How Siri, Alexa, And Google Assistant Can Boost Your Household’s Oral Hygiene
One thing that transforms how dentists work, and the sorts of dental treatments that are available to everyone, is technology. Examples include digital x-rays, laser treatments, and dental implants which are the modern alternative to having dentures. We are also at the stage where technology available to us at home can also positively impact our dental health.
We are not talking about DIY dentistry at home, but instead, technology that can help everyone care for our teeth and gums better than we have done so before. One prime example of this is home assistants. This is not someone turning up at your home to whiten your teeth but instead, devices which include Google Assistant, Siri from Apple, and Amazon’s Alexa.
If you have never heard of these or what they do, here is the briefest of explanations. They are small, portable devices that sit in any room at home to which you give voice commands. Depending on the voice command you give, your home assistant will answer or carry out a function.
If you wish to listen to your favourite music, tell your home assistant, and it will start playing it. Want to know what the traffic is like before you set off to work, your home assistant will tell you. Want current share prices, the latest news, or the weather, they can all be asked for vocally and your home assistant will give you the answer vocally too.
The uses to which home assistants can be put is almost infinite, in the same sense that there are almost infinite searches that can be entered into Google. The difference is that you speak to your home assistant, and it speaks back at you, rather than you typing and seeing the result on a screen.
So what has all this got to do with teeth? The simple answer is you can use your home assistant to help your family improve its dental health. Below are some examples of how this can be achieved.
Brushing/Check-Up Reminders
Your home assistant can be used as a diary, so it means you can ask it to give you voice alerts for anything, and that includes when it is time to brush your teeth. If your family all have different schedules the home assistant can be set for each person. This also applies to reminders for each person to make an appointment for check-ups at the dentists.
Brushing Properly
Lots of people brush for 30 seconds and think is enough. Wrong! Most dentists will tell you 2 minutes is the optimal time. So, you can tell your home assistant to alert you when two minutes have passed as you brush your teeth so that you do so for the correct length of time.
Make Brushing Fun
Mainly for the kids, but if are an adult and want fun when brushing, then go for it. You can set brushing goals, get your home assistant to play songs, play audio clips from movies or tv shows and even tell jokes whilst you and your family brush your teeth.
Dental Fun Facts
Home assistants are a wealth of information…in truth, they seek the answers online and repeat them back to you. Nevertheless, this makes them a great educational tool. As such you, and especially your children can ask your home assistant questions about teeth and dental health. It can even provide quizzes and games related to the subject.