Oclean Flow review: An electric toothbrush with an unbeatable battery

Of all the electric toothbrushes I’ve tested, the Oclean Flow has been the biggest surprise. Not only is it well built and budget friendly, but its battery life is the longest I’ve ever come across at a mind-boggling 180 days. So, if you hate having to recharge your electric toothbrush all the time, this is an affordable solution.

That being said, the brush isn’t completely flawless. In my tests, it fell victim to the same pitfalls as many sonic electric brushes, such as a lack of a pressure sensor, and limited brushing power. However, its broad range of brushing modes makes it a great option for those buying their first electric toothbrush.

Oclean Flow review: What you need to know

While you may not have heard of this burgeoning dental-care brand, Oclean offer a wide range of electric toothbrushes. The Oclean Flow sits toward the entry-level end of the scale, after the Oclean Endurance, which has just two cleaning modes and a significantly shorter battery life (our tests indicated 33 days).

By comparison, the Flow has five cleaning modes and a humongous 180-day battery life. Climb up to Oclean’s higher-end offerings, the £80 X Pro Elite and the £200 X Ultra S, and you can expect smart features, colour screens and app-connectivity.

Over our years of testing its brushes, the brand has proved itself to be a promising competitor to established names such as Oral B and Philips. That is especially true when you consider the comparatively budget-friendly price point of its brushes.

Equally important is the cost of replacement heads – replacement heads for the Flow cost £30 for 6 heads. Or, you can buy a travel set that comes with the brush itself, a case and six replacement heads for an extra £6 on average. If it’s available, I would recommend making the investment in this set, since the brush heads will last you eighteen months and will save you £24 in heads alone.

Oclean Flow review: Design and key features

The Oclean Flow is a sonic toothbrush, which means it cleans your teeth using micro-vibrations. Its brush heads have the same shape and size as many manual toothbrushes, making them comfortable and simple for first-time electric toothbrush users. At its strongest setting, the brush vibrates at 38,000 strokes per minute. That’s enough to give a comfortable daily clean, without irritating sensitive teeth and gums.

The Oclean Flow measures up to its pricier competition when it comes to versatility. It has five cleaning modes: morning, night, standard, whitening and gentle. These each differ in intensity and movement, with the morning brush providing a gentler clean to start the day, while the night brush is the most intense setting that aims to brush away the day’s grime. If you can’t be bothered with chopping and changing, the standard mode offers a good middle ground, while the sensitive mode significantly reduces the power for a really gentle clean.

Its whitening mode is a different kettle of fish entirely: rather than vibrating at a constant rate, it uses high-pressure pulses to buff the surface of the teeth. This is certainly an intense feeling, but whether it buffs away stains or whitens my teeth better than a standard brush remains to be seen. In my experience, brushes need far faster and more powerful oscillations to whiten teeth, and even with the most powerful brushes the effects are minimal.

But whitening is not this brush’s standout feature – the battery life is. Most sonic electric toothbrushes have battery lives of around 30-40 days, but the Oclean Flow has a staggering 180-day battery life. It’s easily the longest battery life I’ve ever encountered in an electric toothbrush, and means you should only need to charge this brush twice per year. When the time to charge comes around, simply plug the brush in using its USB-C port in the base and it will charge overnight.

Like many electric toothbrushes, the Oclean Flow also has a two-minute timer that pulses every 30 seconds, indicating it’s time to move to a new quadrant of the mouth. Once your two minutes are up, the brush switches itself off.

Oclean Flow review: Performance

I tested the Oclean Flow over four weeks, during which time I used every mode at least twice and monitored how clean my mouth felt. I also noted how simple the brush’s controls were and assessed its build quality.

Thankfully, the brush only has one control button, which makes it easy to scroll through the settings. The brush has five indicator lights, one for each setting, that illuminate when each mode is selected. Handily, the brush remembers which setting you used previously, so you can pick a favourite setting and stick with it.

When scrolling through each of the settings, I felt there was a noticeable difference in power between the powerful night mode, the less powerful morning and sensitive modes and the unique pulsating whitening mode.

For context, I’ve tested some of the most powerful brushes on the market and this one doesn’t quite measure up in terms of power. I found that these more powerful modes were my favourites to use, since they gave my teeth a better polish than the other options. In fact, by the end of my testing, I had thrown out the rulebook and was using the “night” mode every time.

Conversely, the morning and sensitive modes were so gentle that they were nearly indistinguishable from one another. That being said, I found that these modes were the most comfortable to use in the days after I’d burned my gums on a hot cup of tea.

The timer was very effective. Its 30-second pulses ensured I brushed every area of my mouth evenly and if I ever lost track of the time I could be sure that I brushed for the correct amount of time.

That said, since the power of the brush is lower than I’m used to, I found myself wanting to brush areas of my mouth for a longer period of time to compensate. The issue here is that the brush shuts off after two minutes. When you press the button to start the brush again, it starts very gently before becoming stronger over the period of five seconds or so. This odd delay meant the automatic shutoff was slightly annoying if I wanted to cover any areas I’d missed or hadn’t had time to cover in the first two minutes.

On the point of battery life, I calculated that it would take 12 hours of constant usage to put Ocelan’s 180-day claim to the test, turning it back on every two minutes when its automatic shutoff kicked in. This just wasn’t feasible. But it’s worth noting that, in the time that I’ve been testing it, I’ve not had to charge it once. And if Oclean’s other brushes are anything to go by, I’ve got no reason to doubt the battery life of the Flow.

Oclean Flow review: Verdict

If you’re on a budget and are looking for an electric toothbrush that has a good range of modes, the Oclean Flow is a safe bet. Its two-minute timer is effective and its battery life is second-to-none. For the price, you can’t go far wrong.

More specifically, its settings cater well to cater to sensitive teeth and gums, or first-time electric toothbrush users. However, this brush isn’t suitable for those who want a very intense clean. A more intense option is the Oclean Endurance, which has a similar price tag and fewer settings but vibrates up to 72,000 times per minute, providing a doubly intense clean.