The 3899-yuan AI toothbrush was sold out in seconds upon its launch. Is Dyson's new product really nothing but an intelligence tax for consumers?

On a weekday at SKP Beijing CBD, the home goods zone on the fifth floor can be described as "almost deserted". Standing still and looking around, you can count the people nearby on one hand. It is hard to imagine that this high-end fashion department store, which has topped the global single-store sales ranking for many consecutive years, could ever look so quiet and underpopulated.

Dyson has a store here, and the sales associate told Duojiao Spicy that this location mainly serves as a brand and product display window. When Duojiao Spicy asked about the sales performance of Dyson's new AI toothbrush that has been trending across all platforms recently, the associate said: "Not many customers have come to the store to inquire about this product at the moment, and we don't have any stock here except for the demo unit. On e-commerce platforms, the flash sale opens simultaneously across the whole network at 10 a.m. every day, so it should still sell very well."

Just how popular is a toothbrush priced at 3,899 yuan?

Duojiao Spicy opened Dyson's official flagship store right on time, and the page showed that the September 10 flash sale had ended, with all units sold out and the product link removed from shelves. Shortly after, even the 1-yuan priority purchase right was completely snapped up.

The priority purchase right that locks in consumer demand in advance, plus the daily flash sale design, shows strong characteristics of hunger marketing. The purchase link that was hastily taken down also shrouds the actual sales performance of this product in mystery.

Going back to September 1, 79-year-old founder James Dyson personally unveiled Dyson's first oral care product, the CameraJet visual imaging toothbrush, noting that this toothbrush embeds a 100,000-pixel macro camera in the brush head, which can realize AI recognition of interdental gaps and perform water jet cleaning while brushing. When the China domestic price was announced, the comment section exploded, with the most frequent line being: "The 'IQ tax' never rips off the poor, thank you."

When Duojiao Spicy asked the sales associate about the price of consumables, the associate stated frankly that currently only full sets are on sale, and domestic consumables have not been launched for unknown reasons.

Interestingly, 32-year-old James Dyson invented the world's first bagless cyclone vacuum cleaner back in the day, but was rejected by many European manufacturers. At that time, dust collection bags were still a consumables business with an annual output value of about 1 billion pounds.

Today, that inventor who was shut out by the entire industry for breaking the consumables profit pie has created a toothbrush that cannot deliver full performance without buying official original consumables.

The contrast and discussions around "IQ tax" make Dyson's toothbrush business even more worthy of exploration.

The "Sky-high Priced" Toothbrush Amid Diverse Public Opinions

"Can even toothbrushes spy on us now?" On the day this toothbrush was released, some people expressed concerns about privacy leakage. Putting a connected camera in the bathroom, the space with the highest privacy requirements, touches the most sensitive nerve in the smart home era.

In response, Dyson immediately stated that no videos or images will be stored locally, in the supporting application, or on cloud servers.

Apart from privacy issues, people are more concerned about the effectiveness of this toothbrush.

Dyson originally developed this toothbrush precisely for better effectiveness. James Dyson found that almost everyone knows they should use dental floss for oral care, but hardly anyone insists on using it because it is time-consuming and laborious. As for tooth brushing, even fewer people can achieve the effect required by doctors.

If people are unwilling to do it, let the machine do more work. After all, changing habits is less effective than changing tools.

According to Dyson, the company has conducted research in the oral care field for more than ten years, and the CameraJet product alone took 6 years to develop, with 661 engineers participating and 38 patents generated. More epoch-making is that Dyson added AI assistance to this product.

Dyson trained a machine called Gap Optical Targeting with more than 470,000 dental images to teach it to "see" interdental gaps, and finally made the toothbrush run a local AI model with about 16 million lines of code.

With AI assistance, the toothbrush and oral irrigator are integrated into one. The 1mm-diameter 100,000-pixel macro camera under the brush head can capture oral images and identify interdental gaps at 28 frames per second, then trigger mouthwash jet. The entire response process is compressed to less than 100 milliseconds.

