[Health Series] The Future of Personalized Sleep Apnea Treatment With David Walton

David Walton is the Founder and CEO of Vayu Sleep, a sleep technology company developing custom-fit CPAP masks for people with sleep apnea. A sleep medicine entrepreneur, he previously co-founded and led Respire Medical, an FDA-cleared oral appliance company, for 14 years before its acquisition. At Vayu Sleep, David brings deep experience in medical devices, patient comfort, and practical innovation to a personalized mask platform that uses smartphone facial scanning and AI-enabled design. His work focuses on making sleep apnea therapy comfortable, accessible, and easier for patients to use consistently.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• [3:38] David Walton explains how at-home sleep testing helps patients get diagnosed
• [6:14] Why quality sleep can be a superpower for physical and mental recovery
• [11:15] How Vayu Sleep creates custom-fit CPAP masks using facial scanning
• [14:35] The custom swim goggle technology that inspired Vayu Sleep’s CPAP mask
• [17:44] Lessons from building Respire Medical and learning the sleep medicine industry
• [23:17] How prior FDA experience shapes Vayu Sleep’s approval process

In this episode…

Sleep apnea treatment is only effective when patients can actually stick with it. Traditional CPAP masks are often uncomfortable, leaky, or too tight, which can lead many people to abandon therapy altogether. What would change if CPAP masks were custom-fit to each patient’s face?

David Walton, a sleep medicine entrepreneur with years of experience building medical device companies, explains that personalized CPAP masks can make therapy more comfortable, reduce leakage, and help patients stay consistent with treatment. He highlights how Vayu Sleep utilizes smartphone facial scanning, AI-enabled mapping, and 3D printing to create masks tailored to each person’s unique facial profile. The goal is to reduce pressure, improve fit, and remove one of the biggest barriers to effective sleep apnea care. He also discusses why diagnosis is the first critical step, especially with newer at-home sleep testing options that make it easier for patients to understand their sleep health. Together, these innovations point toward a more accessible and patient-friendly future for sleep apnea treatment.

In this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast, Dr. Jeremy Weisz sits down with David Walton, Founder and CEO of Vayu Sleep, to talk about personalized sleep apnea treatment. David discusses at-home sleep testing, how custom-fit CPAP masks are made using facial scanning, and why comfort matters for therapy adherence. He also shares how FDA experience shapes Vayu Sleep’s path to market.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• David Walton on LinkedIn
• Vayu Sleep
• Respire Medical on LinkedIn
• WHOOP
• Oura Ring
• Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker, PhD
• “I Found Out I Had Sleep Apnea” | Jo Koy : Lights Out
• Maverick1000
• The Strive Collective
• Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor

Special mention:

• Rasmus Barfred on LinkedIn
• Richard Branson on LinkedIn
• Steve Adams on LinkedIn

Related episodes:

• “[Swim Series] Custom Swim Goggles Powered by Innovation With Rasmus Barfred” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “[Protein Bar Series] Growing a Brain and Body Nutrition Company With Will Nitze” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “[Beverage Series] Mastering The Ancient Art of Jun Kombucha with Holly Lyman, Founder of Wild Tonic” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “[Protein Bar Series] How To Start From Scratch With a Food Product Business with Peter Rahal Founder of RxBar” on the Inspired Insider Podcast
• “Happiness, Health, and Love to All The World with the Ice Man Wim Hof of wimhofmethod.com and innerfire.nl” on the Inspired Insider Podcast

Quotable moments:

• “If you get a good night’s sleep and really good recovery, then it sets you up.”
• “Sleep apnea is essentially when you stop breathing.”
• “The elephant in the room is that patients don’t want to wear the mask because it doesn’t fit.”
• “We’re solving that problem by making the first custom-made CPAP mask.”
• “Having that good system is really critical for the business to run well.”

Action steps:

1. Prioritize sleep apnea diagnosis: Getting tested helps patients understand whether sleep apnea is affecting their health and what treatment options may be appropriate.
2. Explore at-home sleep testing options: Convenient home-based testing can make diagnosis easier, faster, and more accessible for people who may avoid traditional sleep labs.
3. Improve CPAP mask fit and comfort: A better-fitting mask can reduce leaks, discomfort, and pressure, helping patients stick with therapy more consistently.
4. Educate patients through multiple channels: Reaching people through doctors, DME providers, and direct-to-consumer education can increase awareness and improve treatment adoption.
5. Prepare early for FDA and quality requirements: Building strong regulatory and quality systems supports safer products, smoother approvals, and long-term patient trust.

