Tag: underscored-best-of

There are tons of coffee subscriptions on the internet, all with different and overlapping coffees, formats and perks. We searched far and wide for the best and most popular services out there, and narrowed it down to 10 we tried for ourselves. If there was a coffee quiz, we took it. If the coffee came with a postcard, we read it. Most importantly, we ordered and tasted coffee from every single subscription to find the absolute best.

After nearly two months of quizzing, grinding, sipping and notetaking, we’ve come up with the best coffee subscriptions.

Best coffee subscription for those who crave variety

Trade has a helpful coffee quiz, plenty of customizable settings and more than 400 coffees to choose from. With a seemingly unlimited variety of coffee beans to choose from there will always be new and interesting coffees for you to try. Plus, Trade allows you to pick which coffees are sent to you, giving you more control than many other services.

Best coffee subscription for the budding connoisseur

The Black Box subscription from Angel’s Cup will have you feeling like a coffee connoisseur in no time. This subscription sends you a box of four different roasts, with only the roast date and a five-digit number to differentiate them. The idea is that each shipment is a blind tasting, so once you brew and drink each coffee, you can go onto an app to rate it for yourself and record any notes.

Blue Bottle’s coffee subscription hit all of our marks during the testing process. It has multiple kinds of subscriptions perfect for all kinds of coffee drinkers. With its solid customizability, variety and — above all — outstanding taste, Blue Bottle beat out every other coffee subscription we tested.

We’ll dive into everything we loved about the Blue Bottle product in a moment. But first, we want to point out all the various subscription options available on the site. You can choose between subscriptions that send you blends, single origin coffees, decaf and even espresso beans, depending on your cup of choice. The espresso, single origin and blend options have what’s called an assortment subscription, which is the best pick if you want to try different coffees all the time. The blends assortment and espresso assortments rotate between five- and four-set offerings respectively, so if you opt for the blends assortment subscription, for example, you’ll be getting one of five coffees each shipment. These start at $11 per shipment, but that’s for a 6-ounce bag, so you’ll probably want to upgrade to a 12-ounce bag at $18 per shipment. Or, you can select a single coffee and get that one delivered over and over again until you change it yourself.

But if you’re a more adventurous type and want new flavors with every shipment, Blue Bottle’s single origin assortment subscription is the one for you. Blue Bottle searches the world and sources high-quality beans, then roasts them lightly to bring out their natural flavors. Best of all, the coffee changes every two weeks so you can try brand new beans with every shipment. This subscription starts at $13 per shipment for a 6-ounce bag, but the standard 12-ounce bag runs for $22 per shipment.

None of that would really matter if the subscription experience — or even worse, the coffee — was bad. To Blue Bottle’s credit, the subscription was simple to navigate and receiving our boxes was a joy. Each shipment comes with your selected coffee, plus a little notecard that has information on your coffee’s history and taste. While these cards weren’t as fun and engaging as some of the others (such as Atlas Coffee Club’s postcards or Angel’s Cup’s blind tasting), the information Blue Bottle gives you is all you need to thoroughly enjoy your brew.

We also loved the customizability of Blue Bottle’s subscription. While it doesn’t provide as many options as some of the others, you can still select from four different coffee sizes — from 6 ounces up to 36 ounces — and four different delivery options between one, two, three and four week intervals.

The service really has all you’ll ever need to get the cup of coffee you want, but the biggest factor that tipped the scales in Blue Bottle’s favor was its taste. We tried both single origin and blend roasts from Blue Bottle, and every single time we ooo’d and ah’d at the bold, delicious flavors. Of course, flavor is subjective, but over a wide variety of roasts, Blue Bottle consistently tasted better in our tests. Does that mean you’ll love every coffee Blue Bottle has more than every other coffee we tested? No. But we think you have the best chance of getting an outstanding cup of coffee, no matter the roast or blend, with Blue Bottle.

When we tasted the coffees, we particularly loved the Giant Steps blend, which had punchy notes of cocoa, toasted marshmallow and graham cracker. We also fawned over a single origin roast from Guatemala that was extremely smooth and had a sweet taste that mirrored the included tasting notes which mentioned brown sugar and cinnamon.

No matter what you want from a coffee subscription, Blue Bottle tailors an experience that will always provide you with freshly roasted, delicious coffee right at your doorstep. With resealable bags, shipping included in the coffee’s price and tons of other features we absolutely loved, if you’re going to try a coffee subscription we can’t recommend Blue Bottle enough.

While Blue Bottle was our winner outright, nipping at its heels was the coffee subscription from Trade. Its enormous selection of more than 400 coffees is enticing to the coffee addict who wants to try new flavors all the time. Plus, Trade’s coffee quiz was surprisingly effective at finding a roast we loved, and can help guide you through the sometimes overwhelming options. While we didn’t love the taste as much as Blue Bottle’s options, we’re confident you’ll find a coffee match made in heaven with Trade.

