Red Light Method Opens Friday in Commack, and Long Island Has Never Had Anything Quite Like It

The lights go on for real on Friday. After months of build-out behind papered windows on Jericho Turnpike, Red Light Method Commack opens its doors on Friday, August 7, 2026, and Long Island gets its first look at a wellness studio that does not fit neatly into any of the categories we already have a word for. It is not a gym. It is not a med spa. It is not a recovery lounge with a red bulb screwed into the ceiling. It is five distinct technologies arranged in a deliberate order, in one room, on one membership, with a sixth already on the way, and the whole thing is built around a piece of medical equipment most Long Islanders have only ever read about.

Walk in and the first thing you read is painted on the desk itself: Get Lit. Get Fit. It is a good summary of the idea. The light does something to your cells. The movement does something with what the light released. Neither half works nearly as well without the other, and the sequencing is the entire argument the brand makes for itself.

We first wrote about this studio back in April, when it was a construction site and a promise. It is now a finished space with equipment bolted down, screens on the walls, staff hired and a founding-member list already filling. Here is what is actually inside it, what a visit costs, what a session feels like, and who is behind the counter.

The Long Islander behind the doors

Red Light Method Commack is owned and operated by Steve Berlin, and his resume is not the one you would guess. Berlin has spent more than 25 years in business leadership, with a background in finance and operations, and for over a decade he owned and ran two Sky Zone Trampoline Park franchises on Long Island. Which is to say he has spent years already in the business of getting local families through a door, keeping a building running safely, and hiring the kind of staff parents trust.

"I spent eleven years watching Long Island families come through my trampoline parks, and the thing I learned is that people do not come back for the equipment," Berlin said. "They come back because someone knew their name and the place was clean and it worked. That is the entire business. The technology in here is genuinely extraordinary, but it will not save us if we get the human part wrong."

He is candid about why he moved from trampolines to red light. "I turned fifty and I was tired in a way that sleep was not fixing," he said. "I tried red light therapy at a clinic, and it worked, and then I did the math on what it would cost me to actually keep doing it consistently. That gap is the whole reason this studio exists. The results come from repetition, and nobody repeats something that feels like a splurge every time."

Berlin also filmed his own introduction from the studio floor, which is worth 41 seconds of your time if you want a sense of who is going to be behind the counter on Friday morning.

What actually happens in a session

The core visit is a two-part sequence, and it runs about 35 minutes.

The first 25 minutes you are lying down under a medical-grade red light array, in a quiet room, doing absolutely nothing. This is the part people find surprising. There is no exertion, no heat to speak of, no sensation beyond a mild warmth and a very red room. You change into undergarments, you stay under a sheet, and you are asked to arrive with no makeup, lotion or sunscreen on, because anything sitting on the surface of your skin is one more thing between you and the light.

The studio's system is medical-grade and FDA-cleared, which is the distinction the brand leans on hardest and the one worth understanding. The consumer red light market is now flooded with panels, masks and wands, and the honest gap between a sixty-dollar device and a clinical system is power output, wavelength precision and how much of your body it covers at once. Both emit red light. So do a garden hose and a fire hydrant both emit water.

Then you get up and spend 10 minutes on a Power Plate. That order is not arbitrary. The vibration platform is there to move lymph and get circulation going immediately after the light session, which is when the studio says it matters most.

Five modalities under one roof, with a sixth on the way

Red Light Therapy

The centerpiece. Twenty-five minutes under a medical-grade, FDA-cleared array, in a private room. The studio says members use it for recovery, skin, sleep, pain and body composition, and staff will set up a custom wrap zone on request if you want the light concentrated somewhere specific. Prep is simple and worth doing properly: clean skin, no product, fitted clothing you can change out of.

Power Plate

Two Power Plate my5 units sit on the main floor under a pair of wall-mounted screens that run guided routines, so you are never standing on a vibrating platform wondering what to do with your arms. Ten minutes is the standard block, capped at 15 during busy times. Staff coaching, more or less verbatim: bend your knees, keep your weight in your toes, and pick either a passive or an active workout depending on what you have left in the tank.

Pilates Reformer

A row of reformers along the far wall, each with its own tablet on a stand and a set of headphones. The classes are guided on screen rather than by an instructor pacing the room, and the programming comes from Allison Beardsley, who founded Red Light Method and, before that, founded Club Pilates. If you have never touched a reformer, you start at Level 1 and build to 2 and 3, and the studio's own advice is the correct advice: repeat the same class rather than chasing new ones, because that is how reformer strength actually accrues. Two house rules, both about not hurting yourself: no standing on the reformer, no planking on it.

Far Infrared Sauna

A cedar corner cabin with a glass door, parked right on the studio floor rather than hidden down a corridor, and included with membership at no extra charge. Far infrared works differently from the sauna at your gym: instead of superheating the air around you, it warms your body directly at a much more tolerable ambient temperature, which is why people who cannot stand a traditional sauna often get along fine with this. Start at five minutes and build. Bring a towel. Clothing required.

