TemperPack co-founder’s newest bright idea: a health light startup called Ohm

James McGoff  (Photos courtesy Ohm Health)

It was after reading a book about the health benefits of controlled breathing when James McGoff had the light-bulb moment that led him back to startup mode.

Later this year, McGoff, one of three co-founders of the highly successful Henrico-based packaging company TemperPack Technologies, is set to launch the first product of his new company, Ohm Health.

That product is a “breathing lamp,” a small glass table lamp that allows customers to practice intentional breathing in rhythm with the hum and glow of the lamp. It also measures things like a user’s heart rate and perspiration to gauge how their nervous system is doing.

Ohm Health marks a departure for McGoff, who previously spent almost a decade at TemperPack, working alongside co-founders Charles Vincent and Brian Powers and exponentially growing the insulated packaging business to around 700 employees and several locations and manufacturing facilities, including a headquarters locally at 4447 Carolina Ave.

McGoff officially left TemperPack in April of last year. The 34-year-old said that after almost 10 years there, he realized he missed being at a startup.

The Ohm Health lamp has a sleek glass exterior.

“I love the zero to one phase of building. … I kind of got the itch to start something new from the ground up,” McGoff said. 

McGoff said he has long been interested in the idea of self-improvement and the “mind-body connection.” He tried apps like Headspace and Calm before researching how intentional breathing can affect health.

Then he read the book “Breath” by James Nestor, which discusses the health benefits of humans being able to control their own breath, and became interested in bringing the topic of breath work to a wider audience through a new product.

“That felt like a moment of ‘there’s something very cool here.’ This whole idea of breath work has, in my mind, kind of a bad brand to it, but maybe there’s an opportunity to rebrand this in a very scientific way,” McGoff said, explaining that while the idea can seem nebulous, the practice has been clinically studied to have positive effects on both physical and mental health.

He began putting monitors like EKGs and electrodermal activity sensors on his body, practicing different styles of breathing and seeing how they affected his body. 

“Then I was down the rabbit hole. … I just started reading everything I could about the interaction between how you breathe and your cardiovascular system,” he said. 

After about a year of research, McGoff incorporated Ohm Health last year, and soon brought on former TemperPack head of brand John Briney. Now, with almost $2 million of funding from investors in tow, the two are preparing for launch. 

Ohm’s olive-shaped glass table lamp is topped by a small, riverstone-sized rock with built-in sensors. When a user picks up the rock, it begins to purr, and the lamp, through both an illuminating and de-illuminating animation on its glass surface and a speaker hidden inside, coaches the user through a slow breathing exercise of around six breaths per minute, which McGoff said can help lower stress and calm the nervous system. 

The lamp glows blue when a user reaches a calm, “parasympathetic” state. 

Once the lamp hits the market, it will likely be priced at $300 to $400. McGoff said he tried to price it similarly to other products in the same smart-health technology market, like the Oura ring and stress management wearable Apollo, with the added benefit of the lamp being a décor piece. 

“What if your Hatch baby light and your Oura ring combine into a new type of product that’s very sensory, but also very diagnostically intelligent, as far as health goes?” McGoff said. “And what if the center of that was all around breath control?” 

Several hundred units of the lamp are being produced, with a goal to scale up manufacturing next year into the thousands, though McGoff said the Ohm team is not yet sure how many thousands that will be. 

No app or subscription is required to use the lamp, McGoff said, adding that he wanted to make the lamp accessible for all ages, from small children to the elderly. 

However, if users would like to see some stats on their nervous system, the stone’s sensors measure things like the user’s heart rate, how sweaty or dry their hands are and other biomarkers. These stats are accessible through an optional mobile app. 

Upon launch, the app will be free for customers to be able to gain access to their data from the lamp. Ohm could look to offer a paid version in the future that would give customers access to more specific nervous system insights.

“We want it to be really easy to use, but we also want it to go as deep as you want to go,” McGoff said. “You don’t need an app to use it, but we have all that data and you can use it if you want.”

The Ohm Health lamp comes with a small stone for users to aid with their breathing.

McGoff said that Ohm is nearing completion of its early-stage investment round, bringing the total raised thus far for the company to about $1.9 million. Ohm raised around $700,000 of that last year, and is closing in on the rest of the funding, with all but $150,000 of the nearly $2 million already transferred.

“Last year we did the raise to sort of get the idea from a napkin drawing to a workable prototype, and now this raise that we just did is to take that and start on marketing,” McGoff said. 

Ohm Health has a team of three employees, which includes McGoff, Briney and a third, Connecticut-based employee, with plans to add more. McGoff and Briney are both still located in Richmond. Ohm does not have a physical headquarters, with the two working from home or out of coworking spaces like Gather. 

With Ohm readying to go to market, McGoff said he’s taking the skills he learned as a TemperPack founder and bringing them to a new venture whose product is helping him mitigate the early-stage startup jitters.

“Starting any company is hard and stressful and tiring enough,” he said, “but when you’re starting one that’s also aimed at helping you balance that, you really get to see the product and use it and see if it’s working.”

As for his continued ties to TemperPack, McGoff said that while he sold some of his equity in the company he still holds the majority of his stake.

His TemperPack co-founder Powers remains with the company as a board member and serves as CEO at Markups.ai, while Vincent remains as chief technology officer at TemperPack, according to their LinkedIn profiles. TemperPack is helmed by veteran energy industry executive Peter Wells, who took over as the firm’s CEO in 2023. 

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