The vast majority of massage chairs on the market include a feature called body scanning. This feature uses sensors in the roller mechanism to detect where the base of your skull and the tops of your shoulders are located. The rollers then travel down your back to get a general sense of the shape of your spine.

The most important part of the body scan is identifying the base of your skull and the tops of your shoulders, because this helps the chair determine your height. You don’t want the rollers going too high and hitting the back of your skull, and you don’t want them positioned too low so that your neck doesn’t receive a full massage. That’s exactly what body scanning is designed to prevent, and it’s still very common in today’s market.

However, we’re now starting to see newer technology—primarily from the Japanese massage chair sector, such as Fujiiryoki, Panasonic, and Synca chairs—that uses a much more advanced feedback mechanism. In these chairs, the body scan doesn’t stop after the initial scan. Instead, it continues throughout the entire massage program.

As the rollers move up and down your back, they not only identify the base of your skull and the tops of your shoulders, but they also sense muscle tension along your entire back, as well as the shape of your spine. This feedback continues during the entire auto program you’re using.

What happens is that the sensors detect when your muscles begin to relax in one area or tighten in another. The chair then automatically adjusts the intensity and movement of the rollers based on that real-time feedback. Thousands of these adjustments occur every second, resulting in a constantly adapting massage that responds to your changing muscle tension.

This is exactly what you want during a massage program—to feel your muscles gradually relax. The advanced feedback mechanisms in modern body scanning systems make this possible. It’s very sophisticated and, in my opinion, the closest thing we have to AI in the massage chair industry.

One last thing to mention: many chairs with electric or electronic leg extenders also use sensors to scan your leg length. When the foot massager extends and your feet make contact with the top or bottom of the footrest, the chair automatically stops extending, ensuring a proper fit for your legs as well.

I hope this explanation wasn’t too confusing, but that’s what body scanning is all about in massage chairs.

I’m Dr. Alan Weidner from Massage Chair Relief. I hope you found this video helpful, and I’ll see you in the next video. Bye-bye.