Trade’s subscription works slightly differently than Blue Bottle. First off, Trade sources coffee from roasters from around the world, unlike Blue Bottle which has its own branded varieties. The next big difference is when you subscribe to Trade, you’re going to have to go through its coffee quiz. You’re asked seven questions such as how you brew your coffee, what you like and don’t like flavor-wise, if you typically add milk or sugar, your preferred roast level and more. After you complete the questionnaire, it presents you with multiple picks that they think you’d like based on your answers.

When we took the quiz, we matched up with The Overnighter from Joe Coffee, which had deliciously strong, chocolatey tastes that had us refilling our cup the whole day. While the coffee quiz from Blue Bottle touted 10 total questions in comparison to Trade’s seven, Blue Bottle’s quiz is totally optional and only really helps you find blends to try. Trade, on the other hand, forces you to take the quiz before you can even subscribe, so you’re more likely to find a coffee tailored to you right away.

Trade’s coffee quiz was one of the highlights of the subscription for us, but most of the other services had a similar quiz. What pushed Trade beyond those competitors wasn’t any one fancy feature, but its consistently scoring high across almost all of our tests.

You can customize certain factors of your subscription such as grind size, whether you want one or two bags delivered and whether you want those to be delivered every one, two or three weeks.

A nice touch of the Trade experience was a little note explaining why the curators picked each coffee for you. It told us that our coffee was good to brew in a french press, strong enough to handle milk and even provided a couple tasting notes, but it didn’t go into as much detail as some of the others with an extensive list of flavors to expect and a history of the coffee. Though if you love your coffee and want to learn more, you can always hop onto Trade’s website and read about the roaster and bean. Perhaps most importantly, there are some really tasty options in their immense variety of coffees, allowing Trade to easily push ahead of many of the other subscription services as a well-balanced option.

If you want a custom-fit coffee subscription experience with tons of variety and a service that can either use algorithms and curators to pick every coffee you get, or let you browse through the hundreds of options yourself, Trade is the subscription service we’d recommend for you.

Angel’s Cup offers three different kinds of coffee subscriptions: All Stars, Cupping Flights and The Black Box. All Stars is more or less a standard subscription, in which Angel’s Cup sends you one bag of coffee at intervals of your choice. These bags were highly rated by other Angel’s Cup subscribers, so you’re sure to get a delicious coffee. But we recommend Angel’s Cup because of its other services, namely, The Black Box subscription.

The Black Box is basically an upgrade of the Cupping Flights. Both send you a box of their own branded coffee packaged in four small bags without any information so you can blind taste them. After tasting, you go to Angel’s Cup’s mobile app to input and rate your tasting notes, comparing your scores to the roastmaster and other people who have tasted the same coffee. This doesn’t inform what Angel’s Cup sends you in the next shipment (which is actually a feature at Driftaway), rather it’s so you can test and grow your palate.

The Cupping Flights subscription starts at $8.99 per shipment, and includes four 1-ounce bags, which is just enough for a big 16-ounce mug of coffee. It’s good if you’re the only coffee drinker in your house. If you have more than one person who wants in on the tasting, or if you just like to drink a lot of coffee, The Black Box sends four 2.75-ounce bags, each enough to make 44 ounces of coffee, or about four normal sized mugs. All four bags nearly add up to a standard 12-ounce bag, so you can expect your full shipment to last as long as your traditional bean bag. This subscription starts at $17.99 per shipment if you commit to 12 shipments.

The Black Box was one of the highlights of our testing, providing an engaging and memorable experience to our morning coffee routine. We loved visiting the app and inputting our own thoughts and gripes about each coffee. The app itself isn’t cutting edge and could use an update, but it’s a fun, interactive element no other service even came close to.

Angel’s Cup doesn’t offer a coffee quiz, there’s no way to change the amount of coffee you get besides choosing different subscriptions and the flights ship every Wednesday, which is more restrictive than the many others that ship to order. Despite those mild shortcomings, Angel’s Cup delivers delicious and intriguing coffees, and its blind tasting format made us want to hone our palette and become real coffee aficionados.

In regards to taste, the coffees we tried from Angel’s Cup all tasted great. Not as bold as Blue Bottle or personalized as Trade, but every cup was a high-quality brew that we’d have no qualms about drinking daily. They had a wide variety of flavors; some were subtle and fruity, while others were dry and toasty. Overall, we enjoyed the taste of the coffees from Angel’s Cup a lot.

If coffee is your passion (or maybe you need something new to kill time since you’re at home all day), The Black Box from Angel’s Cup is a fun way to pretend you’re a coffee connoisseur. What it lacks in customizability it more than makes up for with the best coffee drinking experience we had throughout our entire testing.

