Be Lucent Prism sonic toothbrush review

You’ll find Oral-B brushes in every chemist and supermarket. But here’s something a little different. Prism is a sonic and oscillating brush from independent Swedish brand Be Lucent, which makes a number of dental care products, including a tooth-whitening kit and toothbrush steriliser. Prism is waterproof, gentle on teeth and gums, and has a battery life that long outlasts all the competition.

Design & Build

Be Lucent’s Prism brush is about the same size (24cm long with an 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 colour option, a green to white ombré, which is happily quite a nice thing to look at whenever you open your bathroom cabinet. It makes other electric toothbrushes look like they’re built from Duplo.

In the box, you’ll get the brush handle, two sealed toothbrush heads, a faceted, clear plastic charging dock and USB charging cable. The brush heads are well made, with W formation bristles and a tongue scraper on the back.

The Prism makes other electric toothbrushes look like they’re built from Duplo

A refill of four toothbrush heads costs $25/ £19/ CAD29 which is cheaper than, or in line with, other high quality brush heads.

The charging dock is the only thing I didn’t love in its design. When not in use, it looks like a chunk of novelty ice. When plugged in, it cycles through a rainbow illumination, to garish effect. It doesn’t clasp the brush when it’s docked either, meaning the Prism is easy to knock over.

The brush has a single button operation, which is easy to use once you get the hang of it. Press the + sign on the handle to switch it on and long press to choose from one of its three brushing modes (clean, sensitive and white).

But for everyday use, you won’t even have to use the button. Just pick up the Prism, start brushing and it’ll spring into 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. Plus, you can lock the brush in off mode by pressing the button on the handle for three seconds, making it easy to transport.

Instead of the black, lozenge shaped screen you’ll see on most brushes equipped with them, the Prism has a hidden LED screen under its surface. Pick up the Prism and BE LUCENT scrolls across the handle in white LEDs.

Just pick up the Prism, start brushing and it’ll spring into life

This display is also used to show if the brush is locked or unlocked, which brushing mode you’re in (each one has a different geometric symbol that you’ll quickly learn to recognise), the timer and battery indicator.

The indicator is fairly basic in terms of what it tells you – there’s no percentage of remaining life displayed. Instead, there are three icons that correspond to fully charged, up to 40% charged and low. This isn’t ideal but as the battery life is so long-lasting, you won’t need to worry about it often.

Depending on whether you look at the website or the manual, Be Lucent claims a 60- or a 90-day battery life. We think the former is more likely and can confirm that it was still going strong without a top-up 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 daily, so shared brushes will need to be charged more often.

When it’s time to top up, it takes a not-lightning-fast eight hours to charge fully. This compares poorly to the three-hour charging time of high-end Oral-B iO brushes (the iO7 and upwards) but the battery life on these brushes is under 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 cleaning your teeth in the shower, it’s a good option.

Performance & Features

When you first use the Prism, it’ll start up in its sonic daily cleaning mode. What I noticed is that it felt very gentle in comparison with competing electric toothbrushes. It was too gentle for me and I quickly switched to the whitening mode, which oscillates as well as vibrating.

Depending on the mode you’re in, the Prism vibrates between 24,000 and 27,600 times per minute and the width and pattern of oscillation varies as well. Its vibration speed doesn’t come close to the Philips Sonicare DiamondClean 9000, which vibrates 62,000 times per minute, but is still perfectly effective.

Each brushing cycle lasts for two minutes, with a change in vibration every thirty seconds to alert you to move onto the next quadrant of your mouth. After one minute, the handle begins displaying your brushing time, counting up through the final minute.

The final feature we think is indispensable in an electric toothbrush is a pressure sensor, which the Prism has. However, it’s not quite sensitive enough. It’s easy to apply a bit too much pressure without triggering the sensor. When you do, however, the base of the brush lights up and it’s easy to spot your error.

It’s always hard to judge how effective an electric toothbrush is unless you happen to be visiting the dentist after using it for a period of time, but what we can say is that the Prism feels effective, leaving teeth clean. It’s quiet, pleasant to use and doesn’t spatter toothpaste everywhere.

Price & Availability

At this stage, if you’re in the US, UK or Canada, you can only buy the Prism from the Be Lucent website.

For its feature set, it’s very competitively priced, especially in the UK, where it’s £89. It costs $99 if you’re in the US 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 you 10-14 days and it doesn’t feature a visible brushing timer on the handle. Although we rate iO brushes very highly, we’d say that the Prism is better value for its price.

Should you buy Be Lucent’s Prism?

Although we wish the pressure sensor was a bit more responsive and the charging dock design a little more refined, we’d recommend this electric toothbrush – especially for anyone who wants a gentler brush. It’s well designed, with a great feature set and a good price, especially in the UK, where electric toothbrushes tend to be expensive.

For more recommendations, have a look at our round-up of the best electric toothbrushes we’ve tested.