Withings and L’Oreal made a smart hairbrush that rates your hair

Because everything will be connected to the internet in 2017, Withings and L’Oreal created a smart brush that talks to your smartphone and critiques your hair.

We’ve spent lots of time with Withings’ devices, including this very useful smart scale and this less useful fitness tracker, but hair health is a new direction for the Nokia-owned company.

The smart hairbrush, a real product, will have motion sensors that monitor brushing patterns, conductivity sensors that can identify wet and dry hair, and a microphone that detects “manageability, frizziness, dryness, split ends, and breakage.” These sensors send data to the Hair Coach app, which scores your hair quality, tells you whether your brushing technique needs work, and also tries selling you Kérastase products. It sounds kind of like those toothbrushes that stop working when you brush too hard.

We have no idea how useful a smart hairbrush can be — the product isn’t out yet — but we know it costs “under $200” and will launch sometime in “mid-2017.”

The Internet of Things industry hinges on a strategy of trial and error (pack sensors into stuff, see what sticks), and this product, the Kérastase Hair Coach, is living proof.