The line for cold plunges used to be the strangest thing at a wellness expo. Not anymore. At the Biohackers World Conference in New York City this year, the buzz wasn’t ice baths or IV drips. It was earbuds that talk to your nervous system, dissolving strips that skip your stomach entirely, and a tar-like Himalayan substance packed with 84 minerals.
Five years ago, biohacking meant fasting windows and cold showers. This year it meant lab coats, patent numbers and machines that split water into gas.
What struck me wasn’t the gadgets themselves. It was how confidently people talked about mechanism — not just what a product does, but exactly how, down to the molecule or the millisecond. Ask a vendor how something works, and you’d get an answer involving demos, receptors, or even redox reactions.
I walked the floor and talked to the people building these products. Here’s what I found.
The Nervous System Is the New Frontier
Stress used to mean a stiff neck and a bad night’s sleep. But DreamPhones, a company making headphones that stimulate the vagus nerve, treated like a wiring problem.
According to the company, the body is divided into two systems: one you control, like lifting your arm, and one you don’t, like your heartbeat. Stress, they say, happens when those two systems stop talking to each other.
Their fix targets the vagus nerve through the inner ear, one of the few spots where it sits close to the skin. They compare it to a defibrillator, but for your nerves instead of your heart. It’s also not far off from pressure-point traditions in Chinese medicine and Japanese shiatsu. DreamPhones was developed with scientific guidance from Robert Desimone, PhD, whose research career spans attention, neural systems, and brain function.
The headphones play music like any other pair. But they also run a program that sends small electrical pulses meant to calm the body down. One version is built for focus. Another, worn for 10 to 20 minutes before bed, is designed to help the brain power down for sleep.
Skipping the Stomach Entirely
A few booths down, Dissolvd was making the case that pills are outdated. Its product is a thin film that dissolves on the roof of the mouth in under a minute. No water. No swallowing.
The company calls its method FlashRelease™ technology. The idea is that ingredients absorb through the cheek and gum tissue, bypassing digestion altogether. Their proprietary dissolved strip technology delivers nutrients directly through the oral mucosa for faster absorption compared to traditional pills or powders.
Founder Ben Bartel built the brand as an offshoot of NutriStrips, a manufacturer that’s made dissolving strips for about seven years. Dissolvd now sells to IV clinics, med spas, gyms, and health food stores across the wellness and recovery space.
Betting on an Ancient Substance
Then there’s shilajit, a tar-like resin harvested from mountain rock, which Hermetica Superfoods highly banks on. The company was started five years ago on the idea that feeling your best physically changes how you experience everything else.
The flagship product is a shilajit tablet the company says contains roughly 84 trace minerals. According to the company, people often notice a difference the same day, particularly with energy and mental clarity. Hermetica sells through Amazon, TikTok, and yoga studios, deliberately staying off shelves at big-box retailers.
Across the show floor, one theme kept repeating: precision over guesswork. Biohackers aren’t just swallowing vitamins anymore. They want delivery systems that actually work, and technology that treats the nervous system as something you can train, not just tolerate.
Longevity, it seems, is becoming less about living longer and more about proving your body is absorbing every bit of what you give it. A supplement that isn’t absorbed is just an expensive habit. A therapy that isn’t dosed correctly is just theater. The people building these products know that, and they’re starting to talk like it.