We tested coffee subscriptions for nearly two months, researching each service’s website thoroughly as well as going hands-on with every single brand’s coffee to test the packaging, experience, taste and more. We tried a wide variety of coffees from each brand, receiving multiple bags of beans and different roasts whenever possible.

To test taste, we ground, brewed and drank each coffee in the same exact way, and wrote down what we liked and didn’t like, while reading the coffee’s tasting notes to see if they were accurate. However, since taste is subjective, we didn’t want to only test how the coffee tasted, but also the subscription services themselves. Through our research, we compared variables such as coffee variety, roast freshness, customizability, delivery options and more to see which service was the best. Here’s a full breakdown of all the tests we ran.

Subscription service

Coffee

perSimilar in overall approach to Trade (and drawing on many of the same third-wave American roasters), this newer subscription service from Breville has a lot to offer with a curated-by-flavor approach that’s a good way to check out new beans. That said, the flavor families — chocolate, caramel and fruity — are a bit broad, and the price per bag is on average a dollar or two more expensive than Trade’s.

A quiz points you towards coffees you might like (and we were pretty happy with the results), and you can order whole beans or beans ground to taste, in amounts ranging from 2-5 bags per order on the cadence you desire (selectable in one-week intervals from delivery every week to once per month; it’s easy to change on the fly if you feel like you are getting too much or too little coffee). We subscribed for several months and were able to settle in on a delivery schedule that ensured we always had a fresh bag on the way as we were finishing up the prior order.

Really the only downside here is that there are so many other options, some of them less expensive, offering nearly the same products. This speaks to how good small roasters have been about getting the world out and scaling up their output, but it means you can shop around for the best deal, even if your tastes are fairly esoteric.

We’ve reviewed Atlas Coffee Club in the past, and while we loved it (and still do) it didn’t quite break out past its competitors. The coffee tastes great, it comes in extravagant bags that look great on a counter and the postcards included are filled with useful tasting notes and interesting coffee history. Despite these great attributes, Atlas just fell a little short with its limited variety and lack of coffee quiz. Atlas, as a coffee of the month service, sends out one coffee a month from a different country, and you can only change the roast level and grind size, which was a bit more limiting than other services.

Mistobox offers an even wider variety than Trade with over 590 coffees at the time of writing. Mistobox’s coffee quiz has seven questions, which was an adequate amount to find a coffee we enjoyed. You can also get very specific with which kind of coffee you want, filtering your pick by grind, roast level and whether you want a single origin, blend, espresso or decaf bean. On the other hand, the coffee didn’t taste quite as great as some others, you can only order the bags in one size and the shipment was absent of any attention-grabbing extras. But if you’re looking for a subscription with a massive selection of coffee, Mistobox can go blow for blow with Trade any day.

Bean Box didn’t impress us too much, as it didn’t have an especially wide variety, have tons of flexibility for size and delivery or have informative extras. The taste of the coffees we received was a little lackluster, and the beans came 10 days after being roasted, longer than other services that can get it to your door in just a few days.

Driftaway’s small variety and limited size and delivery options knocked it down a peg or two. However, we loved the format or the subscription, and think it could be really good for someone who doesn’t exactly know what coffee they like. The first shipment you get is a tasting flight, and you rank which ones you like the best. Driftaway will then select coffees similar to that so you can build a flavor profile. Driftaway also puts sustainability at the core of its operation with practices such as eco-friendly packaging and carbon offsets for every shipment, which we really appreciated.

Crema Co touts a massive coffee selection with over 450 options and has a thorough, nine question quiz that’s fun and engaging. The taste of the coffees we got was alright, but didn’t blow us away. And while the package did come with a handwritten note that says who packed your box, there wasn’t any info on the coffee or tasting notes that we would’ve enjoyed. Our biggest gripe with Crema Co’s coffee was the bags it was packaged in. They were extremely hard to open and we ended up just slicing them with a knife. That means we couldn’t reseal the bag and would’ve had to store the beans in a separate air-tight container.

Peets was one of the best in terms of taste, which was a surprise to us. The coffee we tried was dark and full of flavor, and out of all the coffees we tried we’d say it was the one we’d want to drink every day. However, the coffee variety was lacking with only around 50 options, and the coffee quiz only had five questions, which was fewer than many of our other top-ranked services. Peets also didn’t come with any extras, and the bag wasn’t easily resealable.

Craft Coffee didn’t have as big of a selection as others, and its coffee quiz just simply asks you to select a coffee you like from a drop down menu of popular choices you might find at the store. Craft does have a ton of delivery options, where you can get a shipment anywhere from once a week to every three months, but without any extras, a middle of-the-road taste and a bag that was difficult to open and reseal, Craft didn’t separate itself from the pack.

Read more from CNN Underscored’s hands-on testing

Good oral hygiene is important for everyone, and electric toothbrushes promise to make the process of caring for those pearly whites a whole lot easier. Built-in timers, apps and multiple brushing modes don’t just do a better job than a manual toothbrush, they also teach you to take better care of your teeth.

