Dental scanner for domestic use

Together with Attent, a Norwegian health tech company, EGGS are developing the world's first dental scanner designed for domestic use, consisting of a scanner and mobile app. The aim is to lower the threshold for people to examine their teeth and making quality, preventative dental care easily accessible.

Dental cavities + fear of dentist = a widespread issue

More than 90% of adults experience dental caries. This in combination with as many as 40-60% of the adult population saying that they suffer from a fear of going to the dentist, makes for a serious dental health problem. Existing dental treatment models are costly and time consuming often, involving a physical one-to-one meeting between the user and the dentist even for simple examinations.

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The user scans his or her teeth by themselves at home, and images are uploaded to a smartphone app and cloud. With the help of ML (Machine Learning), the dental status can be assessed. (Photo credits: Tom Haga / S & B-N)

A familiar and non-threatening experience

Attent is designed to resembles an electric toothbrush, providing a non-threatening and familiar experience to the user. The user scans his or her teeth by themselves at home, and images are uploaded to a smartphone app and cloud. With the help of ML (Machine Learning), the dental status can be assessed and in two minutes you are able to see all the information directly in the app. By lowering the threshold to getting your teeth examined and enabling people to examine themselves in the comfort of their home, people can save both time and money.

Insights and mapping of the dental care user journey

In the case of Attent, the potential user group is both large and diverse – the vast majority of people have teeth and need dental care to keep them healthy. For this reason, we gathered a diverse group of participants for user insight regarding both age, housing conditions and geographic location. By gathering information about the participants’ dental care habits and daily routines, we could map out a detailed user journey – what do potential users need, when and how.

By interviewing and gathering data from a diverse group of people, ages 22-81, from 8 different nationalities, we could map out the user journey, looking for pain points that we can address in the design and development of Attent. Later we could design a visual user journey for the future, showing how the journey of the user will look like using the product and the application.

At the tip of the device are two folds with several LEDs, and above a camera sensor. When teeth are scanned, the sensor is moved from tooth to tooth, and dozens of pictures are taken of each tooth. These are uploaded to an app which selects the best images and then uploads them to a cloud service where the algorithm analyses if you have any issues with your teeth and will give an indication on if you need to visit a dentist or if you simply need to improve on hygiene.

Brand design that supports a holistic experience

Attent consists of both a physical and a digital product, and it is vital to ensure that both the digital and the physical design go hand in hand and provide a positive and holistic experience to the user. Branding is essential in this, especially as a brand-new product on the market.