Are you looking for ways to educate yourself or your children about going to the dentist, how long you’re brushing, or even keeping track of oral hygiene milestones like dental checkups and when to change your toothbrush? There’s an app for that.   Use your tablet or smartphone to help you keep track of all things dental health. The 1st Family Dental team has downloaded and reviewed our top 5 favorite dental apps for kids.

Dental Apps for Kids!

Tiny Dentist

Tiny Dentist by Gametects is a fun and interactive way to get kids involved in understanding what goes on during dental treatment.  Compared to some of the other similar types of dental “treatment” apps, the characters and activities are more approachable and won’t have you or your kid waking up in a cold sweat or suddenly terrified of dental treatment. Kids can “treat” each patient in the app, who may need anything from a regular cleaning and fixing some bad breath to extractions, fillings and even advanced (and adult-focused) procedures like teeth whitening and dental implants.  When you’re done with one patient, just move on to the next! Our biggest critique of this app – it might be a little too much fun to treat dental caries.  We’d like to see more in-app information about the best way to prevent the need for pediatric dental treatment, which is a great at-home oral hygiene routine.  Adults- be sure to view the tutorial before beginning.  Or – hand the app to your child, they usually figure things out more quickly! Tiny Dentist is available for Android and Apple.

Virtual Dentist

Virtual Dentist by ModiFace is made for older children and even adults.  You can use the in-app photos or upload one of your own.  This app allows you to experiment with different types of treatment options so you can see before and after results. Treatment options include basic cleaning and stain removal to show your fresh-from-the-dentist smile, as well as veneers, composite fillings, and teeth whitening.  There are also options for braces and orthodontic treatment.  This feature is great for kids and adults to see what they might look like with braces or a retainer.  You can save the results and even use the social sharing features to find out what your friends think. This app is free but features are limited.  The ad-free pro version is $2.99, which is required if you want to use the orthodontic and cosmetic features.  Virtual Dentist is available for Android and Apple.

Brusheez Tooth Brushing Timer

Brusheez by Shondicon is a toothbrushing timer app for younger kids.  You can customize up to two characters in the free version, or more with in-app purchases.   If your own little monster is missing any baby teeth, you can make their character match, as well as choose colors for toothbrushes, hair, and jammies. You can adjust the timer to more or less than 2 minutes.  The “Everybody Needs to Brush Their Teeth” song, timer and brushing technique demonstration on the monster are fun to listen to and watch while brushing to make sure kids do a thorough job.  You may find yourself humming this tune all day long! We like this app a lot.  We’d love to see a calendar or tracking feature, as well as rewards or other feature unlocks for kids to encourage regular brushing.  Brusheez is currently available for iPhone and iPad.

Disney Magic Timer

Disney and Oral-B collaborated to create this toothbrushing app for kids.  Your child can select their favorite Disney or Marvel Comics character and the type of toothbrush they use.  The app features a brushing technique demonstration, a 30-second reminder to switch mouth quadrants, and also reveals a new disney themed image over the two-minute period.  More features are available if you use Oral-B products and scan them into the app. We like the calendar and rewards and stickers options that kids can collect as they keep track of their good brushing habits.

This is also one of the truly free apps.  However, we found this app to be slow to load and fairly buggy.  Also, kids can only brush twice per day, morning and evening only. We would like to see an option to brush more frequently, and we would expect more educational information from an app developed with a company like Oral B. The Disney Magic Timer app is available for Android and Apple.

BrushDJ

Brush DJ is an app and educational website developed in the U.K.  This is the first (and possibly only) app we found that can be fun to use for people of all ages!  Rocking out to your favorite music while you brush can definitely help those two minutes to go by more quickly. The website and YouTube videos focus on the educational aspects of prevention and good brushing habits, and the app helps to put it all together while making brushing fun.  You can choose your tunes, or let BrushDJ do it for you.  The app also features helpful reminders for your next dental and hygiene visits, and will remind you when it’s time to replace your toothbrush. This is a U.K. based app, so some of the information about fluoride and measurements are slightly different than the U.S., but we think the fundamentals are great.  This app is free and available for Android and Apple.   Do you have a favorite dental app?  Share your comments and suggestions with us using the form below!