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Withings’ smart brush listens to your hair

Thick as thieves, that brush and your hair

Fraser Macdonald

A smart hairbrush? You are pulling my…

Shh. Without drawing attention to yourself, have a look around. Do you see anything you’re sure isn’t smart? There, look! Didn’t that coffee pot just wink at you?

OK, I get it. But riddle me this: what is it that the internet wants to know about my hair?

Chiefly, it wants to know what the heck you were thinking. Ha! But, quite a lot it seems. Withings, in association with L’Oreal’s Kerastase brand, has made a hairbrush that’s absolutely dripping with sensors – the better to tittle-tattle to the dark web about your hipster locks.

What, like how I brush?

At the very least, yes, measured by accelerometers and gyroscopes. But the Kerastase Hair Coach also has 3-axis load sensors to judge the amount of force you’re putting through your do, as well as microphones that enable the app to establish – according to Withings – manageability, frizziness and split ends. Astonishing, eh?

Alarming. What do I do? I don’t want this information getting out.

We can see why. But, chill. Seeing as you apparently have not thus far spent even £5 on an analogue hair regulator, it seems unlikely that you will rush out in August and buy one of these app-connected barnet brooms for £200. Should someone send you one gratis, however, be warned: it’ll be the Kerastase hair net illuminati.

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Profile image of Fraser Macdonald Fraser Macdonald consulting editor

About

Fraser used to wear a Psion Series 3 palmtop in a shoulder holster. Perhaps he still does.Either way, his lifelong mission - including fourteen years for Stuff - has been to see whether the consumer electronics industry can ever replicate that kind of cyborgian joy.So far: nope. Despite a plan to combine a action camera and Olympus Eye-Trek goggles to become Man Who Sees The Vision Of A Man Three Inches Taller Than Himself.He also likes mountain bikes, motorbikes, cars, helicopters. Still thinks virtual surround is witchcraft. Dislikes jetskis, despite never having been on one.