PNOĒ 2.0 Breath Mask Launch Brings Self-Serve VO2 Max Testing to Gyms
PNOĒ, the Malden, Massachusetts, metabolic testing startup, flipped on its newest device on October 1, letting gym members strap on a mask, press one button, and get lab-style breath analysis without a technician in the room. The PNOĒ 2.0 breath mask launch marks the first time the decade-old company has offered a fully self-administered version of its test, after years of requiring a trained operator to run the equipment.
In plain terms: a user puts on the redesigned mask, sits down, breathes normally for eight minutes, and the device calculates oxygen intake and carbon dioxide output to estimate VO2 max, resting metabolic rate, and metabolic flexibility. No staff member has to walk them through it. That single change is what separates PNOĒ’s new face mask from every prior version of the product, and it’s the reason gym chains without dedicated exercise physiologists can suddenly offer the service.
What Is PNOĒ and How Does the Breath Analysis Mask Work?
PNOĒ makes a wearable breath analysis mask that measures gas exchange, the same oxygen-in, carbon-dioxide-out method hospitals and exercise labs have used for over a century. The mask covers the nose and mouth, straps behind the head, and feeds breath data into software that estimates VO2 max, calorie burn, and how efficiently a person’s body shifts between burning fat and carbohydrates.
Co-founder and CEO Apostolos Atsalakis described the new routine directly: a customer can “just wear the mask, push the button, sit down” and breathe for eight minutes, he told TechCrunch in a Zoom call from the company’s Athens office. “That’s it. It’s that easy.” Atsalakis built the underlying sensing technology during his PhD work at the University of Cambridge, then co-founded PNOĒ with childhood friend Panos Papadiamantis, now the company’s chief product officer.
The redesign itself came out of a partnership with Milan-based Design Group Italia, which Atsalakis says went through “many, many, many iterations” because no one had built a self-service metabolic testing device before. The new mask is smaller, has fewer components, and the electronics detach from the silicone face piece, so each user gets a personal mask rather than sharing a single unit between tests.
PNOĒ 2.0 October 1 Launch: What Actually Changed
The headline change is removing the trained operator requirement that limited where the original device could sit. PNOĒ’s prior hardware needed staff supervision, which kept it mostly inside boutique studios, physical therapy clinics, and hotel wellness centers that could justify the labor cost. The self-administered version opens the door to standard commercial gyms, and Atsalakis has floated pharmacies as a future deployment site.
That shift matters because breath-based metabolic testing has stayed a niche clinical tool for decades despite being considered one of the most trusted methods for measuring VO2 max. Big, expensive lab machines kept it mostly limited to athletes and hospital patients. PNOĒ’s bet is that an eight-minute, button-press version can turn metabolic testing into a routine gym amenity, closer to a body scan than a clinical procedure.
The company is not pitching this as a diagnostic tool yet. Atsalakis has acknowledged that using the breath data for actual medical diagnosis is still years away and would need further research and regulatory clearance, a detail several outlets covering the launch left out of their write-ups.
PNOĒ Self-Serve VO2 Max Test Today: Who’s Already Using It
PNOĒ sells only to businesses, which then offer the test to their own members or guests. Clients confirmed by the company include Equinox, where the test is reportedly available at nearly every location, along with Four Seasons hotels, Red Bull, the NBA, the Mount Sinai Health System, and the medical spa chain Restore Hyper Wellness.
That client list is also the clearest answer to how a PNOĒ mask vs Equinox Red Bull gyms comparison actually plays out: these aren’t competing products, they’re the same product deployed across very different settings, from a premium gym chain to a sports drink company’s athlete testing program. The common link is a facility willing to pay a recurring fee to offer metabolic testing as a member perk rather than a profit center on its own.
If a reader wants to know which gyms offer PNOĒ metabolic breath testing locally, the honest answer right now is: ask the front desk, because PNOĒ doesn’t publish a public location finder the way Planet Fitness lists its tanning beds. Coverage of national rollout is coming from the business side, not a consumer locator tool, so expect word of mouth and gym marketing emails to be the main way members find out.
