Hard chamber or soft chamber? What decides in practice

Both are hyperbaric chambers. Both work with raised air pressure. And yet a hard chamber and a soft chamber are rarely competing for the same place. Here is what decides in practice.

Pressure and construction

A hard chamber is a steel chamber pressurised to 1.5 or 2.0 ATA. Oxygen reaches the user directly through a mask or BIBS system. It is the strongest construction, the highest pressures, and it is built for intensive daily use.

A soft chamber is made of multi-layer high-strength TPU and works at 1.4 or 1.5 ATA. It is lighter, more compact and easier to place. The Boost Seat 90 weighs 15 kg and has a footprint of 230 × 120 cm.

Footprint, power and access

For a hard chamber allow the chamber plus around one metre of clear space around it, and a separate place for the concentrator, booster and cooling. A complete hard chamber with peripherals reaches a connected load of several kilowatts; a dedicated circuit is advisable.

A soft chamber needs considerably less and runs from an ordinary wall socket. That is why it is the accessible entry point into hyperbaric oxygen training for homes, practices and recovery rooms.

Who chooses what

• Recovery and performance centres choose hard chambers for depth, comfort and daily throughput, often an ULTRA or DUO alongside IHHT.
• Practices and therapists often start with a Boost Seat 90, in stock and also available to rent, and grow from there.
• Care and rehabilitation choose the soft chamber for accessibility: a seat that adjusts to completely flat, a generous entry, and a wheelchair-accessible chamber on request.
• Premium home installations choose the NAVY, which fits through almost any interior door, or the ULTRA, which can be installed upstairs.

Our view

The technology is rarely the hardest choice. What decides is the number of users, the space available and how you want to supervise sessions. The fastest way to find out is a session in our showroom in Goes, or the configurator in two minutes.