Dyson is known for doing the unexpected, and nothing in the brand’s history has been quite as unexpected as its recent toothbrush launch. Well… perhaps the air-purifying headphones were more of a surprise. But still, this shift into oral care certainly wasn’t on my 2026 bingo card.
The Dyson CameraJet launched earlier this month. A toothbrush like no other, this chunky device made headlines with its integrated camera and gap-targeting mouthwash squirter. However, the launch has been dogged somewhat by multiple reports of new gadget breaking almost immediately. The toothbrush is also showing as out of stock in multiple territories, including the US, UK and Australia.
Dyson has issued a response, which reads:
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„We have had a very positive reaction to the new Dyson CameraJet and are experiencing strong demand globally. We are seeing some shortages of supply as we are in the process of scaling up production.
Additionally, we are aware that a small number of early batches of Dyson CameraJet products may have experienced a component issue. We are isolating those batches and are taking all the necessary steps to support our customers.“
Rocky start aside, it’s an impressive piece of engineering, and assuming Dyson gets those problems fixed, it has plenty going for it (our tester was impressed enough to award it four stars in our Dyson CameraJet review). I got a demo at the Dyson Unveiled event, where I also had a chance to chat to Jake Dyson — Chief Engineer at the brand, and son of founder James — about the new product’s development process. Here are seven interesting things I learned about the new CameraJet…
For avoidance of confusion, I’ll use ‚Jake‘ to mean the person, and ‚Dyson‘ when I’m referring to the brand.
1. It took six years to develop
Oral care is a brand new category for Dyson, and getting it market-ready was a lengthy process. That’s partly because it needed to, in Jake’s words, „work perfectly“ before it could be launched. The core feature — a 100k pixel macro lens camera that identifies gaps in your teeth, and delivers a targeted jet of mouthwash directly at them — was particularly tricky to get right.
„We probably could have launched [the CameraJet] two years ago, but it wouldn’t have hit every gap perfectly, and that’s not acceptable,“ says Jake. „You know, if you bought it, and it missed the gaps, and didn’t do its job, you’d be really disappointed. So, it’s got to work properly.“
Getting the design just right (in theory, at least…) was a complicated process. „It genuinely took six years to train that camera, because of the variations in people’s mouths. It’s highly complex,“ says Jake. „You’ve got saliva, you’ve got things moving in front of the camera, you’ve got dark, shade, light. It’s so many things the machine learning has to account for.“
He adds: „It’s a bit like a driverless car when it snows. If it completely loses its environment, how do you control it?“
2. …but it’s a good job it did
„Six years ago, the camera, the chips that process within the machine, the compute power, probably would have been too expensive,“ says Jake. Luckily, within that lengthy development process, the cost of all those components dropped enough to make it feasible as a consumer product.
Relatively speaking, of course — it has a list price of $499.99 / £419.99 / AU$799, so its definitely more of an investment than your average toothbrush. Still, Jake is keen to impress that it’s very much not your average toothbrush: „What you have there is essentially a $70,000 piece of lab equipment in a handheld consumer product.“
3. The colors come from Dyson’s beauty lineup
While it’s a new product category, it’s still very recognizably ‚Dyson‘. The brand Dyson has pulled its color combinations from its haircare gadget lineup. „The colors have come from our beauty products — so the hair dryers, the Airwraps. Because we think it’s a beauty product too,“ says Jake.
At launch, there are two color combos to choose between. On the ‚Ceramic Ultra Blue‘ version, the toothbrush is an electric blue inspired by Yves Klein — an artist brand founder James Dyson is a fan of. („He wasn’t allowed to use the same blue, but we created our own,“ reveals Jake.) There’s also a ‚Ceramic Pink‘ colorway, with a blush pink toothbrush.
Both have detailing in rose gold, and a heather purple dock. As well as being familiar to anyone who has seen Dyson’s recent haircare launches, the colorways benefit from being different to what you’ll generally see in the oral care aisle. „Other toothbrushes are white, or black, or a nasty pink,“ comments Jake. „So it’s quite nice to do something different, and… you know you look at it and recognize it as Dyson because of the colors.“
4. There are already follow-ups in the works
„If we’re going to go into a new area, then we’ll do that knowing that we’ve got more products behind it,“ says Jake. He confirms that they’ll start with a roadmap of multiple products and plan for „expansion in that category, quite quickly“.
When pushed on if there’s another toothbrush in the works, he responds, „We’d be crazy not to.“ If I had to make a prediction, I’d bet that — assuming the current component issue is sorted speedily — a second-gen version will be announced and unveiled this time next year, at an IFA-adjacent Unveiled event at the start of September 2027.
5. It’s trained on pictures of real mouths
The CameraJet needed to be able to recognize the inside of any mouth. „It’s taken two years to train it through imagery and mouths from around the world,“ says Jake. Said photos came from „images and libraries and probably some dental records too“, if you’re interested.
While AI was — and continues to be — involved, it’s not the same AI you’re using when you fire up, say, ChatGPT. „When you go on ChatGPT on your mobile phone, you’re using AI live. When you use a toothbrush, you’re not,“ clarifies Jake. „It’s in-built machine learning. We used AI to reference all of the images of mouths to train the machine.“
The learning will continue as you use the toothbrush, too. „We [continue to] improve it. It trains itself to be even better the more you use it, so it understands your mouth,“ says Jake.
6. It’ll know if you try and use a fake brush head
Dyson is — probably justifiably — concerned about copycats. „We obviously patent areas of the product, if we can patent them, to prevent [dupes],“ Jake says. „But we do that in every product, and they always find a way. They find a way, but the product isn’t as good.“
He continues: „You may well see a toothbrush six months to a year with a camera in it that fires a jet. But does it hit the right bit? The gap between your teeth?“
Dyson is also guarding against third-party brushheads. „There is a chip [in the brushhead],“ says Jake. „If there are fake brush heads, it will detect it. In the same way, if you put a fake battery in the vacuum cleaners, and put a fake attachment on our hair dryers, it will detect it.“
That’s a cost worth factoring in if you’re thinking of investing. Replacement heads don’t come cheap: a pair will set you back $29.99 / £25 / AU$49.
7. It is suitable for travel… honest
On the suggestion that the Dyson CameraJet might be considered too chunky to travel with, Jake is adamant it’s completely fine. „It’s definitely to be travelled with. There’s a travel case that just slips over.“
He also points out that if you’re traveling with a tube of toothpaste and a bottle of mouthwash as well as your toothbrush, that’s going to take up a fair amount of space. The CameraJet can be filled up with those things before packing. It’s a fair point, but I’m still not convinced.
8. Jake Dyson has personally road-tested it
Wondering if your teeth will work with the CameraJet? Jake says it can deal with all kinds of troublesome teeth… including his own. „I’ve been cleaning my teeth on a number of devices intermittently for about three months. I have very tight teeth in the back. So raspberry seeds, or Parma ham… They get stuck right there. And [the CameraJet] just blasts it out. It’s really good.“
In fact, his only real word of warning is the surprise you might get from seeing your molars captured on camera for the first time. „It is quite shocking seeing inside your mouth,“ he smiles.
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