Mine doesn’t just blink; it keeps doing this annoying fast vibrate/noise whenever I stop brushing. So I was reading the article really hoping for an easy jailbreak at the end.
From the sounds of it, three wrong password attempts (from a phone or similar) could accomplish this? That should stop the toothbrush from being able to add extra time to the head
I have it as well and at this point used the same head for 5 months. There's no visible deterioration and I exceed the recommended brushing time by doing 5 instead of 3 minutes.
Why exactly is the head only good for 3 months?
Brushing your teeth for too long can have bad effects on your dental health[1][2]. The heads loose their strength over time and if you replace that with pushing harder, you might also overbrush.
You probably don't brush correctly: you need to apply sufficient pressure on your teeth so the bristles can scrub the enamel well enough. Or else there is no way your head has no visible deterioration after 5 months at 5 min per brushing.
It's not only a matter of aesthetics but bacteria etc. Your brush head collects a sh*tload of food waste (which you don't see with your eyes) and remains a bit wet after usage. Perfect substrate for some living organisms. If you have a microscope, feel free to have a closer look.
There's a $35 edition of that toothbrush today, I got a similar one at $25 (iirc) on some Black Friday. $10 heads are an issue when $5 toothbrushes exist.
The difference between using a tongue brush and an electric toothbrush (vs just manual brushing with and without a tongue brush) was so stark that I've never for a moment felt like £40 for a toothbrush with an annual cost of £11.20 for toothbrush heads has ever not been worth it.