PNOĒ Metabolic Testing Mask Price: What Gyms and Members Actually Pay
Gyms and wellness businesses pay PNOĒ a subscription that reportedly runs from roughly $400 to more than $1,000 a month, covering the hardware, software platform, staff training, and marketing materials. Separate pricing documentation on PNOĒ’s consumer-facing rental program lists a flat $150 fee for a 48-hour device rental covering one resting and one exercise assessment, with $50 charged for each additional 24-hour period.
A side-by-side with a direct competitor shows why gym owners are shopping around before committing. VO2 Master, a rival metabolic analyzer maker, markets a one-time hardware purchase in the $6,895 to $7,595 range with no recurring subscription, positioning itself against PNOĒ’s monthly-fee model and a reported device transfer fee near $14,500 if a business wants full ownership. For a boutique gym running high test volume across multiple locations, that cost structure difference compounds over three to five years in a way a single launch headline won’t show you.
| Factor | PNOĒ (subscription) | VO2 Master (ownership) |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | $400-$1,000+/month | One-time ~$6,895-$7,595 |
| Report turnaround | 24-72 hours typically | Instant, in-app |
| Operator required | No, as of PNOĒ 2.0 | No, self-contained |
| Data ownership | Platform-dependent | Customer-controlled |
What that table doesn’t capture is service quality. PNOĒ bundles live support, software updates, and marketing collateral into its fee, which matters for a gym without an in-house exercise science staffer. A rowing club or university lab that just wants raw numbers without ongoing dependency may prefer owning hardware outright instead.
PNOĒ 2.0 Self-Serve Mask vs Old PNOĒ Device: Is It Actually Different?
Yes, functionally. The old device required a staff member trained on the equipment to walk a customer through setup, positioning, and calibration, which kept the service inside clinics and premium studios that could absorb that labor cost. The new mask strips that step out entirely, letting a gym member complete the full eight-minute test alone after a brief app prompt.
The hardware itself shrank too. Fewer components means fewer failure points, according to Atsalakis, and the detachable electronics-and-silicone design solves a hygiene problem the original Bane-styled mask never fully addressed when multiple users shared one face piece per session.
Is the PNOĒ VO2 Max Test Accurate Compared to a Lab Test?
Breath-based gas exchange testing, the method PNOĒ uses, is the actual gold standard clinical labs rely on, not an approximation of it. That’s different from wearables like Garmin or WHOOP, which estimate VO2 max from heart rate, pace, and movement data rather than measuring gas exchange directly.
Independent validation work backs that distinction up. A 2025 study published in Sensors found Garmin’s fēnix 6 wearable produced VO2 max estimates with a mean absolute percentage error around 7% against a criterion metabolic system, which the researchers classified as reasonably valid but still an estimate layered on assumptions about heart rate and training history. A separate systematic review of wearable validation studies found error rates across devices ranging from under 5% to nearly 16%, depending on the brand and testing conditions.
PNOĒ’s pitch leans directly on that gap. The company claims its test can recalibrate a wearable’s own algorithm to roughly double the accuracy of calorie-burn estimates compared to the wearable running on its generic population assumptions alone. That claim comes from PNOĒ itself rather than an independent lab, so treat it as a manufacturer figure, not a peer-reviewed finding, until a third party publishes a head-to-head comparison against the new self-serve mask specifically.
The honest caveat: no independent lab has yet published a validation study on the self-administered PNOĒ 2.0 specifically, as opposed to the operator-run version or PNOĒ’s technology in general. Removing a trained human from the test introduces new variables around mask seal, posture, and user compliance that a controlled lab setting typically controls for. Readers should treat early self-serve results as directionally useful rather than as clinically precise as a supervised test until that data exists.
PNOĒ Metabolic Test Biomarkers Explained for Beginners
The test captures 23 biomarkers in total, but three matter most for a typical gym member trying to adjust a training plan. VO2 max measures the ceiling of how much oxygen your body can use during hard effort, a core marker of cardiorespiratory fitness and a predictor tracked in large population studies tied to long-term mortality risk.
Resting metabolic rate tells you how many calories your body burns doing nothing, which is the number every calorie-counting app guesses at using height, weight, and age formulas instead of measuring it directly. Metabolic flexibility describes how smoothly your body switches between burning fat and burning carbohydrate for fuel, a marker increasingly discussed in longevity and metabolic health circles as a sign of overall metabolic efficiency.