In addition, this toothbrush also has a reminder function for incorrect brushing postures, and will automatically stop working to wait for the user to correct their posture. It has positive significance for children who brush perfunctorily, people undergoing orthodontic treatment, and patients who need precise care after surgery.

Dyson's promotion states that this product brings an end to the "blind brushing" era. But is its effect really as good as the brand claims?

"I think it works pretty well, but you really need to get used to it, it's much more complicated than traditional brushing." As one of the first consumers to use Dyson's toothbrush, Ms. Li said its cleaning effect is significantly better than that of all the toothbrushes she has used before. She also mentioned that this function may be more suitable for children who are prone to dental caries, and she will consider buying a children's version if it is launched in the future.

Some other consumers think this product complicates simple things and has little practical value: "I bought it, there are too many flaws to list, it splashes all over the mirror when brushing, it's so annoying" "It will probably end up the same as their noise-canceling headphones, isn't a top-tier Philips Sonicare a much better choice?"

Ms. Zhang, a dental hygienist at a large chain dental clinic, told Duojiao Spicy that even with an ordinary non-electric toothbrush, as long as you use the correct posture and follow the Bass brushing method for more than two minutes, you can still achieve very good cleaning effect and effectively remove dental plaque. "This toothbrush cannot replace professional teeth cleaning, and problems such as dental calculus still need professional treatment. So it's not completely useless, but it's really not that cost-effective."

3,899 yuan can buy a flagship electric toothbrush from Philips or Oral-B (about 1,000 yuan), a mainstream brand oral irrigator (about 800 yuan), cover the cost of brush head consumables for more than two years, and even have remaining money for two professional teeth cleaning sessions. From the perspective of pure oral health input-output ratio, the combination of "toothbrush + oral irrigator + regular teeth cleaning" is far better than a single AI toothbrush.

Mr. Wei, founder of an oral technology brand, told Duojiao Spicy that under the same budget, he would recommend spending the money on teeth cleaning, regular check-ups, and at-home oral irrigators.

"For the extra 3,000 yuan, what consumers actually get is improved awareness of oral health."

So the answer to the question "Is 3,899 yuan worth it" is not one-sided. As a health consumption, it carries considerable technology and brand premium; as a tech consumption, whether it is worth it depends on whether you treat it as a practical tool or a fun gadget.

Some netizens complained after watching the introduction video: "They just overcomplicated a simple thing, who on earth is buying this?"

A consumer who has already purchased this toothbrush replied: "It's suitable for people with high oral care requirements, who love avant-garde industrial design, and have sufficient spending power. That's exactly me."

The Business Logic of Consumables Meets the Era of Equal Rights

Apart from the toothbrush itself, Dyson has also conducted in-depth research on consumables.

The foam generated by high-foam toothpaste will block the camera and make AI recognition fail. Therefore, this toothbrush must be paired with non-foaming gel toothpaste. Similarly, the coloring ingredients in ordinary mouthwash will interfere with image collection, so the official recommends using transparent mouthwash.

Toothpaste, mouthwash and other products that used to be purchased separately now need to be redesigned to meet the requirements of the toothbrush for the first time.

Chinese consumers have a strong obsession with "foam" — "generating foam" and "cleaning thoroughly" are almost equated in consumer perception. Mr. Gong, former executive of a well-known domestic chain pharmacy, told Duojiao Spicy: "I still think foamy toothpaste cleans better. And I watch short videos on my phone while brushing, who would stare at their own interdental gaps?"

There are very few non-foaming toothpastes on the market that meet Dyson's requirements, and most of them are in the children's product line, with almost no adult non-foaming toothpaste available; the same goes for mouthwash, the optional range is very limited if you want to achieve the best effect of the device.

Coupled with brush heads with built-in RFID chips that track usage times and remind users to replace them, a complete closed-loop system has taken shape.

