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CEO Corner: Kineon’s Forrest Smith on Democratizing Red Light Therapy
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CEO Corner: Kineon’s Forrest Smith on Democratizing Red Light Therapy

Kineon CEO Forrest Smith
Kineon’s at-home device uses lasers to provide targeted red light therapy directly to the skin for chronic pain relief and increased blood flow

Red light therapy is highly popular these days, but most people are using the modality all wrong – or at least sub-optimally.

That’s the hypothesis of Forrest Smith, the co-founder and CEO of Kineon, a brand that’s on a mission to bring the benefits of properly dosed red light therapy to the masses. Founded in 2019 and initially launched in 2021 on crowdfunding platform Indiegogo, Kineon has established itself as one of the more intriguing young brands in the burgeoning wellness tech space

The brand’s Move+ Pro device uses LED and lasers to provide targeted red light therapy directly to the skin. This makes Kineon’s version of red light therapy superior to your typical red light bed, Smith says, since it provides a more optimal and consistent dosage of red light. 

According to the brand, Kineon’s portable, at-home device (currently on sale for $399) has been shown to reduce chronic joint pain, lower inflammation and increase blood flow. (editor’s note: there’s some promising research around the benefits of red light therapy, although some experts have stated that more research is needed to confirm the modality’s effectiveness). 

Athletech News sat down with Smith to discuss the birth of Kineon, the benefits of red light therapy and how the brand is working to build trust among skeptical consumers. 

The following conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

Athletech News: Can you tell us about your background and why you decided to create Kineon?

Forrest Smith: I moved to China when I was about 19 and started my first business there when I was 20. For almost 20 years, my background was in building, manufacturing, supply chain and hardware, and running factories that built cool technology in China.

I met my partner (Kineon co-founder Tom Sanderson), who also lived in China. We were both talking about building a mission-driven company – for us, that means increasing quality of life for the largest number of people we can in the most measurable way we can. That’s our North Star at Kineon, from technology selection to our go-to-market strategy to how we interact with our users. 

ATN: Out of all the products you could have created to change people’s lives, why did you choose red light therapy? 

FS: We wanted to find a technology that was well supported by robust medical literature. In clinical trials that were using red light and laser therapy, we saw that it was making an impact. When used with proper dosing, they could actually replace pharmaceuticals and even outdo pharmaceuticals on (reducing) pain and inflammation, with no side effects, or at least no negative side effects. But these were being done with $50,000 to $100,000 clinical-level devices. 

So we said, “All right, let’s go build something that’s sub-$500 instead of $50,000 and let’s get this into people’s homes to give them a real opportunity.” If we can replace pharmaceuticals like NSAIDs and opiates for people with chronic pain, that’s a huge impact on their quality of life.

Kineon red light therapy device on the floor in a gym
credit: Kineon

ATN: What are some of the health benefits of properly dosed red light therapy?

FS: There are local, regional and systemic benefits. Locally, short-term benefits include a reduction in inflammation and pain. There’s also a soft-tissue remodeling that happens based on laser therapy, although that occurs on a monthly scale, so it requires you to continue using the device even once you’re out of pain. We’re seeing this outperform Advil and other NSAIDs. If you’re taking Advil for your aching knees, this is going to outperform that in the first couple of weeks, and it also puts you on a path to heal your tissue longer term.

On a regional scale, we see increased blood flow. There are a number of systemic benefits as well. Where inflammation is treating your body poorly, you can start to impact that by way of different blood treatments with lasers. One of the more interesting outcomes we’ve seen recently is treating around your neck with what’s called proximal priority therapy (PPT), which has improved a number of different things, including long COVID, When systemic inflammation is reduced, and scarring in the lungs is reduced as well. 

ATN: Red light beds have become popular in gyms and wellness centers around the world. What are the benefits of using Kineon, which applies red light directly to the skin, compared to red light beds? 

FS: Beds are typically LED, and they emit in a broader pattern. We think of panels and beds as a first version that introduces this technology to the market. But the dosing is superficial so you’re not going to penetrate through to the internal tissue. And it’s very difficult to dose (properly and accurately). The analogy we give is that beds are like receiving a bottle of pharmaceuticals, and instead of taking this prescribed amount, you just shake it in front of your face and whatever falls in your mouth is the dose you’re going to take today. That might help you, but it might not.

We don’t like to beat on other people’s products; it’s great that they got these to market. But I think the medical literature has shown that you want to have the dosing as dialed in as possible to have consistent and reliable positive outcomes. Over the next 18 months, we’re going to be developing sensors that can sense the responses from every individual’s body and then modulate the dosing based on that so it’s more personalized.

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woman wears a Kineon red light therapy device on her shoulder
credit: Kineon

ATN: What types of consumers are buying Kineon products? 

FS: We have three main user groups. One is young people who are performance and recovery-focused, including professional athletes and aspiring professional athletes. They get after it hard and they use our device to stay healthy. The second group is middle-aged guys like me with a bunch of gray hairs, but who’d like to continue doing some kind of training. I’m still playing rugby, I’m still doing CrossFit, and I’d like to do that as long as I can. We’ve had a lot of success reaching both of those groups from a digital marketing standpoint on the direct-to-consumer side.

However, we’ve found that the people who get the best results from a medical standpoint are people 55 and over who have chronic joint pain and other chronic pain issues. But whenever we marketed them, they’d say, “Oh, this is snake oil.”

So about a year ago, we started testing with medical professionals, and now our fastest-growing segment of the business is working with chiropractors, orthopedic surgeons, PTs, physios, and wellness and longevity clinics. We have around 150 up and running now and we’ve been adopted by some nationwide chains. By the end of this year, we’ll be in around 5,000 different clinics, so professionals can provide their patients with a non-pharmaceutical solution to pain.

woman wears a Kineon red light therapy device on her knee
credit: Kineon

ATN: Speaking of the term “snake oil,” there are a lot of dubious wellness and recovery products on the market today. How does Kineon work to build consumer trust?

FS: We live in the medical literature and the science. We have collaborations with major labs that are doing research in this space. Our CTO is a PhD and our head of research is a PhD candidate. We also try to set expectations as reasonably and realistically as possible. For example, sciatica often triggers a lot of inflammation and discomfort. We can help with the inflammation and we can help with the soft tissue around it. What we’re not going to be able to do with this device is fix the mechanical underpinning for that. We try to be upfront and transparent with people as to what they can expect from us. 

ATN: Kineon recently released the Move+Pro, and you mentioned a sensor-integrated version of the product that’s coming soon. What’s y0ur vision for the future of the brand?

FS: It’s really to identify which technology we can build to move the needle for people in a measurable way for their quality of life. We see that as providing the world’s best tools, reducing friction points and reducing cost over time. 

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