PEMF, coming soon

Pulsed electromagnetic field therapy is on the way rather than in the room on Friday, so treat this as a preview of what the studio is adding rather than something to book this week. Delivered on a mat, it is the quietest modality in the lineup: new members get pointed to the Longevity 2 setting, which runs at what is known as the Schumann Resonance. It also carries real contraindications, and they are worth knowing in advance because they rule some people out entirely: it is not recommended if you have a pacemaker or if you are pregnant. Ask at the desk when it lands, and check with your doctor if you are unsure.

STYKU 3D Body Scan

Complimentary, and the most quietly useful thing here. You stand on a turntable in fitted clothing with your hair pinned up, and the scanner captures hundreds of measurements to build a three-dimensional model of your body, viewable in the app. It is progress tracking that does not depend on a bathroom scale, which is a genuinely better instrument for what people are actually trying to change. Berlin is blunt about why it matters: "People quit because they cannot see it working. The scale is a terrible narrator. The scan is not."

Why Commack

The address is 6157 Jericho Turnpike, which is about as central as Suffolk County gets. That single stretch of road pulls from Commack, Smithtown, East Northport, Elwood, Dix Hills, Hauppauge and Kings Park, and everyone in those places already drives Jericho for something else. For a business that only works if members come two or three times a week, being on a road people are already on is not a small detail. It is the whole operating premise.

"I looked at a lot of spaces further east and further west, and they were cheaper," Berlin said. "But this is a repetition business. If coming here is a trip, you will come twice and then stop. If it is on the way home, you will come for years. I would rather pay more rent and be on the road everybody is already driving."

It also lands in a market that has changed. Long Island's relationship with wellness has moved well past the January gym membership, and recovery, longevity and preventative health have gone from biohacker vocabulary to something people discuss at a kitchen table. What has been missing locally is not interest. It is a studio equipped seriously enough to meet it.

How membership actually works

Memberships are sold as session packs rather than as unlimited access or single visits, and founding-member packages are open now, ahead of Friday. The desk can walk you through the current options, and memberships are typically FSA and HSA eligible, which is worth asking about before you sign. One membership covers the light, the Power Plate, the reformer classes, the sauna and the body scans together rather than pricing each as an add-on, and PEMF joins that list once it arrives.

Now the part most write-ups leave out, because it is the part that actually determines whether you are happy in month four. Sessions are used within each billing cycle and do not roll over, so pick the pack that matches how often you will realistically show up rather than the one that matches your ambitions. You can upgrade or downgrade at any time. Cancellation requires 30 days notice, and ending a membership before your commitment is up carries a termination fee. After the term, memberships auto-renew. If life gets in the way you can pause for a billing cycle, and that charge comes back as account credit on your next bill, up to four months a year. None of that is unusual for a studio membership. All of it is easier to know now than to discover later.

Before your first visit

The studio's own new-member guidance, condensed:

• Arrive 10 to 15 minutes early for your first session so you are not rushing the paperwork.
• Wear comfortable, fitted clothing. For red light therapy you will change into undergarments and stay under a sheet.
• Skip makeup, lotion and sunscreen beforehand.
• Bring a towel and water, and hydrate before and after. There is a FloWater station in the studio.
• Download the app. Booking, rescheduling and your body-scan results all live there.
• Sessions can be modified up to two hours before they start. After that, text, call or email the studio.
• Wipe down equipment after use, and use headphones for audio.

A national brand with a local owner

Red Light Method is expanding quickly. The company was founded by Allison Beardsley, whose previous act was building Club Pilates into a household name, and is led by CEO Eric Tepper. There are currently 16 studios open across the country with more than 70 locations in development, and Commack is Long Island's entry into that map.

That combination is the interesting part. The equipment, the programming and the class library are national and standardized, which is why a reformer class here is the same class as one in Atlanta. The staffing, the cleanliness, the hours and whether anyone remembers your name are local, and they are Berlin's problem. On the evidence of a decade running trampoline parks full of Long Island ten-year-olds, that is probably the right way round.

Common questions

One honest caveat

Red light therapy, or photobiomodulation, has a real and growing body of research behind it, and it also has a marketing industry running considerably ahead of that research. FDA clearance means a device has been evaluated for safety and for specific intended uses. It is not a guarantee of any particular outcome for any particular person. The claims in this article about what the services do are the studio's and the brand's, not findings of ours, and results vary. If you are pregnant, managing a health condition or on medication, have the conversation with your doctor before you start. That is not a reason to skip it. It is a reason to go in with clear eyes, which is how you should walk into any wellness purchase.

Opening day

Red Light Method Commack opens Friday, August 7, 2026 at 6157 Jericho Turnpike, Commack, NY 11725.

• Monday and Wednesday: 6 a.m. to 7 p.m.
• Tuesday and Thursday: 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.
• Friday: 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.
• Saturday: 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.
• Sunday: 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Phone 631-771-1280, email [email protected], follow @redlightmethodcommack on Instagram or Red Light Method Commack on Facebook, and visit rlmcommack.com for founding-member packages and to book your first session.

There is a line hand-lettered on one of the walls inside, and it is the most Long Island thing in the building, because it is both a little corny and completely true: You are the greatest project you will ever work on. Doors open Friday.