Cryotherapy Tech Turns to Biometric Failsafe

The declining tanning industry is heating up after making the decision to run cold. An increasing number of salons are now offering Whole Body Cryotherapy, which has already boosted revenue by as much as 40 percent.

Cryotherapy is often pitched as a self-care and treatment option for athletes, bodybuilders, and other people in physically demanding trades. It has proven to be a particularly popular feature for new customers who would otherwise never seek out a tanning salon.

“About 1 in 5 new clients arrive for cryotherapy first and add other services while they are here. It is attracting new people who become regulars,” said Kristina Gardner, the Owner of Bottoms Up Tanning. Gardner started offering cryotherapy at her salon earlier this year.

Cryotherapy exposes guests to sub-zero temperatures for short periods of time, leading some manufacturers to turn to fingerprint recognition as a safety feature. For instance, the XR Cryosauna from Cryo Innovations has dual fingerprint sensors and cannot be activated without authorization from both an approved operator and a user.

Of course, any salon that deploys the XR Cryosauna would need to be aware of the privacy laws in their jurisdiction. The first settlement under the Biometric Information Privacy Act in Illinois involved a tanning salon that did not receive adequate consent before using fingerprint recognition to authenticate its members.

Cryo Innovations has tried to place its cryopods in medical facilities in an effort to capture a segment of the expanding biometric healthcare market.

(Originally posted on FindBiometrics)