Eighty million people in the U.S. struggle with bad breath — many of them don’t even know that they do, but the people around them are likely all too aware.
Last year at CES, Breathometer teased a connected device called Mint that measures a user’s breath and gives them some tips on how to improve their oral health. At IFA this year, Philips announced that it’s partnering with Breathometer to deliver the startup’s breath analysis system, called Mint, alongside the company’s Sonicare oral health brand in a bundled product suite.
Sonicare Breath care bundle
This partnership means a lot for Breathometer, opening the company’s breath analysis tech to millions of Sonicare customers who are mindful of oral care.
After pulling off a successful Indiegogo campaign, the company publicly emerged on the ABC reality show Shark Tank with founder Charles Michael Yim pitching a compact, smartphone-connected breathalyzer that could let people know when grabbing an Uber was a better call than grabbing their car keys after a few drinks.
As the company evolved, Breathometer saw that the opportunity offered by health and wellness breath analysis far-and-away eclipsed the potential in structuring the company solely around testing for boozy breath. So they pivoted.
Other biomarkers like blood and urine analysis can deliver highly accurate results, but they aren’t the most consumer-friendly when it comes to severe invasiveness. Breath analysis can offer health insights regarding lung health, asthma, metabolic rates, diabetes and others.
“What leaves breath analysis as an open arena — a huge untapped market opportunity — is that its science has been proven, unlike Theranos,” Yim told me. “However, it’s never been properly brought to a consumer market in a user-friendly form factor, connected device experience and so that’s really the opportunity that Breathometer offers.”
The partnership with Philips is huge for Breathometer, given the potential to expand their breath analysis connected device into different areas of health and wellness moving forward. Yim detailed that his company will continue working with Philips on new product areas, but will also be looking at other long-term device partnerships.
For its part, Breathometer opened pre-orders for the $100 Mint in a standalone capacity on its own site last month and will start shipping September 30.