrush heads in the UK and US, with a postage-paid bag sent out when four or more are ready for collection. The brand’s brushes have a body made from aluminium, heads constructed from corn starch and bristles from castor oil.
This brush is slim and lightweight, with an attractive wall mount included for keeping your brush away from the sink when not in use. Yes, it has only two modes (clean and polish) and no pressure sensor to speak of, but it provides a reasonable clean without dirtying the planet (too much).
It’s a shame that … it’s only a matter of time before your spring-pin charger breaks, which dents the “buy once” image somewhat (I’ve lost three to date).
Type: sonic
Modes: two (clean and polish)
Power: 33,000 BPM
Pressure sensor: no
Battery life: 40+ days
App: no
The best of the rest
Foreo Issa 3
Best for: electric sceptics
It may look like something more at home on the shelves of Ann Summers, but the Foreo Issa 3 is doing something a bit different, which makes it ideal for those loth to give up their manual toothbrush. The medical-grade silicone and PBT polymer bristles are soft enough to scrub away at your teeth like a traditional manual toothbrush as hard as you like, no pressure sensor required.
Foreo reckons that said bristles are up to 10,000 times more hygienic than their nylon counterparts, which means the head needs replacing only every six months. The company also says the brush will go for an entire year on a single charge. Naturally, it’s been impossible to emulate that much use during the testing period, but it’s certainly shown no signs of slowing down, and given a charge takes only two hours, it won’t be a big hardship if it falls a little short.
It didn’t make the final cut because … for me, it simply didn’t remove plaque as effectively in two minutes as its more traditional rivals, even with the added push of manual scrubbing.
Type: sonic hybrid; modes: one (with 16 intensity levels); power: 11,000 BPM; pressure sensor: no; battery life: up to 365 days; app: no
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Coulax C8
Best for: if money is tight
I thought the cheap and cheerful £29 Superdrug ProCare model would be the most affordable model on test, but this bestseller from Amazon knocks a further third off the price and comes with a surprising number of features.
For about £20, you get a toothbrush with five settings, up to 40,000 BPM and eight (!) brush heads in the box. While my mouth didn’t feel as fresh as with more expensive models, bluntly, it didn’t feel like a quarter of performance for a quarter of the price.
It didn’t make the final cut because … while I had no issues with my test unit, Amazon’s AI analysis of its customer reviews found that “some customers report that it turns on randomly, doesn’t charge, and doesn’t retain any charge”. So there may be an element of getting what you pay for.
Type: sonic; modes: five (white, clean, sensitive, polish and massage); power: 40,000 BPM; pressure sensor: no; battery life: up to 120 days; app: no
Oral-B iO9
Best for: if money is no object
With a crazy £500+ RRP, you may wonder what kind of black magic the Oral-B iO9 offers your daily brush. The answer is lots, but not enough to justify its price, hence the inclusion here.
It comes with a whopping seven cleaning modes (daily clean, sensitive, gum care, intense, whiten, super sensitive and tongue clean), a colour screen to cycle through them, and built-in 3D teeth tracking that can detect 16 mouth zones to indicate how your technique is in the connected app. It charges quickly too – just three hours via the magnetic charging stand or the bundled snazzy charging case and a USB-C cable.
There is a middle ground between this and the recommended iO3 above, with the Oral-B iO6 offering a black-and-white screen and a connected app, albeit with slower charging, a non-charging case, weaker position tracking and fewer modes. If an app is important to you, but your money-to-sense ratio is still intact, that’s probably the one to go for.
It didn’t make the final cut because … at RRP, it costs half a grand! You could buy 25 Coulax C8s for that.
Type: oscillating; modes: seven (daily clean, sensitive, gum care, intense, whiten, super sensitive, tongue clean); power: not disclosed; pressure sensor: yes; battery life: up to 14 days; app: yes
Silk’n SonicYou
Best for: battery life
Toothbrush battery life varies wildly because it depends on a host of factors: how often you brush, how long you spend doing so, and which modes you use. As such, plenty of people may find that manufacturers inadvertently (or, cynically, advertently) oversell their stamina.
Still, if battery life is the be-all and end-all for you, you should give the Silk’n SonicYou a look. Although it is not as good as that of the Foreo, the manufacturer suggests you’ll get up to 300 days’ use with it, if you use the sensitive (30,000 strokes a minute) setting twice a day for a total of four minutes. That’ll obviously go down faster if you brush more often, for longer, or use the 37,000-stroke-a-minute whitening mode, but given most of the brushes I was testing were rated in the 14- to 90-day area, it’s still a stamina champion. It certainly didn’t need charging while I was using it.
Infrequent charging can be a curse if you’re dealing with a bespoke charger that you can’t find when the time comes, but thankfully you just need to pop open the base and connect a common-or-garden USB-C cable to top it up.
It didn’t make the final cut because … battery life is often directly linked to the power of the brush, and while 37,000 BPM is nothing to be sneezed at, you can get more power if you’re prepared to charge more often.
