WIN Bracket
This lingual bracket was developed by Dirk Wiechmann, the inventor of the lingual Incognito brackets, and has been marketed since 2013. At first glance, it looks similar to the Incognito bracket, as it is manufactured individually for each tooth and is just as flat. However, there are actually a number of important differences: WIN is made of a steel alloy and is therefore about a third cheaper than Incognito. The bracket body is not cast, but sintered from a metal powder using laser beams. The bracket slot is then re-milled with the highest precision. The brackets are welded to the prefabricated bracket bases. Otherwise, WIN is supplied with a set of five computer-controlled pre-bent treatment wires, which greatly simplifies the treatment as with Incognito.
Comfort and adhesion
Since the WIN bracket is manufactured completely individually according to the tooth shape, same as Incognito and now also an Incognito imitation product from China, it is extremely flat and considerably more comfortable than ready-made lingual brackets. Due to the large adhesive base, WIN also has an extremely good adhesive strength to the teeth and a low breakage rate. It is likely that in the long term only individualized lingual brackets will be used because, in addition to their comfort advantages for the patient, they are more precise and easier to use than ready-made lingual brackets.
Experience from the practice
Field reports from Dr. Wiechmann’s practice and also our own experience in our practices have shown that WIN offers even better control than Incognito and is even easier to handle for the orthodontist. After several years on the market, there are already articles in the specialist literature which show that the bracket slot of WIN is extremely accurate. The obvious advantage of WIN is the better angulation control due to the widening of the slot base (the bracket slot is the part of the bracket into which the orthodontic wire is inserted). This probably eliminates the need for so-called double-overties (somewhat complicated elastic ligatures). It seems that the WIN bracket has gained a very high market share, at least in the German market, and has possibly already become the new market leader.