An Immortality Machine? We’ll Be the Judge of That.

In June, at a reassuringly posh med spa called Suma Life House in Greenwich, Connecticut, I found myself thumbing through what’s called a “Journey Guide,” deciding whether I wanted to relax, release, recover or reconnect. While I weighed my options, one boasting the sonic accompaniment of “melancholic cello” and another the gentle vibrations of an ancient didgeridoo, the woman sitting to my right answered emails on her laptop while undergoing IV therapy. I asked her if she’d ever experienced the cellular wonders of NAD+ (Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide) infusions or come here to be injected with PDRN, a treatment involving salmon DNA that’s said to stimulate the production of collagen. Not yet, she told me. But like so many people looking to thwart the indignities of old age, she was willing to try anything.

I myself was waiting to be scorched back to health by the Ammortal Chamber, a $159,500 griddle that combines various noninvasive technologies — meditation, molecular hydrogen, vibroacoustics, electromagnetics, and both red light and near-infrared therapy — to hasten recovery, relieve inflammation and ameliorate stress, among other benefits.

This, I’d heard, was the restorative carapace in which Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford reclined during training camp before proceeding, at the manifestly advanced football age of 38, to win league MVP; the one endorsed by baseball superstars Mike Trout and the Dodgers’ Freddie Freeman; the device touted by the biohacking evangelist Dave Asprey, whose experiments in the arenas of longevity and self-optimization include, but are not limited to, brain-wave training, stem-cell overhauls and keeping an ejaculation journal. There was, then, reason to believe that after a week of heavy drinking and dysregulated nerves — Games 3 and 4 of the NBA Finals had taken place on the Monday and Wednesday prior to my visit — I too might benefit from the Ammortal Chamber, whose creator Brian Le Gette makes sure not to overstate the device’s curative abilities. “Like all the tech that’s out there, we don’t heal anything,” he told me. “We’re not a medical device. We are a wellness product, so I never use the words healing or curing or pain relief.” The idea, he added, is to “support you in your own healing process,” down-regulating the nervous system to what’s called a “parasympathetic state.”

Released in 2023, the chamber arrived at a moment when the idea of using advanced technologies and cutting-edge science to fine-tune our bodies was gaining favor. And though the avatars of this movement trend monomaniacal and fabulously wealthy — think Bryan Johnson, the fintech czar who injected the blood of his teenage son, or Peter Diamandis, who sees mortality simply as a problem to be solved with AI — their prominence reflects a broader, society-wide interest in the idea that, with sufficient investment and monk-like commitment, we can lead longer, healthier lives. Indeed, the global biohacking market is expected to reach a valuation of $118 billion over the next seven years; meanwhile, the market for “smart wearables,” from glucose monitors and ultrasound patches to Oura rings and sleep trackers, currently stands at an impressive $91.1 billion. And it’s not only the retired and pre-sclerotic who are looking to hack their bodies; even millennials and Zoomers have embraced “prejuvenation,” the umbrella term for a suite of preventative measures ranging from microneedling to skin-tightening treatments.

What differentiates Ammortal from the glut of wellness and optimization products on the market, according to its charismatic and observably in-shape founder, is the promise of a more all-encompassing experience of physical and mental restoration. When he first conceived of a single machine that could “stack” a variety of reputable therapies, Le Gette was enjoying steak and Malbec in Buenos Aires with a fellow entrepreneur who was using Pulsed Electromagnetic Field and red-light therapies on the damaged joints of MMA fighters. “He was getting guys that were told by the allopathic medical establishment that they were not going to practice for 10 to 12 months,” Le Gette remembers, “and he had them fighting, and winning, in the ring in six weeks.” Le Gette, who’d founded a Baltimore-based urban farming company and the brand ZeroChroma, which makes iPhone cases with built-in kickstands, wondered if that same logic might be applicable to the entire body. So he began drawing sketches of the chamber, beginning with a reclining bed inspired by the zero-gravity posture of astronauts being launched into space.

It was in this position that I found myself when “Emily,” the Ammortal’s unseen and soft-spoken audio guide, initiated my journey. A canopy of bulbs dismounted from the pod’s ceiling, blasting my naked body with near-red and infrared light while molecular hydrogen was delivered into my nostrils through a nasal cannula. For the ensuing 25 minutes, I was lulled into something of a trance, so much so that when the canopy lifted and Emily announced that I’d completed my journey, I reached for my notepad and could remember little of the experience besides the ambient and sedative whooshing of vibro-acoustics. I had, for what I believed was the first time in my life, successfully meditated. Given the opportunity to use the chamber on a more regular basis, I might also see reduced inflammation, cellular repair and, according to Ammortal’s website, a sensation of “caffeinated calm.”

A few days later, Le Gette recounted the testimonies of patrons who’d had considerably more transcendent experiences: a prominent NHL enforcer who used the chamber and felt like they were “flying through the cosmos,” someone else who found themselves in conversation with their deceased mother. “Some people come out weeping,” Le Gette added, “saying things like, ‘I finally realized that I am worth it.’ ”

Others, however, might wonder whether the machine itself is worth it. At more than 40 med spas and high-end wellness centers across the U.S., a 25- or 50-minute session will run you between $115 and $165. Having the chamber installed in your home, like San Francisco 49ers tight end George Kittle did, is a much steeper investment, fetching close to $170,000 after delivery and on-site assembly. Le Gette, though, has designs to eventually make the product accessible to those who don’t frequent luxury med spas, brand-name hotels or the athletic facilities of professional sports teams.

“There’s a bit of a Tesla-type strategy to this, where you’re launching in the high end and then dropping price points down,” he told me. “Because from an individual standpoint, if you’re 4 or 94 or 104, you need the same things. Whether you’re a professional athlete or a stay-at-home dad or a CEO mom or a 14-year-old with anxiety issues, it doesn’t matter. We all need a down-regulated nervous system. We all need optimized biology.”