91–100 of 311 posts
For my older Sonicare (with a larger brush head base), I've found it easiest to just write "Q1," "Q2," etc. with a sharpie when I replace the head.
I have one, but it never occurred to me to want to hack it. "But how do you know when it's time to change the brush?" Well, how about when it starts getting soft?
I swap toothbrush heads 4-5 times a day (a couple times per brushing session) and one of my major issues until now was that I didn't know how long I had used any individual toothbrush head and when to replace them (I didn't start using all of them at the same time). With per-head usage tracking this is much easier... I wasn't expecting it, but I'm glad Phlips is considering and supporting my use case.
I guess this is one of the downsides of ubiquitous cheap electronics --- DRM everywhere. A similar thing happened relatively recently with label printers: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30420918 (...and people have come up with a "modchip" to bypass that restriction already: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/reviews/dymo-550-thermal-print... ) All my tries to guess to one-way function for generating the passwords f…
I kind hoped the conclusion would be that you could unlock hidden features in the brush head, increase the torque and reset the head so that you don't have to replace it. But alternatively, since the head has an NFC tag, could you use it for stuff like a partnership with Marriott (open your hotel door with your toothbrush, so much convenience) or with transit companies to charge your monthly transit pass? Possibiliti…
The toothbrush doesn't force you to change the head. You can brush your teeth with an old head as much as you want.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I want all e-fuses to be banned, as well as any other means for manufacturers to permanently reduce, restrict, or remove functionality from products after they've been sold. One thing, I can think of, are hardware-based security devices that disable themselves after recognizing break-in attempts.
What kind of devices do you mean exactly?
Does the brush stop working with the head when that lockout happens, or does this just break the "buy a refill please" functionality? For my older Sonicare (with a larger brush head base), I've found it easiest to just write "Q1," "Q2," etc. with a sharpie when I replace the head.
It doesn't even do that after every time you used the head "too much". Not sure how much it reminds you.
I kind hoped the conclusion would be that you could unlock hidden features in the brush head, increase the torque and reset the head so that you don't have to replace it. But alternatively, since the head has an NFC tag, could you use it for stuff like a partnership with Marriott (open your hotel door with your toothbrush, so much convenience) or with transit companies to charge your monthly transit pass? Possibiliti…
This is crazy interesting but I didn't quite understand, when the timer runs out the head doesn't work anymore or you just get an LED notification to get a new one, to me at least there's a big difference in the two!