Type: sonic; modes: three (sensitive, clean and white); power: 37,000 BPM; Pressure sensor: no; battery life: up to 300 days; app: no
From £47.72 at Amazon
£89 at Boots
Whites Beaconsfield sonic LED toothbrush
Best for: whitening
While many toothbrushes (including this one) have a built-in whitening setting that adds time or alternates speeds to remove surface stains, the Whites Beaconsfield sonic LED toothbrush – with its terrifying picture of a toothy strawberry on the box – goes the extra mile by including blue light whitening technology. The company says this can whiten teeth by an average of 2.5 shades in three days.
A week’s use did indeed appear to make my teeth appear slightly lighter in before-and-after shots, although you shouldn’t expect miracles. All the same, combining this with whitening toothpaste and other products could really make a difference in the long run.
It didn’t make the final cut because … other toothbrushes offer a cleaner feeling mouth. And that blue light makes for a shorter, two-week battery life.
Type: sonic modes: four (clean, white, polish and gum care); power: 39,600 RPM (vibration frequency); pressure sensor: no; battery life: 15 days; app: no
£39.99 at Superdrug
£99.99 at Amazon
Philips One
Best for: travel
While most electric toothbrushes include a travel case for hygiene (and to prevent them from buzzing in your bag), you might not want to take an expensive electric toothbrush with you everywhere – especially if it has its own bespoke charger.
The Philips One is cheap, cheerful and compact, and it will last for 90 days with a single AAA battery. For a tenner more, you can get a version with a built-in battery that’s chargeable via USB-C, but you’ll get only 30 days out of that.
It didn’t make the final cut because … 13,000 movements a minute is fine for a few days’ travelling, but you’ll want more power for day-to-day brushing.
Type: sonic; modes: one; power: 13,000 BPM; pressure sensor: no; battery life: up to 90 days (AAA) or 30 days (USB); app: no
Rechargeable toothbrush
From £33.01 at Amazon
From £33.79 at Philips
Battery toothbrush
£14.99 at Superdrug
£19.89 at Amazon
What you need to know
Are electric toothbrushes better than manual ones?
Generally speaking, yes. Without them “it’s harder to get the same result”, says Caitlin Miller, head of hygiene and therapy at Bupa Dental Care UK. “To get the same level of cleaning found with an electric toothbrush, you’d have to spend a lot longer than two minutes brushing with a manual.”
The reasons are threefold, she explains: manual dexterity, people are more likely to use their expensive electric device properly and sheer power.
“You don’t have to really do anything with it and it does a better job,” Miller says. “That’s not to say that they suit everybody. There are people who can do a perfectly good job with a manual toothbrush, but for the majority of my patients, I will see improvements when people go on to an electric toothbrush.”
How do you use an electric toothbrush?
“You want to hold your toothbrush at a 45-degree angle – half on the gum, half on the tooth. You should just be holding it horizontally, sweeping across the tooth and gum margins,” says Miller, adding that you should move slowly, allocating a couple of seconds for each tooth.
“You don’t move it up and down, you don’t need to move it round and round. That’s the beauty of the electric toothbrush: you can be pretty lazy with it and it still does a good job.”
But one common mistake is to press too hard, which is why some of the brushes in our guide come with pressure sensors – something actively recommended by Miller. “If you’ve got too much pressure, you’re essentially dampening the vibrations and bristles.”
As for replacing the heads, Miller suggests you do this every three months – or earlier if it looks splayed or frayed because its cleaning performance will suffer. “You can see it under a microscope: it gets really worn on top.”
Beyond an electric toothbrush, Miller stresses the importance of cleaning between the teeth, and she has a clear order of preference: interdental brushes, then floss and finally water flossers.
“If I’ve got patients who won’t use anything often, if I can get them on a water flosser, then that’s better than nothing,” she says.
Oscillating vs sonic toothbrushes: what’s the difference?
There are two main types of toothbrushes on the market: oscillating and sonic – with the latter seemingly dominating at the moment. “They work differently, but they’re both doing a similar sort of thing,” says Miller.
In short, an oscillating toothbrush moves the bristles back and forth in a circular motion, while sonic brushes use vibrations to move the bristles in two directions to loosen plaque. The latter is measured in brush strokes per minute (BPM) and my selection was rated between 11,000 and 62,000 BPM. Miller says that some of her clients find the sonic brushes a bit “ticklish” at first, but this is something you can get used to over time.
Which is better? A systematic review and meta-analysis of 38 comparison studies published in the International Journal of Dental Hygiene found a “small but clinically relevant advantage” for oscillating brushes. But it added that it’s “unlikely that dental care professionals in routine examination would be able to detect [the] small differences” between the two, meaning that personal preference should ultimately rule supreme.
Alan Martin is a freelance writer who has been putting products – including phones, gaming devices and wearables – through their paces for more than a decade. Although he wouldn’t call teeth brushing a hobby, it’s something he’s been doing for decades with a degree of aptitude that has largely satisfied dentists.