To find the best electric toothbrushes, we brought in 10 electric toothbrushes and brushed our teeth — a lot — while testing every feature and consulting with dental professionals to determine which features were really helpful. Our teeth felt nice and clean at the end of the three-week testing period, and in the process we found four great models that will get your oral health dialed in.

Looking for an excellent electric toothbrush at an affordable price? If so, the Philips Sonicare 4100 is one of the best out there. The 4100 has been around for many years, and we found it as comfortable, easy and effective to use as more expensive models, with simple, useful features like a pressure sensor and timer that make a big difference versus traditional manual toothbrushes.

Although the Philips Sonicare 4100 isn’t as feature-packed as some toothbrushes that cost a few hundred dollars, those extra features aren’t always needed. The Phillips offers only a single brushing mode, with low and high intensity levels. The straightforward controls let you easily change the settings as you brush. During testing, the Sonicare 4100 felt very comfortable in hand, and the brush head (several varieties are available from Philips; we tested with the supplied standard heads) was gentle against our teeth and gums, getting into those hard-to-reach places and getting our teeth sparkling clean.

A two-minute timer reminds you to brush for the full two minutes per most dentists’ recommendations, and even better, during that time a “Quadpacer” timer vibrates every 30 seconds, guiding you to move to another quadrant of your mouth — helping to make sure all teeth are cleaned equally. You can also pause the toothbrush — for up to 30 seconds — and the timer will start off right where it left off.

One of our favorite features of the toothbrush — and one we didn’t find with some of the other lower-priced toothbrush options — is the pressure sensor. While using an electric toothbrush, you’re meant to let the brush head do the work rather than scrubbing. So during the brushing session, if you press too hard and apply too much pressure, the Sonicare 4100 will vibrate and an indicator light will flash, giving you a warning. Dr. Mark Wolff, professor of restorative dentistry at the University of Pennsylvania, emphasized the importance of controlling the pressure while brushing since “brushing too aggressively can wear the gums and tooth structure, resulting in recession and tooth sensitivity to cold.”

Everything on the Philips is well thought-out from a design perspective. On the backside of the toothbrush, there’s a notch to keep the toothbrush from rolling around, ensuring the brush head is always kept off the surface if lying flat. And just like most Philips products, a plastic case is included to keep the brush head clean during storage or travel.

For those new to electric toothbrushes, the Phillips 4100 has an EasyStart feature turned on by default; this gently increases the power over the first 14 brushings. Since electric toothbrushes feel different than a manual toothbrush, this allows you — and your teeth — to adapt to the toothbrush over a week’s time.

Other features include a brush head replacement reminder, low battery indicator, 14-day battery life and two-year warranty. The 4100’s charging base uses a USB-A connector, although a wall adapter isn’t included, so you’ll have to supply your own.

The Philips Sonicare 4100 is one of a pair of Philips electric toothbrushes (the other is the Sonicare 4700) that has received the American Dental Association (ADA) seal of acceptance, which means that it has been evaluated for efficacy and safety by a team of independent dental and scientific experts.

The Oral-B iO Series 9 is by far the best smart toothbrush we tested, with an app that offered consistently accurate and useful feedback. The brush itself — a sleek metal unit with a colorful LCD display — offers seven different modes, the most out of any toothbrush we tested, along with the full suite of standard features such as an easy-to-view pressure sensor indicator and two-minute timer (with 30-second pulsing quadrant reminders).

The seven modes include daily clean, intense clean, whitening, gum care, sensitive, super sensitive and tongue clean. Registered dental hygienist Nicole Barbour, who works for a practice in Newton, MA, told us that while most of the patients she sees only need a standard mode, a sensitive setting can be beneficial for those who are at higher risk for enamel wear, gingival attachment or tooth sensitivity. She also suggested that the gum care setting — when used with a compatible brush head — can help remove bacteria from the gum line. However, she did go on to say that there’s not enough independent data available as to whether or not all modes are in fact beneficial and exceed your regular standard mode. And for most patients, multiple mode options aren’t necessary.

But if you’re a patient that has a specific oral need, this toothbrush allows you to fully personalize your brushing experience with its many modes. And while all brush heads are compatible for each mode type, you’ll receive the best experience by purchasing the Oral-B brush head specific to your selected mode.

The oscillating brush, which rotates side to side rather than vibrating like the other brushes we tested, is much quieter than the other Oral-B toothbrushes in our test group, and we found it moved smoothly from one tooth to another. Oral-B also claims the “round brush head pulsates to loosen plaque and then oscillates and rotates to sweep the plaque away.”

While it might seem like overkill for some, I appreciated the Oral-B’s smart features. With this feature, you can sync your toothbrush to the Oral-B app on your phone, which will guide you through your brushing session. When brushing, I found it very useful to be guided through each quadrant of my mouth and to see (via the 3D tracking feature) which surfaces and sections of my mouth weren’t brushed enough. With this app, you can either watch in real time or review your brushing later.

