Faculty Fast Take: Is Anyone Actually Going to Spend $500 on a Toothbrush?

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Bryan Lipiner

Bryan Lipiner is the Senior Manager for Social Media and Content Marketing at Babson College. Since arriving at Babson in 2019, he has dramatically scaled engagement and followings on Babson’s social media channels, led award-winning social media campaigns, written for Babson Thought & Action, and more. Prior to Babson, he worked as a reporter and editor at the Record-Journal newspaper in central Connecticut. Bryan received his undergraduate degree in journalism from Quinnipiac University in 2015.

September 15, 2026

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Babson College Professor of Innovation and Design Sebastian Fixson looks at Dyson’s new $500 CameraJet, which uses a camera, AI, and a water jet to brush and floss users’ teeth at the same time, and says its success will hinge on one key question.

Babson College Professor Sebastian Fixson, the Marla M. Capozzi MBA’96 Term Chair in Design Thinking, Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Can its features be so innovative that customers can’t say no?

“(James) Dyson seems to suggest that this brush can solve a problem which most existing electric toothbrushes, plus manual flossing, cannot: reduce the build-up of plaque on the teeth to the point where the twice-yearly procedure of teeth cleaning is substantially reduced,” says Fixson, the founding faculty director of Babson’s Doctor of Business Administration program and the Marla M. Capozzi MBA’96 Term Chair in Design Thinking, Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

“If his approach can indeed deliver on that promise, he may have rewritten the rules of the competition,” he adds. “Will it be an Apple iPod or a Segway?”

It’s not the first foray into crowded markets for Dyson. Over the past several years, they’ve released hair dryers and vacuums. Air purifiers, as well. And with each product has come great fanfare.

Flossing is unpopular among many. In its newest release that has been six years in the making, Dyson is working to reduce that friction, which Fixson describes as the “secret power of design.”

“Carefully studying humans by what they are trying to accomplish in their daily life, and figuring out how to make that easier and/or the humans more successful in doing it, can produce powerful results,” he says.