From massage guns and red light therapy panels to LED face masks and lymphatic drainage devices, consumers today can choose from hundreds of wellness gadgets promising to address every bodily concern, at every budget.
The overlap between beauty and wellness is growing by the day via at-home devices that promise medical-grade results. Gen Zs and millennials are most likely to spend on several at-home devices promising to optimize their musculoskeletal health, facial appearance, sleep, and recovery. You only need to log in to TikTok to get an idea of consumer demand — videos tagged with #RedLightTherapy have collectively amassed nearly 100 million views.
The global wellness economy is projected to keep growing rapidly to $9.8 trillion by 2029, up from $6.8 trillion in 2024, according to the Global Wellness Institute. Within that, the global LED face mask market is forecast to more than double from $304 million in 2026 to $679 million by 2034, according to Fortune Business Insights, while the sleep tech devices market is expected to more than triple from $30 billion in 2025 to $96.7 billion by 2032, according to Research and Markets.
That said, the number of upstarts vying for a piece of the pie is growing. Alongside established names like Therabody, Bon Charge and Eight Sleep that started selling devices some 10 years ago, cheaper lookalikes promising similar results are proliferating across Instagram and TikTok, making it increasingly difficult for emerging brands to cut through. As with many maturing technologies, experts say wellness devices have become cheaper and easier to produce, lowering the barriers to entry. Plus, convincing consumers to buy a wellness device is only half the battle — the bigger challenge is ensuring it doesn’t become another idle device, gathering dust in a drawer once the initial novelty wears off.
For brands that get it right, however, the opportunity extends far beyond the initial sale. Eight Sleep has built a recurring membership model around its smart sleep systems, while Therabody has expanded from massage guns into a broader ecosystem of recovery, beauty and wellness devices, creating opportunities to upsell existing customers and drive repeat purchases. The opportunity lies not just in creating a bestselling gadget, but in securing a lasting place in consumers’ daily routines — and building a recurring revenue stream to match.
In a market where new devices launch almost every week, what does it take to create one consumers will buy, use and keep coming back to?