On a busy morning, I find that I don’t always have the patience to truly focus on brushing my teeth properly, so this kept me in check and you might find similarly. Barbour told us that “most patients are in the habit of brushing in a way that may not be effective for plaque removal of all surfaces and using a smart app can benefit patients as they practice proper brushing technique and adaptation.” However, she did go on to say that “paying too much attention to the app can backfire if it distracts too much attention.”

The app also tracks your total brush time and the amount of pressure for every brushing session. Barbour told us that seeing this information can help a patient make changes to their brushing habits as needed and improve efficacy. Wolff agreed and mentioned that tracking your brushing sessions and showing the history to your hygienist will allow them to “give you some customized instructions to improve your homecare.”

Within the app, you are also given daily coaching tips based on your brushing habits to help you with future sessions. Conveniently, you don’t have to keep your phone in front of you while you brush. So long as your phone is within Bluetooth range, it will record your session. You don’t get the live guidance, but you will get the data on brushing time and pressure. We also found the accuracy of the app to be top-notch, which is not something we found with all of the other Bluetooth-compatible toothbrushes we tested. Within the app, you can also set up a brush head reminder and various challenges to ensure you are receiving the best oral care possible.

Although it costs significantly more than most of the brushes we tested, the packaging comes with four brush heads in total, a magnetic charger that takes just three hours for a full charge and a travel case. The travel case even comes with its own plug for easy charging on the go.

If you are looking for a toothbrush that will truly track your brushing habits — correctly — this is by far our favorite smart electric toothbrush we tested. Those who need some guidance while brushing or have specific oral health goals in mind will absolutely love this brush. But if you don’t believe you’ll use many of the capabilities or don’t have the need for guided brushing, and don’t want to have your phone with you at all times in the bathroom, then you probably don’t need to splurge on such an expensive toothbrush. You also might want to take into consideration the cost of replacement brush heads, as they are significantly more expensive than most of the models we tested at close to $10 per brush head.

If you’re on the fence, you can try out the Oral-B iO Series 9 toothbrush for 60 days and if you aren’t happy, you can receive a full refund.

The Philips One by Sonicare is slim and incredibly compact. It comes in a form-fitting case that fits the brush perfectly and barely takes up any space in your toiletry bag, making it a great travel companion. Plus it comes in seven colors, making it easy for each member of your family to identify their own toothbrush.

One of the best aspects of the toothbrush is that the rechargeable battery lasts up to 30 days, double or triple the battery life of most other electric toothbrushes we tested, allowing you to truly not worry about your toothbrush running out of battery while on the road. If you don’t want to have to worry about recharging the battery, you can instead opt for a battery-operated version of the Philips One toothbrush. The functionality of the toothbrush is exactly the same, although it runs on a single AAA battery, which lasts for approximately 90 days.

No charging base is included with the rechargeable version; the toothbrush is also charged by a USB-C cable, so you can use the same charger you’d use with many phones, computers and other electronic devices. So although a USB-C charger comes with the Philips One toothbrush, if you happen to leave it at home, there’s a good chance you’ll be able to find another one in your bag (or perhaps get a loaner from the hotel’s front desk). A four-stage battery indicator lets you know how much life is left, and if you’re caught out, a full charge takes around eight hours.

Although the brush doesn’t alert you to pressure like the Sonicare 4100, it has a two-minute timer, with a quadrant indicator that buzzes every 30 seconds as a reminder to move to the next section of your mouth. As with the larger Philips models you can also pause the toothbrush for up to 30 seconds and the timer will restart from the pausing point.

We found the replaceable brush head to be very similar to a manual brush, with W-shaped bristles that let us get into tight spaces (Philips doesn’t offer any alternative brushes like it does for its main Sonicare lineup). The bristles were soft and gentle, leaving our teeth feeling extremely clean and much better than a manual toothbrush.

The Brightline Sonic Rechargeable Toothbrush is as simple as they come. It doesn’t offer a pause-and-resume feature or a pressure indicator or convenience features like LED indicators, but it really delivers on basic performance, making it a good option for those wanting to try an electric toothbrush without breaking the bank. We found that the toothbrush was able to get into tight spaces between our teeth and the vibration was perfect. Our teeth felt sparkly clean and even after many uses, the bristles were fully intact.

The Brightline allows you to adjust the intensity up and down to a level that works for your liking, though. Unlike some of the other toothbrushes, there is no indicator telling you that you are on a high or low setting, so you have to hold down the power button until you find by feel the intensity setting that works for you. Fortunately, the toothbrush remembers your vibration setting for your next brushing session. If you want something that gives you more visual direction, the pricier Brightline Sonic 5-Mode option has dedicated modes, from gentle to whitening, with LED indicators, but performance is similar.