Atsalakis argues these three numbers answer practical questions a standard blood panel can’t, specifically how many calories someone actually needs and what training intensity suits their current fitness level. That’s a reasonable claim for the resting metabolic rate piece, since blood tests don’t measure calorie burn directly, but it’s worth remembering a single eight-minute snapshot still can’t replace tracking trends over weeks of training the way repeated testing or a wearable’s long-term data can.
The Bigger Picture: Funding, Growth, and What’s Next
PNOĒ has raised about $22 million total, including an $11 million round that closed recently, from investors Fifty Years and Google Maps co-founder Lars Rasmussen. The company went through Y Combinator’s Winter 2019 batch, back before “longevity” became the funded industry category it is today, and now employs around 110 people.
PNOĒ says it recently turned profitable while growing more than 100% year over year, and Atsalakis has said the company plans to raise a Series B within six to twelve months. The next moves on the roadmap include expansion into Europe, Latin America, and Asia, alongside the pharmacy deployment idea Atsalakis mentioned as a longer-term possibility beyond gyms and hotels.
Whether self-serve metabolic testing becomes a standard gym amenity the way body scanners and heart rate monitors did depends on something no launch article can answer yet: whether members actually act on the data. A VO2 max number without a coach or app translating it into a training change is just a number on a screen, and PNOĒ’s real test starts now that the mask is live in gyms without anyone standing over the user’s shoulder to make sense of it.
If you belong to a gym carrying Equinox, Restore Hyper Wellness, or a similar wellness brand, ask the front desk whether PNOĒ 2.0 has rolled out at your location yet. For gym owners weighing the subscription against buying hardware outright, run the three-to-five-year cost math against your expected test volume before signing, since the monthly fee model and the one-time purchase model land very differently depending on how many members actually use it.
Frequently Asked Questions
How accurate is a VO2 max test done at a gym compared to a lab test?
Breath-based tests like PNOĒ’s use the same gas exchange method labs rely on, making them more direct than wearable estimates, which carry error rates from roughly 5% to 16% in independent validation studies. No independent lab has yet validated the new self-serve version specifically against a supervised test.
What is PNOĒ and how does the breath analysis mask work?
PNOĒ is a Malden, Massachusetts, startup that makes a wearable mask measuring oxygen consumption and carbon dioxide output during an eight-minute breathing test. Software converts that gas exchange data into VO2 max, resting metabolic rate, and metabolic flexibility scores.
How much does the PNOĒ metabolic test cost for gyms?
Businesses pay PNOĒ a subscription reportedly ranging from about $400 to over $1,000 per month, covering hardware, software, training, and marketing materials. A separate consumer rental option costs $150 for 48 hours plus $50 per additional day.
What biomarkers does the PNOĒ 2.0 mask measure?
The device captures 23 biomarkers total, with VO2 max, resting metabolic rate, and metabolic flexibility as the headline metrics most gym members will see. These numbers inform calorie needs and training zone recommendations in the companion app.
Which gyms and brands currently use PNOĒ, like Equinox or Red Bull?
Confirmed PNOĒ clients include Equinox, which offers the test at nearly all its clubs, along with Four Seasons hotels, Red Bull, the NBA, Mount Sinai Health System, and Restore Hyper Wellness. PNOĒ sells only to businesses, not directly to individual consumers.
Is the new PNOĒ mask self-administered without a trained operator?
Yes, that’s the core change in the PNOĒ 2.0 launch. Users strap on the mask, press a button, sit down, and complete the eight-minute test alone, where the previous version required a trained staff member to run it.
How long does the PNOĒ breath test take?
The self-serve PNOĒ 2.0 test takes about eight minutes to complete. The company’s earlier consumer rental program lists a longer 20-minute full assessment combining separate resting and active metabolic rate tests.
What is the difference between VO2 max and resting metabolic rate testing?
VO2 max measures the maximum amount of oxygen your body can use during intense exercise, reflecting cardiorespiratory fitness. Resting metabolic rate measures how many calories your body burns while completely at rest, which is a separate calculation from exercise capacity.
