Oral Hygiene App Tracks At-Home Care; Apple TV 4K Updated

Brushout (Free; Premium, $3.99, Alexandr Moscaliuc)

Oral hygiene instruction and at-home hygiene compliance are critical to a patient’s health. Many tools have been developed to improve outcomes on these two pillars of oral health. Amongst this cadre of smart devices, hygiene tracking strategies and pharmaceutical interventions is a mobile app called Brushout. It is an oral hygiene timer and tracking application that helps patients document and improve their at-home care techniques. Though Brushout has a premium edition that unlocks features like custom routines, widget colors and journaling, this review utilized the free version.

At its core, Brushout is a simple application: it times a user’s brushing routine and supports instruction through integrated oral hygiene videos. The main screen has an illustration of the maxillary and mandibular arches. Pressing the play button highlights the facial surfaces of one quadrant of teeth; 15 seconds later, the lingual surfaces are highlighted as an indicator for the user to move on. Users have the option to pause their routine, restart the entire routine, and add other hygiene tasks like flossing and brushing one’s tongue. This cycle continues until at least two minutes are reached and a congratulatory dialogue box appears. Brushout then logs this event on a calendar and lets users keep track of how long they’ve brushed in a day. There are more settings, like the ability to activate voice coaching, notifications to brush multiple times a day, and adjust the duration of timers. The hygiene instructions are clear with bullet points and supplemental YouTube videos by Electric Teeth. Overall, Brushout is a useful oral hygiene tracker that does not break new ground. Simplicity and a free price point are its two greatest virtues, and for many looking at ways to improve at home care, these make Brushout a logical choice to explore. Those patients requiring more customized at-home care would likely be better served with more advanced applications.

—Alexander Lee, DMD

Apple TV 4K ($129; Apple)

Digital media players are commonly found in all households as content streaming has increased in popularity. Many of these streaming boxes support the vast array of services available through apps and subscriptions. Apple has updated the Apple TV 4K to include the latest technologies and support for modern home entertainment systems.

The updated Apple TV 4K is overall 20% smaller than its predecessor due to its efficient A15 Bionic processor, which has eliminated the need for an internal cooling fan. There are two configurations: Wi-Fi, with 64GB of storage capacity and Wi-Fi + Ethernet, with twice the storage, Gigabit Ethernet and Thread networking support for the next generation of smart home products. All models have HDMI 2.1, Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0 and supports HDR10+ and Dolby Vision for video and Dolby Atmos, Dolby Digital 7.1, and Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound for audio with compatible home theater equipment. The included Siri remote has also been updated with a USB-C port for charging. Performance improvements over the previous model are imperceptible as apps and media launch and play without noticeable differences in speed. Users may find improvements when playing graphics intensive games, but the overall experience remains unchanged. Additionally, the HDR10+ standard is primarily supported exclusively by Samsung TVs so users may not see a difference in video and picture quality with this update. The Wi-Fi + Ethernet model can act as a thread-enabled home hub, but smart home device manufacturers still need to update existing devices or develop new ones to support this future standard.

Compared to the previous generation, users will not see much value in upgrading to the new Apple TV 4K. For first-time purchases or upgrades from earlier generations, this is a future-proof update to an already excellent full-featured streaming box.

—Hubert Chan, DDS