The toothbrush has a built-in two-minute timer with a 30-second quadrant reminder, although there is no pause functionality. This means if you need to take a break while brushing, the timer resets, which doesn’t allow you to keep track of the full 30-second or two-minute requirement. Brightline claims a full charge will give 25 days of use, one of the longest battery life spans of all of the toothbrushes we looked at.

Replacement heads for this toothbrush are relatively inexpensive. The box comes with two brush heads, but you can purchase a four-pack for less than $10. At approximately $2.50 per head, this makes owning the Brightline more economical than many of the other brands.

The only real downside is that the Brightline doesn’t have a pressure indicator — one powered toothbrush feature that is highly recommended by dental professionals we spoke to. It also doesn’t have different head options and is a little bulkier than most, but it gets the job done at an affordable price.

Most dentists — along with the American Dental Association — recommend that all adults and children brush their teeth for two minutes twice a day to effectively remove plaque. Dr. Andrea Zandona, professor and chair of the Department of Comprehensive Care at Tufts University School of Dental Medicine, explains that this length of exposure to fluoride toothpaste “is important to achieve the best cavity protection benefits.”

Although you can certainly brush for two minutes with a manual toothbrush, electric toothbrushes have automatic timers and pressure sensors, as well as various brushing modes that may help you do a more thorough job of brushing your teeth and gums and, most importantly, just make it easier to do a good job brushing. Basically, whatever your oral hygiene needs or goals, it’s worth making room in your bathroom for an electric toothbrush.

The American Dental Association suggests that this is even more the case for people who have dexterity challenges — children, people with disabilities or the elderly — or those who have dental appliances such as braces.

However, the dental professionals we consulted all reiterated that an electric toothbrush won’t do all of the work for you. You still have to use it correctly, positioning the brush at the proper 45-degree angle to your teeth and gums and gently moving the brush head with proper pressure to cover the entire tooth surface.

Amy King, a registered dental hygienist at Chestnut Dental Associates in Needham, MA, told us that she has seen a dramatic improvement in the oral hygiene of patients who use electric toothbrushes, so long as they use them correctly and with the appropriate settings. She sees “less inflammation and less bleeding,” and that “in some cases, people who use electric toothbrushes and admit to not flossing regularly, have gums that look as good if not better than those that floss regularly.”

During our testing, we found a few specific functions to be extremely important during our brushing sessions. Below is a description of each functionality and options to look for when considering a toothbrush.

Built-in timer

As we learned, brushing for a full two minutes is extremely important when brushing your teeth. Fortunately, every toothbrush we tested included a built-in two-minute timer, which allowed us to not cheat on our brushing session. Additionally, many toothbrushes also include a vibrating alert every 30 seconds that reminds you to move on to the next quadrant of your mouth, making it easier to remember to cover all of your teeth. Many toothbrushes, although not all, allow you to pause your toothbrush for up to 30 seconds without resetting the timer.

Pressure sensor

The pressure you apply when brushing might not be something you actively think about. You definitely don’t want to do harm to your teeth because you really only have one set. Applying too much pressure against your teeth and gums, Zandona told us, can erode the enamel on your tooth and cause gum recession, while also wearing out your toothbrush. Dr. Evan Novick, an endodontic specialist at Novick Endodontics in Charlotte, NC, told us that “multiple studies have shown anything more than light pressure does more harm than good and a pressure indicator on a toothbrush is extremely beneficial to a patient.” Fortunately, many electric toothbrushes have the capability to let you know when you are applying too much pressure.

Brushing modes 

All electric toothbrushes offer a brush head that vibrates or pulsates, but some offer multiple brushing modes: gum care, sensitive, whitening, pro clean and more. Depending on the brush, these modes may simply be intensity settings targeted for different brushing tasks, or in more advanced models — such as the Philips Sonicare 6100 and Oral-B iO Series 9 — these modes actually vary the pattern of a brush’s oscillating or pulsating motion, and are often designed to work with specific replacement brush heads tailored to work with those motions.

Either way, these brushing modes let you personalize your brushing experience to address your needs. Novick told us that he feels only some of the brushing modes had real benefits. For example, the sensitive setting is ideal for someone with hypersensitive gums or for a prescribed amount of time after a dental procedure. However, he has not found any differences in the color of the teeth of patients who have used the whitening modes on their electric toothbrushes.

Intensity levels

Most electric toothbrushes offer multiple intensity levels. This allows you to select a low, medium or high power option, which changes the speed at which the brush head oscillates or vibrates (this is distinct from “modes,” which may change the pattern of the head’s movement).

Many hygienists love variable intensity as it allows those new to using an electric toothbrush to ease into it and get used to the feeling. Registered dental hygienist Ana Perez, also from Chestnut Dental Associates, told us that this feature “helps patients that have very sensitive teeth or gum recession/root exposure because the toothbrush can go gentler or slower on those areas while still removing plaque and biofilm effectively.”

