Commercial Tanning Beds Vs Home Tanning Beds

Commercial Tanning Beds Vs Home Tanning Beds What’s The Difference?

At first the difference between commercial tanning beds and home tanning beds may not seem obvious. But there are differences and if you are thinking about opening a tanning salon it is important to know what they are.

While home tanning beds can certainly deliver a decent tan they are not suited for commercial tanning use. Home tanning beds are designed with a lower price point. They are designed with less power and frills to fit within consumers budgets. By contrast commercial tanning beds are designed with more of the features expected from a modern tanning salon. To operate a successful salon your equipment must be as good or better than your competitions equipment.

Commercial Tanning Beds Cost More

The first difference between commercial tanning beds and home tanning beds is the price. While an in home tanning bed may be had for under $2,000 many commercial tanning beds will cost $5,000 to $10,000 or more.

Commercial tanning beds will run on 220 volts not standard household current. While a home tanning bed may be used once every day or every other day commercial beds may see 20 or more people a day and run almost constantly seven days a week. So they must have heavier construction to withstand this use and abuse of commercial tanning.

Commercial Tanning Requires More Bells And Whistles

Tanning salon models are larger and generally designed to be visually appealing to salon customers. A commercial salon must be more concerned about the comfort and appearance of their salon and its tanning beds and ensure clients enjoy the tanning experience and become regular repeat customers.

Because customer satisfaction is so important to commercial tanning, the tanning beds are roomier and offer cooling fans and things like MP3 plugins to cater to customers. They may contain additional lighting options like red or blue light for facial areas.

Because of their heavier use maintenance is more critical. Most commercial tanning beds will have built-in diagnostic systems to avoid down time and help track system maintenance. They will work in tandem with the salons computer program, tracking the number of hours on the bulbs, making sure timers are working and tracking session lengths.

Commercial Tanning Beds Have More Bulbs

Commercial tanning beds will have 40 or more bulbs while most home tanning beds will usually have 24 or less. To run the extra tanning bulbs efficiently they run on 220 volts while most home tanning beds are designed to run on standard 110 volt household current.

Commercial Tanning Beds Are Faster

Time is money at a commercial tanning salon. Home tanning beds may take twice as long as a commercial bed to deliver the same level of tanning. Tanning salons need machines that have shorter tanning cycles so they can serve their customers faster and book more sessions.

High Pressure Commercial Tanning Beds

Tanning salons have similar bed styles as home tanning beds. There is the basic clam shell unit you lay down in and the stand up tanning bed or tanning booth.

However, tanning salons are now using high pressure tanning beds which can deliver a darker more even tan and do it in half the time of a standard commercial tanning bed.

They use shorter high pressure metal halide type bulbs to deliver a tan instead of the conventional long fluorescent low pressure bulbs.

Needless to say these commercial tanning units are very expensive and out of reach of most home tanners. So although home tanning beds do differ from commercial tanning beds both will deliver a decent tan.

Which one you choose depends on your situation. Some avid home tanners do use 220 volt commercial tanning beds in their homes. However if you are thinking about opening a tanning salon it would be unwise to use anything other than commercial tanning beds.