3 ms·

How the “Be.” battery-free toothbrush faked a demonstration video

47 points by brk 8y ago

mikestew 8y ago
I'd love to crawl inside the vendor's brain for a few minutes, get some questions answered. Like, did you think no one would notice? No? You vastly underestimate the cumulative free time available on the Internet. Regardless, why actively lie? Buying time, or you know there's no way this will ever work, so you're just figuring out your exit? And lastly, though I am no physicist or mechanical engineer, but some quick napkin math says there's no way to make two twists of a human hand turn into 2 minutes of tooth brushing. Are you incapable of the most basic up-front research and design, or did you intend to be dishonest from the start? I mean, seriously, there is a mindset there that is so foreign to mine that I can't even comprehend what it might look like.
- cobythedog 8y ago
  It appears they may have even faked their first prototype - simply encasing a standard electric toothbrush in a 3D-printed case. That would suggest, at least to me, that they were deceitful from the start.
- Bishonen88 8y ago
  This is Theranos 2.0.
  - zaphod12 8y ago
    You are giving them a bit too much credit...nobody's put 'Be.' on the front of Forbes, yet. This is just another small time, start up scam. Theranos was a virtuoso performance of fraud
dsego 8y ago
I enjoy watching thunderfoot's debunking videos on similar 'fake' tech, like the self-filling water bottle campaign, solar effin roadways, and of course hyperloop.
- scott-smith_us 8y ago
  I only know about thunderfoot's hyperloop debunking video, but it was so full of incorrect assumptions and half-truths that he lost all credibility with me.
jsjrobotics89 8y ago
I'd be surprised if the engineers working on this project approved the release of this video, even as a fake for the working product. Anyone who has worked with electric motors can hear the device losing power and then getting a 'second wind' multiple times. I replayed the video the first time I saw it myself thinking that doesn't sound right.

47 points by brk 8y ago

I'd love to crawl inside the vendor's brain for a few minutes, get some questions answered. Like, did you think no one would notice? No? You vastly underestimate the cumulative free time available on the Internet. Regardless, why actively lie? Buying time, or you know there's no way this will ever work, so you're just figuring out your exit? And lastly, though I am no physicist or mechanical engineer, but some quick napkin math says there's no way to make two twists of a human hand turn into 2 minutes of tooth brushing. Are you incapable of the most basic up-front research and design, or did you intend to be dishonest from the start? I mean, seriously, there is a mindset there that is so foreign to mine that I can't even comprehend what it might look like.

cobythedog 8y ago
It appears they may have even faked their first prototype - simply encasing a standard electric toothbrush in a 3D-printed case. That would suggest, at least to me, that they were deceitful from the start.
Bishonen88 8y ago
This is Theranos 2.0.
- zaphod12 8y ago
  You are giving them a bit too much credit...nobody's put 'Be.' on the front of Forbes, yet. This is just another small time, start up scam. Theranos was a virtuoso performance of fraud

dsego 8y ago

I enjoy watching thunderfoot's debunking videos on similar 'fake' tech, like the self-filling water bottle campaign, solar effin roadways, and of course hyperloop.

scott-smith_us 8y ago
I only know about thunderfoot's hyperloop debunking video, but it was so full of incorrect assumptions and half-truths that he lost all credibility with me.

jsjrobotics89 8y ago

I'd be surprised if the engineers working on this project approved the release of this video, even as a fake for the working product. Anyone who has worked with electric motors can hear the device losing power and then getting a 'second wind' multiple times. I replayed the video the first time I saw it myself thinking that doesn't sound right.