Smart features

Some of the newer, higher-end toothbrushes allow you to connect your toothbrush to an app on your phone where the app will guide you through your brushing session, the idea being that over time the feedback will teach you to be a better brusher. Many of the apps will also record data from your session, such as how long you brushed and areas of your mouth that were missed.

Hygienist Amy King feels that these apps can be very beneficial to anyone who wants to improve their oral health. “Using an electric toothbrush app,” she says, “is like having an in-home brushing tutor and allows the patient the opportunity to practice their brushing technique and habits conveniently in the privacy and comfort of their home.” While she’s seen a lot of interest, she has found that the apps aren’t for everyone — while many of her patients use their electric toothbrushes every day, more often than not, they have stopped using the companion apps.

King and several other hygienists also appreciated when patients brought in their historical brushing data, so check with your dentist’s office to see if that might be valuable for them.

To help find the best options, we picked out 10 of the most popular and well-reviewed electric toothbrushes ranging from just $30 to upwards of $300. We went through the entire brushing process with each electric toothbrush — multiple times — and tested all of their functionality. We brushed every which way possible to truly put them to the test, while comparing their overall performance and effectiveness.

So, over the course of a lot of brushing sessions, we assessed all of the brushes in the following areas.

Installation and setup

We checked out whether each brush ran on a battery or used a rechargeable battery, as well as whether it shipped with a base or charging cable. We measured how long the brush would run on a single charge or battery swap. We also checked out what type of brush heads the toothbrushes came with, what sorts of replacements were available and how easy they were to swap.

For the brushes that used companion apps and were connected via Bluetooth, we checked out how easy it was to connect, set up an account and start using the app.

We also looked at design, assessing whether the brushes included cases or brush-head covers for storage and travel and well-designed bases for use in a bathroom, and checked out handling in general.

Performance

We looked for brushes that offered an automated two-minute timer, the most useful feature according to the dental professionals we talked to. We also looked for 30-second quadrant timers, which keep you moving the brush to cover the entire mouth.

Beyond that, we checked out if and how well a pressure sensor indicator (letting you know if you are brushing too hard or soft) was implemented, and tried out all of the brushing modes and intensity levels where those were an option.

We also assessed app accuracy for the connected smart toothbrushes, checking to see if the recordings of our brushing sessions matched our notes.

And importantly, we paid attention to what the brushes felt like to use and how clean they left our mouths feeling.

Maintenance

We looked at how often brush heads should be swapped and how easy it was to clean each brush. We also looked at the cost of replacement brush heads, and whether they were compatible with generic brush heads for less, as well as the availability of subscription options.

We also noted whether a satisfaction guarantee or warranty was supplied, and whether the brushes we examined had received the ADA Seal of Acceptance.

The Oral-B Pro 1000 costs about the same as our top pick, the Philips Sonicare 4100, and also comes from a well-respected brand, but offers fewer useful features at the same price. The toothbrush comes with an oscillating brush head, where we found the pressure to be too strong. Additionally, the toothbrush was incredibly loud and sounded like a freight train was in the bathroom.

Like most other electric toothbrushes, there’s a two-minute timer (with 30-second indicators), but after the two minutes is up, the toothbrush will keep on going. This is great for those looking to brush for longer, but you’ll have to remember to switch it off when you’ve had enough.

This toothbrush comes with a single cross-action brush head, but is compatible with many other Oral-B brush heads — such as ones that are geared towards flossing, sensitivity and precision. You can purchase a year’s worth of replacement brush heads at slightly over $5 per head, or there are also subscription options from Oral-B directly (although we found them significantly cheaper on Amazon). There are also many generic brush heads for this toothbrush, which can cost less, as low as $1 to $2 per head.

At this price point, we wish it offered a more noticeable pressure sensor indicator (there’s no visible lamp, just tactile feedback) and multiple intensity levels. The pressure sensor functionality just stops the oscillation once you brush too hard — which you might not even notice — and doesn’t offer any indicators, such as a vibrating handle, beeping sound or light on the handle as we saw with many of the other toothbrushes. A full charge also only lasts for approximately 10 days, which is less than most of the other brushes tested.

The Oral-B Genius 6000 offers many useful features — an oscillating brush head, pressure sensor and built-in timer — as well as five different modes, which will help you pick the best brushing type for your personal needs. But the corresponding app is one of the most cumbersome to use among the smart brushes we tested.

The only way to get the full picture of your brushing is to hold the phone up directly in front of your face, while also brushing. This is incredibly difficult and simply didn’t work for us, at least not handheld. You’ll need to purchase a suction cup phone holder for your mirror, or have space for a stand. If not, you’ll lose the option of tracking your brushing coverage — which is the best part of the app. It’s also very loud, similar to the Oral-B Pro 1000 toothbrush.

