Home medical equipment is about to get a big design upgrade

Launching today, Boom Home Medical is hoping to change that. The company, founded by Dr. Valerie Ulene and Byrdie Lifson Pompan, wants to reinvent the often intimidating, inconvenient, and unattractive home medical equipment industry—starting with a $39.95 bedside urinal that looks like an elegant vase.

Called Loona, the urinal comes with an ergonomically shaped, soft silicone mouth that fits against the female anatomy and softens the sound of urine hitting the plastic. The negative space in the middle makes it easy to grip, and the pastel colors it’s available in make it more desirable than most of its drab plastic competitors. A male version, called Johnny, is launching later in the spring, in a slightly bigger size and with a screw-top lid.

It all started a year and a half ago. Ulene, a preventive medicine physician, noticed that many patients—some struggling with aging, some going through chemotherapy or major surgeries—were subjected to using bedside urinals, bed pans, shower chairs, and walkers that were “ugly, undignified, difficult to use—not things you wanted in your home.”

The truth is that home medical products have barely changed over the past 100 years. Surgeons now use robotic arms to cut away cancerous tissue or divert blood around a clogged artery, but most of our elders still use canes they hide in a corner because they’re embarrassed. (Recent innovations, like a commode disguised as a chair or a snazzy smart cane with a flashlight and cellular data for emergency phone calls, exist, but they remains few and far between.) “These are individuals who have experienced innovation in every consumer product category from Peloton bikes to electric cars to iPhones,” says Lifson Pompan. “They’re not going to want the same durable medical products their grandparents use.”

Boom Home Medical is both way too late late and right on time. North America’s durable medical equipment market was valued at 68.5 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach about $115 billion by 2030. This extends to hospitals and nursing homes, but it plays a particularly large role at home, with home healthcare expected to witness the highest growth rate over the next 7 years (or almost 7%).

A bedside urinal may not be the most glamorous object to launch a company with, but it’s a necessary one. About 50 million Americans wake up because nature calls in the middle of the night. A staggering 25 million adults, meanwhile, suffer from urinary incontinence, and 75 to 80% of those are women. Loona was designed for those people, but it is equally likely to be a hit with hikers, campers, and Coachella fans.

That the product works for a larger demographic is telling of Boom Home Medical’s approach. Indeed, Loona, and the array of products that the company has in the pipeline, are designed to work as medical equipment, but they aren’t meant to look like it. “The premise of this product is to be as open as possible and as approachable as possible, so at moment’s notice, it’s there for you,” says Scot Herbst, the creative director and a partner at Herbst, the design studio behind the Brita water filter, the Molekule air purifier—and now the Loona.

For Loona to be approachable, it had to be beautiful. And for it to be beautiful, it had to evoke an emotion. That’s why Herbst landed on the flower vase as inspiration. “It’s like having a flower vase by your bed,” says Herbst. “Something you feel proud of.” (The company’s motto, “Go Proudly,” is inscribed at the bottom of the Loona.)

Needless to say, the urinal had to be functional, as well. The vase is a lovely metaphor, but for Herbst, the project started with a purely functional challenge: Loona had to be big enough to hold 25 to 30 ounces of fluid, it had to be comfortable when pressed against someone’s genitals, and it had to be quiet, so you don’t wake up your partner with the sound of pee on plastic, like pretty much every bedside urinal on the market today.

The final design meets each of these criteria. Loona is compact and feels ultra-light. The middle hole provides a natural place to hold without burdening the user with a prescribed handle that may be hard to find in the dark. And the tapered silicone mouth softens the sound of urine so it doesn’t fall straight to the bottom of the vessel.

When I tested the product at home, I felt a little reticent at first. What if I can’t align it properly? What if it leaks? The block was entirely psychological. The experience wasn’t exactly silent, but it was muffled. The only obvious obstacle is the need for toilet paper—but anyone using Loona away from a bathroom can plan to keep a trashcan by their bedside.  

The team is working on a slightly smaller to-go version of Loona designed for younger people who might want to take it with them on camping trips and to music festivals. “You can slide it into your backpack,” says Herbst. It will come with a water-tight cap with a rubber seal to ensure it can’t leak even when you toss it on the backseat of your car.