Sameer Puri With all the hoopla and hyple about the Omnicam, there are two types of emotions that I see floating around from CEREC users. The first is mass euphoria- A color scanner, powder free, streaming capture, color models, - the Omnicam is just awesome. Not as vocal but still present are the emotions of "OMG- I just bought my Bluecam and now I need to upgrade- WTF??"
The first series of emotions we have already addressed. The Omnicam from Sirona is a major step forward and there is no doubt that anyone using the Omnicam or considering getting into CAD CAM has partnered with the right company in Sirona because they have obviously shown that they are not afraid to innovate and more importantly, they dont follow the trends, they set the trends. No one has been able to combine streaming capture, full color and powder free. The combination gives you virtual models like what you see below. The models from my good friend Dr. Tarun Agarwal shows the power of the Omnicam and how well it works.
Having praised the Omnicam to no end, lets get back to reality. I know there are some nervous folks out there that have had the Bluecam for anywhere from 3 months to 3 years who are thinking- wow- I have to pay more to upgrade? Let me be perfectly clear- just as I wish my new car, my new house, my new everything everything cost less, I wish the cost to upgrade to the Omnicam was less. But here is the thing- with the demand and popularity and the hype of the Omnicam, Sirona and Patterson cant make enough units to satisfy the demand. So they would be foolish businesses if they priced the Omincam any cheaper. As a consumer, that means that I have some decisions to make.
I can either say - hey, the upgrade is worth it to me, The ROI, the bells and whistles, the sheer enjoyment is there and I dont mind paying the extra money. Or as a consumer, I can say that I quite haven't gotten my moneys worth and instead of spending another 20-40 k on the Omnicam, I'm going to wait. If you decide to wait and not upgrade, guess what- you will still have the second best imaging system in the Bluecam. In fact, some would argue that the Bluecam still is the industry standard because the Omnicam hasn't been proven in clinical tests and the real world whereas the Bluecam has performed flawlessly for years.
Its not as if the Omnicam was released and Sirona released a virus to make your Bluecams incapable of functioning. The Bluecam has been used for millions of restorations by tens of thousands of dentists and it will continue to serve the dental population well. The difference is only in the imaging with the Bluecam- everything else is essentially the same. Same software, same features, same capabilities.
While the Bluecam requires a bit of powder, the Omnicam does not.
While the Bluecam takes individual images to stitch a model, the Omnicam uses streaming capture to create models.
While the Bluecam models are monochromatic, the Omnicam has full color models.
But that's it- those are the only differences. We can create beautiful restorations with the Bluecam - both anterior and posterior. We can use the Bluecam to work with CEREC Connect. We can use the Bluecam to create veneers, crowns, bridges, implant abutments. We can use the Bluecam to fabricate guided stents and implant restorations.
The Bluecam is in a word- still awesome. I wrote in an earlier blog- we have no intention of getting rid of the Bluecams at the Scottsdale Center for our CEREC Doctors hands on courses. Simply because there will be a significant number of users who will still use the Bluecams in their offices and they will require support and training. In our website- we will not stop making bluecam videos. Anytime a software update is released, we will have both Bluecam and Omnicam videos.
Our desire as techie dentists is to always stay on the cutting edge. This is why most of us invested in the CEREC technology in the first place. We wanted the latest and greatest to treat our patients. Atleast with Sirona however, I think we have reached a point where there is no urgency to upgrade. When we went from CEREC 1 to 2 to 3 to 3D, from Redcam to Bluecam, one could argue that upgrading was almost mandatory. The benefits of the new system were vastly superior and worth the extra money and investement. Today with the Omnicam, while you have easier imaging- I don't know that I can recommend for every single user out there to upgrade, simply because the Bluecam is still quite an excellent piece of technology.
With the Bluecam, you can do exceptional dentistry. And its better than any other system by any other company by a long shot. Here are a few examples that I pulled from the discussion forum of cases that were posted by some of our Mentors and Members. All of this work is done with the Bluecam and in my opinion its quite exceptional.
So the moral of the story is upgrade to the Omnicam - if and only if it makes sense financially to you. If the math doesnt work- continue to use the Bluecam and consider an upgrade in the future. Once the hype and hoopla dies down, there will no doubt be future opportunities for trade in to the latest and greatest. As dentists, we need to keep one eye on our patients and one eye on the bottom line. No matter how excited you get about the latest technology, the eye on the bottom line is the most critical.