The Philips Sonicare 9900 Prestige — the company’s latest premium smart toothbrush — has only a single button onboard, with all of the other controls accessible only through the app. We found the app itself simple to use and helpful, with a clear layout for tracking your brushing progress and plenty of real-time feedback on how much pressure and motion you’re using (and should use). It accurately tracked our movements and gave us good feedback, but we felt that the brush made us rely on our phone more than the other smart brushes we tested.

The Sonicare 9900 Prestige offers three intensity settings and five different cleaning modes, and has customizable vibration alerts that let you avoid scrubbing too hard or applying too much pressure. While the app will only track your progress if you leave it open while brushing, the brush itself saves your settings from session to session, so you don’t have to set everything up again each time.

The design makes cleaning easy, and the brush comes with a slim leather travel case and USB-C travel cable, making it easy to take the toothbrush on the road. It comes with an all-purpose brush head, but it’s compatible with the many Philips Sonicare heads on the market.

We loved using this toothbrush, but we’d only recommend it if you are very committed to smart features and plan to always — and we mean always — have your phone on you while brushing your teeth. But, if you are dedicated to oral hygiene and looking for the best feedback possible, then this app will give you just that.

The Hum by Colgate offers one of the sleekest designs with its slim handle and small base. Aesthetically, it’s a nice touch next to the bathroom sink and there are multiple color options to complement your bathroom decor. It’s also incredibly light to hold, making brushing your teeth an easier feat.

The brush offers three different levels of intensity and has a companion app to track the frequency, duration and accuracy of your brushing. We found, however, that while frequency and duration tracking were spot-on, it occasionally didn’t correctly identify which section of our mouth was being brushed. We did appreciate some of the app’s other features, such as the ability to use sensors on the brush to give us real-time reminders on our technique, noticing when we strayed away from holding the toothbrush at a 45-degree angle.

We didn’t like the brush head’s shape and size as much as the Philips Sonicare heads, but appreciated the included tongue brush on the back of the brush head. While a toothbrush’s brush head can also clean your tongue, we preferred the dedicated brush, which got into the spaces on my tongue more easily and left me feeling like it had done a better job cleaning.

We tested the rechargeable version of this toothbrush, but there’s also a cheaper battery-operated version available. The design is identical and functionality is similar save for offering only two intensity levels instead of three.

The Philips Sonicare 6100 is a step up from the Philips Sonicare 4100, with a very similar look and feel. However, the main difference is that the 6100 version offers three intensity levels and three different modes — the default clean mode, along with whitening and gum care, which offer different brush head motions and automatically set the timer accordingly. To get the best results from these modes, Philips suggests purchasing brush heads designed specifically to take advantage of them.

Similar to the 4100 version, the Philips Sonicare 6100 also offers a two-minute timer with 30-second pulser (with pausing capability), a pressure sensor indicator, brush head replacement reminder, 14-day battery life and two-year warranty.

The Philips Sonicare also comes with a travel case, which is on the larger side, but it can fit the toothbrush and two brush heads.

Although this toothbrush offers slightly more features than the 4100 version, for more than double the cost, we didn’t think this toothbrush offers enough enhancements to make it worth it. However, if you are specifically looking for a toothbrush that specializes in whitening your teeth or taking care of your gums, then this toothbrush has those options.

The subscription Quip Electric Toothbrush looks very similar to a manual toothbrush, but based on our testing, is only a slight step up. While it vibrates, it’s less intense than any other brush we tested and we felt there wasn’t enough pressure, leaving us to brush our teeth with a traditional scrubbing motion. If you prefer a more gentle pressure, this might work for you, but we believe the majority of users will be disappointed, especially since there’s only one intensity setting.

The Quip doesn’t have multiple modes, adjustable intensity or any of the extra features that fancier brushes have. However, unlike your everyday toothbrush, there’s a built-in two-minute timer and 30-second indicators to help ensure you’re brushing your teeth for the appropriate amount of time.

We tested the “smart” version of the Quip (there are cheaper options that don’t have any smarts), which uses an app to tracks information such as brushing duration, coverage, strokes and intensity, alerting you if you are brushing too hard or too fast. Although limiting, for the information gathered, we found it to be incredibly accurate. You can also earn Quip points for brushing your teeth, which you can redeem for rewards like discounts on refills.

Unlike most of the other toothbrushes we tested, the Quip runs on a single AAA battery rather than a rechargeable battery pack. This comes in handy if you’re traveling or just limited on electrical outlets, especially since the battery lasts for approximately 90 days.

A $5 quarterly subscription gets you a replacement brush head and AAA battery every three months. You can also get the brush head and battery for the same price a la carte, but the subscription gives you a lifetime warranty on the toothbrush (otherwise you get only a year) so it’s a somewhat better deal. You can cancel your subscription or skip a delivery at any time.