In one look
Expert rating
Benefits
- Gentle but effective brushing
- Battery life of 2 months
- USB charging
- Good price
The inconvenients
- The pressure sensor could be more responsive
- Garish charging station
- No connected functionality
Our Verdict
The Be Lucent Prism is elegantly designed, with a useful and subtle display, three brushing modes and a pressure sensor. Best of all is its long battery life and USB charging. However, we don’t like the design of the charging station and wish the pressure sensor was a little more responsive. Overall, it offers a lot for the price and we recommend it.
You will find Oral-B brushes in all pharmacies and supermarkets. But here’s something a little different. Prism is a sonic, oscillating brush from independent Swedish brand Be Lucent, which makes a number of dental care products, including a teeth whitening kit and a toothbrush sterilizer. Prism is waterproof, gentle on teeth and gums, and has a battery life that exceeds the competition.
Design and build
The Be Lucent Prism brush is roughly the same size (24cm long and 8.5cm diameter), shape and weight (138g) as an Oral-B iO, but it has a grippy silicone finish that makes it easy to hold even when wet.
There’s only one color option, an ombré from green to white, which thankfully is a pretty nice thing to look at every time you open your bathroom cabinet. This makes other electric toothbrushes look like they are made from Duplo.
Emma Rowley / Foundry
In the box, you will receive the brush handle, two sealed toothbrush heads, a faceted clear plastic charging dock, and a USB charging cable. The brush heads are well made, with W-shaped bristles and a tongue scraper on the back.
The Prism makes other electric toothbrushes look like they’re made from Duplo
A refill of four toothbrush heads costs £25/£19/CAD29, which is cheaper or in line with other high-quality brush heads.
Emma Rowley / Foundry
The charging station is the only thing I didn’t like about its design. When not in use, it looks like a fancy piece of ice. When plugged in, it goes through a rainbow illumination, for a garish effect. It also doesn’t squeeze the brush when docked, meaning the Prism is easy to tip over.
Emma Rowley / Foundry
The brush has a single button, which is easy to use once you’ve mastered it. Press the + sign on the handle to turn it on and long press to choose one of its three brushing modes (clean, sensitive and white).
But for everyday use, you won’t even need to use the button. Just take the Prism, start brushing it and it will come to life.
The Prism doesn’t come with a travel case, but its brush heads do – and there’s even a cap for the exposed fitting on the handle. Additionally, you can lock the brush in off mode by pressing the handle button for three seconds, making it easier to carry.
Instead of the diamond-shaped black screen you’ll see on most brushes that come with one, the Prism has an LED screen hidden beneath its surface. Take the prism and the BE LUCENT scrolls across the handle with white LEDs.
Just take the Prism, start brushing it and it will come to life.
This display also serves to indicate whether the brush is locked or unlocked, which brushing mode you are in (each has a different geometric symbol that you will quickly learn to recognize), the timer, and the battery indicator.
The indicator is pretty basic in terms of what it tells you: no percentage of life remaining is displayed. Instead, there are three icons that correspond to full charge, up to 40% charge, and low charge. It’s not ideal, but since the battery life is very long, you won’t have to worry about it often.
Emma Rowley / Foundry
Depending on whether you look at the website or the manual, Be Lucent claims a battery life of 60 or 90 days. We think the first case is more likely and can confirm that it still worked just as well without recharging after a month of use. Still, it won’t last as long as the brand claims if you use it more often than the standard two minutes of brushing, twice a day, so shared brushes will need to be charged more often.
When it’s time to recharge, it takes eight hours for a full charge. This compares poorly to the three-hour charge time of the higher-end Oral-B iO brushes (iO7 and above), but the battery life of these brushes is less than two weeks. Plus, Prism still charges faster than most standard electric toothbrushes, which don’t have fast charging.
It has an IPX8 waterproof rating, which means you can submerge the brush in water for up to 30 minutes. If you like to brush your teeth in the shower, this is a good option.
Performance and Features
When you use the Prism for the first time, it will start in daily sonic cleaning mode. What I noticed is that it is very gentle compared to competing electric toothbrushes. It was too gentle for me and I quickly switched to whitening mode, which oscillates and vibrates.
Depending on which mode you’re in, the Prism vibrates between 24,000 and 27,600 times per minute and the width and pattern of oscillation also varies. Its vibration speed is not comparable to that of the Philips Sonicare DiamondClean 9000, which vibrates 62,000 times per minute, but is still perfectly effective.
Each brushing cycle lasts two minutes, with a vibration change every thirty seconds to alert you to move on to the next quadrant of your mouth. After one minute, the handle will begin to display your brushing time, counting down to the last minute.
The last feature we think is essential in an electric toothbrush is a pressure sensor, which the Prism has. However, this is not sensitive enough. It’s easy to apply a little too much pressure without triggering the sensor. However, when you do, the base of the brush lights up and it’s easy to spot your mistake.
It’s always difficult to judge the effectiveness of an electric toothbrush unless you visit the dentist after using it for a while, but what we can say is that the Prism is effective and leaves teeth clean. It is quiet, pleasant to use and does not splash toothpaste everywhere.
Pricing and availability
At this point, if you’re in the US, UK, or Canada, you can only purchase the Prism from the Be Lucent site.
For its feature set, it’s priced very competitively, especially in the UK, where it costs £89. It costs $99 if you’re in the United States and $129 in Canada.
For the same amount, you could buy the Oral-B iO4. It’s a great electric toothbrush, but its battery will only last 10 to 14 days and it doesn’t have a visible brushing timer on the handle. Although we rate the iO brushes very highly, we would say that the Prism offers better value for money.
Should you buy the Be Lucent prism?
Although we wish the pressure sensor was a little more responsive and the design of the charging station was a little more refined, we recommend this electric toothbrush, especially to anyone who wants a softer brush. It’s well designed, with lots of features and a good price, especially in the UK where electric toothbrushes tend to be expensive.
For more recommendations, take a look at our roundup of the best electric toothbrushes we’ve tested.
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