Have You Heard About This Smart Hair Brush?

Part of me thinks this is crazy and part of me is intrigued. I have a scale, blood pressure monitor, activity tracker and sleep tracker from this company (withings).

It's not on the market yet but it's at CES.




Advanced technology. Seamless design. Personalized advice.

Experience the world’s first smart hairbrush that empowers you to track and improve hair health over time. This product results from a collaboration between Kérastase and L’Oréal, who bring worldwide hair expertise, and Withings, which brings state of the art sensors and app connectivity to everyday products. The resulting innovation is a brush that syncs seamlessly to your smartphone to provide valuable insights that can help revolutionize the home beauty routine.


A holistic hair assessment
HAIR HEALTH ANALYSIS
Dryness
Follow hair elasticity and learn how to avoid dry hair

Damage
Measure cuticle damage to help ensure moisture retention

Breakage
Control hair quality and resilience to avoid breakage

Tangling
Optimize sebum distribution and avoid tangles


BRUSHING EXPERIENCE
Force & rhythm
Get insight into how to avoid damaging hair

Gesture analysis
Understand and improve brushing habits

Stroke count
Detailed information on how use impacts hair quality

Ooh, I wanna try it!
I'd probably break it though. Hope it's self repairing.

I'm guessing this brush isn't made for our hair....

I read one part as "optimize tangles". Which is probably accurate for my hair.

@GettingKinky
Did they mention how much it will retail for?

I had read that it'll retail for "less than US$200."

Intriguing but all those bristles will wreak havoc on kinks and curls.

I found more info. It's not for our hair.

Since the brush literally just hit CES this week, we haven't been able to check it out for ourselves. But we were able to speak with Guive Balooch, the global vice president of the L’Oréal incubator program, to find out everything you should know.

1. It has a microphone.
A tiny microphone embedded between the plastic bristles detects the sound of the brush tines working through your strands. That auditory data is transmitted to a mobile app, where a smart algorithm analyzes the statistics to detect frizziness, dryness, split ends and breakage. Too many snags and tears, and, via the app, you'll likely be prompted to start moisturizing more. Too silky of a stroke and maybe things are getting overly greasy.

2. It can tell if your hair is wet or dry.
Tiny little conductivity sensors can tell whether the hair is wet or dry, which is cool, but also important. "When your hair is wet, the moisture engulfs the strands which alters the sound waves to mimic the sound of smoother, less damaged hair," explains Balooch. By detecting wet or dry strands, the sensors can provide feedback to the data collected by the microphone—hey, this hair is actually wet!—yielding a more accurate baseline reading within the app.

3. The handle has fancy tools like an accelerometer, a gyroscope, and 3 axis load cells.
The accelerometer measures how fast you're combing the hair in brush strokes, which would have been very helpful for Marsha Brady. The gyroscope measures how forcefully you brush, and the special cells capture the movement of the hair in 3-D. All of this data is fed back to the app, which in turn makes customized recommendations. If you're brushing too fast, too hard, or focusing on just the roots, the brush will know and guide you to correct those habits.

4. It's a vibrator.
OK, not really. But the handle actually vibrates, giving you haptic feedback—or a real sensory pulse, kind of like the way the iPhone screen feels when it vibrates—when brushing. If you're brushing too vigorously through those pesky tangles, you might get a gentle buzz that tells you to let up a bit.
5. It's not for everyone.
At least in this iteration, the brush does have some limitations. "The brush sensors are not compatible on curly or coarse hair types," says Balooch, who adds that hair must also be chin-length or longer.

6. All of the info is stored neatly in the app.
According to Balooch, the app is really where things get interesting. "The app scores hair breakage over time, gives consumers feedback on brushing habits and weather, and offers recommendations of Kérastase products and routines,” Balooch explains. That's one way of saying if it's humid and you're raking through wet hair like it's tumbleweed, your brush will know, tattle to the app, and give you a little reminder to get back on track. Balooch also admits that the scoring system is still in a beta phase, so we'll report back on more definite details as soon as they're available.

This is nice. Although it doesn't work on our hair it is a good advancement. Perhaps in another 2 to 3 years they will have something for curly hair and maybe something that doesn't even have to touch the hair. Technology is amazing.