When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works

Home / News / Withings’ smart brush listens to your hair

Withings’ smart brush listens to your hair

Thick as thieves, that brush and your hair

A smart hairbrush? You are pulling my…

Shh. Without drawing attention to yourself, have a look around. Do you see anything you’re sure isn’t smart? There, look! Didn’t that coffee pot just wink at you?

OK, I get it. But riddle me this: what is it that the internet wants to know about my hair?

Chiefly, it wants to know what the heck you were thinking. Ha! But, quite a lot it seems. Withings, in association with L’Oreal’s Kerastase brand, has made a hairbrush that’s absolutely dripping with sensors – the better to tittle-tattle to the dark web about your hipster locks.

What, like how I brush?

At the very least, yes, measured by accelerometers and gyroscopes. But the Kerastase Hair Coach also has 3-axis load sensors to judge the amount of force you’re putting through your do, as well as microphones that enable the app to establish – according to Withings – manageability, frizziness and split ends. Astonishing, eh?

Alarming. What do I do? I don’t want this information getting out.

We can see why. But, chill. Seeing as you apparently have not thus far spent even £5 on an analogue hair regulator, it seems unlikely that you will rush out in August and buy one of these app-connected barnet brooms for £200. Should someone send you one gratis, however, be warned: it’ll be the Kerastase hair net illuminati.

BEST OF THE REST
Profile image of Fraser Macdonald Fraser Macdonald consulting editor

About

Fraser used to wear a Psion Series 3 palmtop in a shoulder holster. Perhaps he still does.Either way, his lifelong mission - including fourteen years for Stuff - has been to see whether the consumer electronics industry can ever replicate that kind of cyborgian joy.So far: nope. Despite a plan to combine a action camera and Olympus Eye-Trek goggles to become Man Who Sees The Vision Of A Man Three Inches Taller Than Himself.He also likes mountain bikes, motorbikes, cars, helicopters. Still thinks virtual surround is witchcraft. Dislikes jetskis, despite never having been on one. 

Enable referrer and click cookie to search for eefc48a8bf715c1b 20231024b972d108 [] 2.7.22