I've always been fascinated by young Willy Wonka's headgear from the 2005 movie. I would love to know how it works, what it attaches to, what the purpose of its parts are, etc. The bigger and more complex the better, as far as I'm concerned.

Well I would go all out for this one. Fully banded braces with herbst appliance. Along with my fantasy appliance of upper and lower headgear. The headgear would be thick and heavy. Wired in and padlocked at the back. The headgear would be attached to a head and neck apparatus. On the sides where the face bow connects, would be two timers that would be self tightening every 12 hours. No way to be removed slowly getting tighter and more painful.

I actually really like the idea of a self-tightening mechanism that the patient (victim?) has no control over. They'd just spend their days dreading the next tightening, since, unless they set up a separate timer to have an idea of when it would happen, it would be kind of unexpected every time. Bonus points if it happened overnight, like at 3am or something like that.

I like the App idea as well! Especially if someone else had it. Would be great if they could also choose, two or three tightenings at once. But would then give you more time in between your next tightening. 12 hour intervals normally. But if they decided to do three adjustments at once, you would have 36 hours until your next. It would be far more painful. But you'd get a longer break before the timer went off again

It's only a few paragraphs, but here's a little imagined scene of some sort of computer-controlled headgear wear:

He lay in bed, waiting for his alarm to go off. But not any alarm. Not a normal person's alarm, to wake them up for the start of the day. He was waiting for his braces alarm. The alarm that would signal the 15 minutes he was allowed each day without his headgear. But what time would it go off? Surely he should know? But that wasn't his choice either. When it would go off was the choice of 'the system'.

Starting college in braces was bad enough. Starting college and having to strap yourself into headgear each night was worse. But having headgear that was controlled electronically from far far away was even worse still. A mere 15 minutes a day was all he was allowed. The rest of the time, 'the system' kept it well and truly fixed to his molars. Even in case of emergency, he would have no choice but to ring an automated number and enter a lengthy code. At his appointment, he had to log his "unavailable" times, which would then be stored, and were unchangeable for a whole month. Even by the orthodontist. He followed the examples on the sheet and entered the times he was in class, when he ate, etc. But what he didn't enter was the times he went to sleep, because they weren't on the list. Yesterday he'd been woken at 3am. One day last week it had been 1.45am, and another at 5.15am. To keep the patient "on their toes", it allowed a random 15 minutes each day. 15 minutes to shower without the combination headcap straps in the way, brush his teeth without the headgear in the way, and slip it back in. There were no benefits to being quick. The downside to being slow was a constant alarm on his phone until it was relocked, and a nasty shock in his mouth. 'Overtime' was fed back to the orthodontist. One day it had unlocked whilst he was out at 3pm. Unable to do anything, he just had to let that day's release go. He would definitely be more careful logging his time next check-up. But he had another three weeks to handle this first. Another day he had to donate his 15 minutes of freedom to a buzzcut.

His roommate had taken to sleeping with earplugs in so as not to be woken up by the alarm. It was a good job, too. As the clock ticked around to 6.15, he suddenly heard the three long beeps, and the words "You may remove your headgear for 15 minutes. You will be warned at five minutes and one minute to go. Your headgear is unlocked... NOW." He jumped out of bed as though his life depended on it...

It's only a few paragraphs, but here's a little imagined scene of some sort of computer-controlled headgear wear:

That seems like a start to a story I'd be interested in reading. It's certainly a concept that hasn't been explored very much (if at all) before.

I've posted a very old story, that I didn't write, called "The Automatic Headgear" in the story's section. It seems to fit this discussion perfectly.

The idea to have a remotely controlled appliance kind of triggers me ^^ Also a nice idea for a story, as was already started here.