It turns out that 3,899 yuan is just the admission ticket to enjoy "intelligent brushing" in advance, and the real business lies in the continuous stream of subsequent consumables. As for what counts as "qualified" consumables, the standard is defined by Dyson.

Public information shows that the price of the supporting CameraJet brush head in Hong Kong is 250 Hong Kong dollars for 2 units, equivalent to about 115 yuan per unit, which is more than 4 times the price of a usmile brush head (about 26 yuan per unit) and more than 11 times the price of a Laifen 9.9-yuan brush head.

Referring to the Hong Kong region's price, according to the consumable replacement cycle recommended by dentists, the annual cost of brush heads alone exceeds 460 yuan. Adding the cost of special-formula toothpaste and mouthwash, the two-year consumables cost of this "intelligent brushing" system is close to the price of a flagship Philips electric toothbrush.

This business model has a famous name in commercial history, the razor-blade model. Gillette invented it, Hewlett-Packard carried it forward with printer cartridges, and Nestle packaged it into a lifestyle with coffee capsules.

Dyson has done accessory business before, but the nozzles for hair dryers, filters for vacuum cleaners, and charging bases are all durable products. Dyson's design based on colors and specifications focuses on self-pleasuring experience but lacks repurchase demand, which is far less profitable than the rigid demand for regular replacement of toothbrush brush heads.

What's more interesting is that Dyson chose a very subtle timing to enter this market. China's electric toothbrush consumables business has just experienced an "equal rights revolution".

Since 2024, Laifen has directly pushed the brush head price to a very low level with the pricing of 59 yuan for 6 brush heads, completely breaking the "excessive profit" myth of the industry. Recently, Laifen's 9.9-yuan brush head was even out of stock for months, and consumers considered it a disguised price increase, and the public opinion calmed down only a few days ago after the product was restocked.

Dyson's AI camera has deep technical advantages, but its consumables closed loop faces a market that has just been demystified, and a group of consumers who are highly alert to the concept of "exclusive accessories", which is a timing mismatch.

In terms of products, Dyson, which relies on brand effect to capture the mid-to-high end market, will inevitably encounter some frictions this time.

Ms. Chen, whose family annual income exceeds one million yuan, is already 50 years old, but her passion and pursuit of advanced technology has never stopped. She bought Roborock's latest "embodied intelligent floor sweeping robot", a vivo mobile phone with an external telephoto camera, and often uses a Pocket camera to shoot VLOGs for herself.

But after watching Dyson's toothbrush promotion video, Ms. Chen told Duojiao Spicy: "It looks pretty good, but I won't use electric toothbrushes anymore. I threw away the electric toothbrush I bought in Japan last year, I always feel that my teeth are getting looser the more I brush with an electric toothbrush."

According to the Generation R Consumer Insight Report released by Gain & Loss, China's 45-59 year old population has reached 320 million, their debt ratio is only half of that of the 25-34 year old group, with stable income, abundant assets and reduced debt. A considerable part of them can afford the price of Dyson's toothbrush, and this group will continue to expand as China's population aging progresses.

Some of them may have the same concerns as Ms. Chen. Past usage experience has affected their choices, and the freshness brought by cameras and algorithms is not enough to dispel her concerns about electric toothbrushes.

In the book *Real Demand*, Liang Ning divides product value into functional value, emotional value and asset value. For Dyson's main hardware consumer products, the key lies in how the first two support each other. Take hair dryers as an example, the essence of blowing hair is drying, no one's hair will "grow thicker" just because of a 3,000-yuan hair dryer.

Consumer recognition of functions is the foundation where brand premium can land.

Back to the toothbrush, brand premium also needs corresponding functions and usage experience as support. Calculated at the price of 1,000 yuan for a flagship electric toothbrush, CameraJet has a premium of nearly 3,000 yuan — what consumers want is not just tooth cleaning, but more importantly tooth protection.

Mr. Wei believes that the real value of "visualized oral health" is far greater than 3,000 yuan. Of course, there are more lower-cost alternatives in the market.

Testing the Waters with Far-reaching Impacts

Putting