L’Oreal’s smart hairbrush, developed with Nokia, ready to shake up the haircare category
January 5, 2017
L’Oreal’s Kerastase luxury hair-care brand is unveiling a $189 digitally connected brush at CES, injecting tech into a seemingly unlikely age-old product.
The Kerastase Hair Coach Powered by Withings, which will be available to consumers later this year, is billed as the world’s first smart hairbrush, developed in collaboration with L’Oreal’s Research and Innovation Technology Incubator. It features advanced sensors and product design from Nokia’s Withings digital-health unit combined with patent-pending signal-analysis algorithms from L’Oreal to score the quality of hair and monitor the effects of various hair-care routines. An accompanying mobile app gives tips on how to brush hair and customized hair product recommendations.
“I’m not going to tell you that around $200 is not a high price for a brush,” said Guive Balooch, global VP of L’Oreal’s Research and Innovation Incubator. But he said hair brushes already on the market range up to $300 or $400 with no sensors or app, and even when the Hair Coach was tested by consumers without sensors, it performed well. “We didn’t want to make a connected brush that people wouldn’t love on its own,” he said.
But then there are the sensors and algorithms, which he said really do make a difference.
Research by L’Oreal scientists finds forceful hair brushing can cause damage, including breakage and split ends. The Hair Coach minimizes these risks using multiple sensors to provide information on the quality of hair and brushing patterns.
The tech includes a microphone that listens to the sound of hair brushing to identify patterns and provide insights on manageability, frizz, dryness, split ends and breakage. It also uses 3-axis load cells to measure force applied when brushing. An accelerometer and gyroscope further analyze brushing patterns and count strokes, providing feedback when brushing is too vigorous. Conductivity sensors on the splash-proof brush determine if the brush is being used on wet or dry hair to provide accurate measurement.
All these sensors feed data via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth to the app, which takes into account such weather factors as humidity, temperature, UV radiation and wind. Factoring in how people brush and environmental factors, the app provides a “hair quality score,” data on the effectiveness of brushing habits, personalized tips and Karastase product recommendations.
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