When Dyson announced it was entering the toothbrush market, the world responded almost as one: “Four hundred and twenty pounds? For a toothbrush!?”

No, it wasn’t a stray decimal point – or if it was, Dyson is doubling down and leaning into the mistake. Unlike high-end brushes from Oral-B or Philips Sonicare, where the “recommended” in “recommended retail price” is doing a heroic amount of heavy lifting given the frequent discounts, the Dyson CameraJet will actually set you back £419.99.

The CameraJet is an electric toothbrush and a water flosser, so if you were being charitable – or merely looking for a way to justify the cost to yourself – you could call this two for the price of one on the best electric toothbrushes and water flossers.

There’s a lot of clever technology here, and Dyson’s commitment to doing something different should be applauded, even if it’s just to give your hands something to do besides reaching for your credit card.

Note that the brush has had some bad post-launch publicity with multiple online accounts of the pricey purchase failing within weeks. This led to the CameraJet vanishing from virtual store shelves for a time, with Dyson blaming a “single component issue affecting a small number of early batches”.

I had no such issues with my review unit, and the brush is now back in stock everywhere. Nonetheless, it’s worth remembering that the more intricate moving parts in a product, the more opportunities for breakage.

How I tested

I’ve become something of a pro toothbrusher in the past two years, having tested dozens of models for our list of the best electric toothbrushes. The process isn’t a big secret: it just involves brushing to an obsessive degree while observing several factors, including how it feels in the hand and mouth, how easy it is to use, how portable it is and how clean your teeth feel afterwards. It’s a similar story for flossers, with the water tank capacity measured too.

There are also objective details you can assess, such as power and battery life. Because the last thing you want is to wait for your brush to charge when you just want to go to bed.

Dyson CameraJet: what you need to know

Dyson isn’t the first manufacturer to combine an electric toothbrush and water flosser into one product – I recently tested the Soocas Neos II, which I deemed a “a jack of two trades, but a master of none” – but this is the first one I’ve used that does both jobs well enough to warrant a recommendation.

There are a few reasons for this. The handle is a normal width for an electric toothbrush, rather than distended to hold the water. Unlike regular cordless flossers, where you have to awkwardly refill the reservoir by hand, here a dock tops it up with a single button press.

The main advantage, though, is the camera. The 100,000-pixel macro-lens camera sits inside a hollowed-out section of the brush head and captures 28 images of your mouth every second, which Dyson’s machine-learning algorithm uses to identify gaps between teeth. When it finds one, a blast of water or mouthwash is automatically fired into the gap. This camera also means you can watch a live stream from the inside of your mouth on the Dyson app, should you have exhausted the contents of Netflix.

The 12.5ml tank is described as “anti-gravity”, meaning the diaphragm pump and pressure chamber adapt to how you’re holding the brush, ensuring that it always has liquid to dispense. This is a big plus over other water flossers, where the “straw in a cup” system often misses the dregs when holding it at the angle required for hard-to-reach places.

The jet, Dyson says, is also different from those fired by other water flossers. Working with the National University of Singapore, which helped develop a proxy plaque (a lab stand-in for real dental plaque), the company claims to have found that traditional “needle-type” jets merely punctured a hole in the sticky surface, rather than removing it. Dyson instead opts for a conical shape that it says “sweeps and removes plaque at once”, while being gentler to gums and enamel.

So the expense is justified via R&D and clever technology. Note that the high price of entry doesn’t end with the brush itself, as you need bespoke replacement heads to work with the camera, and these cost £25 for two (though your first pair come in the box). The brush heads have an RFID (radio-frequency identification) tag that enables the toothbrush to monitor how often the head has been used and let you know when it needs replacing.

Dyson CameraJet specifications

Type: variable sonic oscillation
Modes: three cleaning modes and three brushing intensities (plus water jet)
Power: 58,000 movements a minute
Pressure sensor: yes
Battery life: up to 10 days
App: yes
Warranty: two years, with 12 months for the brush head cover (registration required if you buy at a third-party retailer)
Replacement head cost: £25 for two

What we love

While the words “camera” and “bathroom” usually shouldn’t be found in proximity to one another, it’s pretty harmless here. It can’t be manually turned off, but no images or video are saved. According to Dyson, “the camera is only active during live viewing or auto-jetting. No images are recorded or stored on the product or in the cloud”. And, even if they could be, the lens isn’t designed for selfies; it only works up close. I mean, can you really tell much about my house from this picture?

When used on your teeth, it’s an eye-opening experience, giving you the kind of private screening usually reserved for dental professionals. And, while the dentist has given my teeth a professional signoff in recent trips, seeing a closeup of the discoloration that comes from 40-plus years of chewing is an incentive not to cut any more dental hygiene corners.

Intentions are one thing, and actions are quite another. We all know that we’re supposed to floss daily, but how many of us do? Even with water flossers for convenience, it’s too easy to skip it when you’re at the sink.

The beauty of the Dyson CameraJet is that it makes that choice for you, and my teeth and gums undoubtedly felt the benefit. Because the jets fire automatically, flossing becomes a part of the brushing process. The result? My smile felt and looked healthier without any extra effort.

