There are two different iO brush heads available on the market at present, the Ultimate Clean head and the Gentle Care head. The coloured rings have been dropped with the iO Series, but instead, each head has 1 of 12 different icons printed on it, so you can identify which one you own. Over the many months I have used this style of head, I have not found the bristles to fray or split and have been very pleased with the performance with no desire to change to another brush head, other than perhaps the sensitive brush head. This is what Oral-B refers to as its “most advanced” brush head, with angled bristles that have been designed to reach deep between teeth to offer much better cleaning than a regular manual toothbrush. The colour of the bristles start off fuller and darker, but as time passes they become lighter and appear more worn.

The Oral-B AI-powered toothbrush, known as the iO, is the only model in Oral-B’s line-up that has a distinctively different design from the other toothbrush heads on the market. The older style 3D White brush head has a yellow polishing cup, green and light blue outer bristles. These ‘Tuft-in-Tuft’ structures are found on the outer edge of the brush head, there are 6 in total. Okay, Oral B brushes and replacement heads are of great quality but they are, undeniably, expensive.I explain all the different heads in detail below to make it easy for you to understand which one to opt for. It does not feel quite as invigorating as the CrossAction head, but effective and certainly my teeth feel clean after use. If you want to know more about each brush head or the other choices you have, this guide tells you all you need to know. Wipe the brush head and handle dry with a towel or cloth before putting the brush head back on the handle and storing the toothbrush for the next use. Oral-B have implemented a simple, yet effective method to ensure you know you are using the correct brush head.

Designed for those who perhaps drink a lot of coffee or red wine, this brush head has been designed to lift stains from the teeth for a whiter appearance. The effectiveness of the brush head is good, but for me I prefer the other round head styles and this is what Oral-B tend to recommend.

TriZone is more like a traditional manual brush compared to the more advanced and arguably better oscillating rotating brush head. Learning about different types of brush heads will help with this but instead of hunting around online yourself, we thought we’d summarise it for you. Similarly I want to use it for cleaning gumlines and awkward sides of teeth but worried I will stray onto gums. Having spent many years using the small round brush heads, the TriZone is much larger and bulkier in the mouth and is much more reminiscent to a regular manual toothbrush. It is an everyday brushing solution, that is round in shape, just like a regular Oral-B brush head, but it is marginally smaller to suit the smaller mouths of the younger generation.

It is not clear precisely what the bristles have on them but they are designed to resist bacteria build-up, inhibiting the growth of bacteria. It features special “MicroPulse” bristles that provide an interdental floss-like clean to get between teeth and loosen plaque.I was referring the brush heads on the Black Edition having this ‘Clean Maximiser Technology’, but as you stated it seems there is no real difference.

Arguably just as, if not more important than the actual brush head is the way in which you clean your teeth. How effective this brush head is at whitening your teeth is dependent upon your teeth and the level of staining.

For any Saturday of the year it would be impressive, but on the Saturday between Christmas and New Year it’s amazing. There may well be some exceptions due to certain models being particularly old, but you can be pretty much assured that if you purchase the brush heads shown in this article they will work with your Oral-B brush. To summarise, the Ultimate Clean and Gentle Care heads are essentially the iO equivalents to the CrossAction and Sensitive Clean that are our recommended choices.