Episode Transcript

Intro: 00:15

You are listening to Inspired Insider with your host, Dr. Jeremy Weis.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 00:22

Dr. Jeremy Weis here, Founder of InspiredInsider.com, where I talk with inspirational entrepreneurs and leaders today is no different. I have David Walton, CEO of Vayu Sleep. And David, I’m going to formally introduce you in a second. And I always like to point out other episodes of the podcast people should check out. And we were introduced, big shout out to THEMAGIC5. I found out about THEMAGIC5. And Rasmus, who’s one of the co-founders through buying the goggles. Actually, in the beginning of the interview, David, I just wore the goggles. So Rasmus showed up and he’s like, what’s going on with this guy? But we talked about just, I didn’t realize actually when I reached out that they had been on Shark Tank and Mark Cuban and Robert Herjavec and a bunch of people invested in them. I just like the goggles, to be honest with you. And, you know, we talked about some of the other favorite episodes and products I like.

So I like having the products that I use on. IQBAR founder. I love that bar. I probably have two a day of that. The Wild Tonic kombucha founder, I’ve had on. And RXBAR founder and just other products that I like. And I’m curious, and I mentioned some other products I use in the swim side, like the Garmin Swim 2 watch and the Sharks headset. Are there any specific David for you apps that you like in the, it could be in like, obviously you’re in the sleep space, and for people who don’t know, we’ll normally talk about it’s basically a custom CPAP mask. I know a lot of people have sleeping issues, and this is a real problem if they’re not getting the oxygen they need. It’s really detrimental to their health. So we’ll get into Vayu Sleep and what they do. But what are some of your favorite apps? It could be health related or not or products in the health space.

David Walton: 02:18

Yeah. I think, you know, I wear a WHOOP. So. Oh yeah.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 02:22

Whoop. Well I have the Oura ring. But yes I am aware of the WHOOP.

David Walton: 02:26

Yeah yeah yeah. So I really like that. I mean obviously it measures a lot of things, but sleep is one of them. And you know, there’s and aside from that, you know.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 02:36

I’m curious why WHOOP as opposed to Oura ring?

David Walton: 02:40

I think when I looked at the amount of data that it gives on the working out, I really liked that aspect of it. Like, I think the sleep and the recovery is great, but I was really focused on the actual strain and the activities that we’re doing. And then one thing is the community aspect of it. So the guys, I play soccer with a bunch of guys and we’ve all got the hoops. So there’s like somewhat of a gamification of it so you can see how each other are doing and there’s a little bit of competition there. And so a bunch of the guys had them. So I thought, I’ll try it out and then tried it out on a month kind of free trial. And I was like, yep. So two years later, I’m still wearing it. So yeah, I’m a big fan.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 03:22

Any other apps or devices that you use? And I know you’ve been, you know, you ran Respire Medical. So like you have been in this space for, for a couple decades, probably at this point. So I’m always curious what you’re using and liking.

David Walton: 03:38

Yeah, I think on the technology side, on the sleep side, I think what’s really come to fruition in the last few years is helping patients get tested and diagnosed. So there’s a lot of technology that’s come out where you can do that at home now, where historically you would have to go into a sleep lab in a clinic or overnight and get hooked up to all these machines. But now there’s a lot of technology out there where you can do it from your home. They’ll send it to your house, you’ll, you know, wear it for a night or two or maybe three that gets uploaded to the cloud. And then you get the diagnosis through straight away.

And that’s really the important part about sleep. You know, all of the Oura Ring, all the WHOOPs that they’re all great, but they’re not going to give you a true diagnosis of how your sleep is. So a lot of these technologies, there’s companies out there like gem sleep is one, sleeptest.com is another where you can do a test from the comfort of your own bed, really. And then once you have that diagnosis, then you have a lot of options of what you want to, then what you want to do with that information and the different treatment modalities that you can go through. But the first thing is doing that sleep test and understanding that.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 04:49

I’m curious also resources. So like I remember David, I had horrible sleep hygiene, okay, horrible. And that was by choice, by the way, right? As an entrepreneur, I’m like, okay, I’m working all the time and I use, I have a different philosophy now than I did then. It was like, I’ll sleep when I’m dead type of thing. It’s like, I wish I didn’t need sleep and, and so I just would burn the candle on both ends. And I mean, my mom has been telling me since I was like ten that I’m going to be burned out. And it never really happened because maybe I just have that energy. But it definitely wasn’t good for me. And so I hired a sleep coach a couple years ago. And so shout out to Steve Adams of Tiger Neuroscience, and they made sure I got the Oura Ring. They were kind of it wasn’t just about sleep as an overall health thing.

He may be a good intro for you because they do now, like just they team up with, you know, naturopaths and they do testing on hormones and whatever issues someone has. And I flipped the script. And so just, I’d love to talk about why sleep is so important because I had a different philosophy then, because I know now it helps clean up your body. It helps energize. There are so many benefits. And then maybe I know there’s some popular probably books out there and I’ve read a few, but sometimes, I don’t know. I needed convincing at that point of why sleep is actually important in the first place.
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