That’s in part down to the dock, which is a marvellous innovation. As well as charging the toothbrush, the 200ml tank at the back offers a one-touch refill of the CameraJet’s 12.5ml reservoir – put your toothbrush in the dock, hold the button and the reservoir will refill. While you’ll still need to top up the main tank every few weeks, the refill system is significantly more convenient than all other cordless flossers I’ve tested, which either require you to unscrew a tank or awkwardly pour mouthwash or water through a small refilling hole. Crucially, this ensures flossing isn’t an easily skippable step. Dyson recommends using its own low-foaming mouthwash to fill the tank, but you don’t have to.

The battery life of 10 days may sound low to some, but it’s important to remember it’s powering a light and camera, as well as the usual motor, even if it is still disappointing to see the battery life dropping 5% as you explore your mouth with the camera. Ultimately, it’s a non-issue with the aforementioned dock: you’re unlikely to ever find yourself out of battery if using it as intended.

The performance itself is good too, leaving my mouth feeling squeaky clean. Whether that’s down to the added jets or the fact that it defaults to three minutes rather than the usual two is open to debate, but the cleanliness factor puts it close to the top of the list of the best electric toothbrushes I’ve tried (though I still find the Laifen Wave Pro slightly more effective at defuzzing stickier areas after an evening on the cider). The brush rotates 58,000 times a minute, and the mouthwash distribution via the jet leaves a dentist-fresh feeling when everything works as planned …

What we don’t love

That cliffhanger of a last sentence was a giveaway to my first criticism: the jets don’t always automatically fire (though you can activate one manually at the press of a button if you feel an area is neglected). Through trial and error, I’ve concluded that the most common reason for the jets to take an unwelcome breather is that the camera is blocked, so it can’t see teeth.

I believe this is because of toothpaste foaming up in use. When I’ve connected to the live-stream camera, the experience reminds me of trying to see out of the window when going through a carwash. And when it gets too foamy, the jets stop working until you spit out some toothpaste or have your tongue moonlight as a kind of windscreen wiper for the camera. It’s a messy experience, and your bathroom mirror won’t thank you.

For this reason, it’s recommended you’re choosier with your toothpaste. Dyson sells its own recommended low-foam paste and mouthwash that I was able to try, and this significantly improves the experience. With my regular foamy toothpaste, the app reported the jets were usually firing between 25 and 50 times per three-minute session (and on some occasions dropping to single digits). With non-foaming toothpaste and regular spitting, it settled on a fairly reliable 70 to 80.

A cynic would point out that this is convenient for Dyson, diverting users from cheaper brands to its own consumables (from £8.49 for 75ml toothpaste; £8.49 for 400ml mouth rinse) for the long haul – you can even subscribe on the website. You can buy non-foaming toothpaste that isn’t Dyson-branded, but it’s not easily found in supermarkets, taking away a little of the hard-won convenience. I also tried Suri’s low-foam toothpaste with it, which worked reasonably well.

The CameraJet is confusing to use at first, too, which somewhat eats into those convenience credentials. Having reviewed a lot of toothbrushes, I can usually get away with skipping the instructions and getting straight into testing. I quickly learned that wasn’t an option here, and I’ve found myself constantly revisiting the manual to remind myself of the buttons and decode the occasional sounds it makes.

One such sound is a warning that you’re brushing incorrectly. Typically with electric toothbrushes, you hover over the tooth and move slowly along, but the Dyson CameraJet requires you to make small oval shapes as you progress. But even when I’ve been following this advice, I’ve been told off for overscrubbing. This makes me think the CameraJet’s either overzealous, or its instructions aren’t clear enough.

The good news is that this can be overcome with the use of Dyson’s app to guide you through proceedings. This will tell you when the camera is blocked, and also keep a tally of its water jets, warning you if you’re moving too fast. The app is optional and can be ignored once you’ve got the swing of things, but what can’t be so easily brushed away is the size of the kit. The brush is already on the tall side at 273mm, but the dock takes this even further with a height of 315mm.

Nominally, this can be used as a travel case by slipping on a clear plastic cover, but it’s pushing the definition of portable, and will not easily slip into carry-on luggage without clever organisation. Yes, you can take it without the dock and just use the bundled pogo-pin charging cable, but it’s a less elegant solution than the Suri Pro 2.0’s charging travel case, which by my measure is a svelte 241.3 x 31.75 x 31.75mm.

More philosophically, while the Dyson CameraJet has made my mouth feel very clean, I wonder if it could lead buyers into a false sense of security with their dental health. The convenience is great, but it leaves you to rely on the camera to detect every gap and fire accurately and at the right time, which isn’t guaranteed. The jets fire so fast that I’d defy anybody to tell the difference between mouthwash hitting the target between teeth and misfiring nearby. With a regular water flosser, the nozzle forces you to hit every gap, even if it is an added hassle, and while there’s a manual flossing mode, without the camera AI, it feels hit and miss.

Beyond that, from speaking to dental professionals in the past, the jury is still out on whether water flossing is as effective as using interdental brushes. Sam Jethwa, president of the British Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry, compares flossing to cleaning an algae-covered boat. “Get a hosepipe to try to get it off, it’s not going to do anything,” he told me, arguing that you need “mechanical movement” alongside water to make an impact. So, while my teeth did feel far better than just using an electric toothbrush alone, I’m not sure this is quite the one-stop solution Dyson would like it to be.

All of which brings us to the price: £419.99. Without wanting to state the obvious, that’s a huge amount of money, even taking into account that this is a 2-in-1 device. You could buy our top-rated toothbrush (the Laifen Wave Pro) and flosser (the Waterpik Ultra Professional) for under £200, or both our bargain picks (the Odonta PowerPlus and Operan Cordless Oral Irrigator) for just over £50. And that’s probably what you should do.

Sustainability

While Dyson publishes its own sustainability magazine, there’s as yet nothing about toothbrushes in it. Nor is there any mention on the product page of the Dyson CameraJet’s green credentials.

Perhaps this is doing the company a minor disservice, because as well as the RFID tag in the brush heads informing you when they need changing, the company also does more than most in terms of spare parts. Although currently all listed as out of stock, you can buy a replacement battery, dock and reservoir cap, and anti-gravity tank, should any of yours give up on you outside the two-year warranty period. A whole new refill dock can also be bought.

All that’s good, but notably Dyson doesn’t currently offer a recycling programme for its brush heads, as rivals such as Suri and Ordo do.

Dyson CameraJet: should I buy it?

Despite its eventful launch, you can’t deny that the Dyson CameraJet is an impressive bit of tech, proving that there’s a surprising amount of room to innovate in the world of toothbrushing. In my weeks of testing, I found that it offers a solid clean, and the fact it makes flossing something you can virtually forget about is a godsend to those of us who often find ourselves skipping that all-important step. While it’s easy to be cynical about the price, it’s doing a lot of clever things, and I would be surprised if we didn’t see a range of imitators launching over the next few years.

But clearly, it’s far from perfect, given how easy it is to block the camera, and its substantial travel-unfriendliness. More importantly, considering you can buy our top-rated toothbrush and flosser for a combined £182.10, is paying more than double what you need for some added convenience sensible? Unless your money-to-sense ratio is extremely off-kilter, probably not.

Dyson CameraJet vs …

Waterpik Ultra Professional

Your brush doesn’t need to contain built-in water flossing, with plenty of stand-alone models to choose from. They’re mostly wireless, but if you’ve got the counter space and a bathroom shaver socket, you can’t beat the Waterpik Ultra Professional corded model, my favourite overall from testing.

You don’t have to worry about keeping a battery charged, nor are you constantly topping up the water tank because of the built-in 650ml reservoir. On top of that, the nozzle is easier to aim and manoeuvre as it doesn’t have the bulky reservoir built into the handle. The only downside is you can’t easily take it on your travels, where floss or disposable interdental picks will have to sub in.

For more, read our guide to the best water flossers

Soocas Neos II

If you’re dead set on a two-in-one device but don’t have Dyson money, the Soocas Neos II fits the bill. It also has a built-in water tank, with water-flossing jets fired manually via a small hole in the toothbrush head. It does, however, feel like a jack of all trades and master of none, and I feel you’re better off buying independent devices instead.

Lining up the water flosser between teeth is tricky as it doesn’t have tapered tips to direct the jet, nor a camera system like Dyson’s to identify the gaps for you. As a toothbrush, it falls short of the best, in part because the water tank makes the handle bulky. Nonetheless, it does save space overall, and at just under a third of the price of the Dyson CameraJet, it’s worth a look.

Laifen Wave Pro

Our current favourite electric toothbrush is the Laifen Wave Pro. While most brushes make you choose between sonic vibration and physically oscillating heads, the Laifen Wave Pro includes both, with speeds of up to 66,000 vibrations per minute for the former, and a neck that twists left and right up to 60 degrees for the latter.

The result is not only an impeccable clean, but something that can truly be customised to your tastes. The accompanying app lets you adjust vibration intensity, oscillation range and speed from scores between 1 and 10, giving you more than 1,000 possible combinations to ensure it’s just right. There’s no water flossing as there is with the Dyson, but for pure brushing, it can’t be beaten – and it’s about a quarter of the price.

Suri Pro 2.0

The need to change the heads on electric toothbrushes makes them environmentally problematic. But Suri has put sustainability at the centre of its design, and while it’s not perfect, it’s one of the strongest options on the market, thanks to its use of plant-based heads (made from cornstarch, with castor oil bristles) that can be sent back to Suri free of charge for recycling.

The Suri Pro 2.0 is a big improvement over the original, with less fragile chargers and a pressure sensor built in. It’s not the most powerful brush in town, but if sustainability is your number-one priority, it’s one of the best options (there’s also the cheaper Suri Core 1.0, of course).

Read my full Suri Pro 2.0 review