Massage Chair Industry Update – April 12, 2017 (Video)

April 14, 2017
 By Allison Bricker
April 14, 2017
 By Allison Bricker

Massage Chair Industry Update – April 12, 2017 (Video)


Transcript of Video Titled “Massage Chair Industry Update – April 12, 2017”

Alan: Hi, I’m Dr. Alan Weidner from ‘Massage-Chair-Relief.com’ and today is our biweekly massage chair industry update for Wednesday, April 12th, 2017. Thank you for stopping by and visiting with me today.

[SCREEN TEXT: Stock Status]

Alan: As far as stock status goes, I’m not aware of too many things that are back-ordered. The ‘Beige’ Titan Executive is back-ordered, I don’t know for how long. The Novo XT from Human Touch has been a fairly popular seller, and they still don’t have an abundant inventory for all their colors. I’m not exactly sure which colors they are shy on, but they do have stock, but some of the numbers are a little bit low. Anyway, so, if you’re looking at a Novo XT, make sure you don’t delay, because they may be out of stock, and then you have to wait a month. But anyway, those are the ones that I’m aware of that are out of stock.

[SCREEN TEXT: My “Free Report” Has Been Updated]

Alan: Let’s see, we’ve got – oh, I updated my Free Report – you know, I haven’t updated my Free Report since I first put it out maybe three years ago. If you go to the bottom of any page on my website, you’ll see a little link that says ‘To get my report,’ and the report’s called ‘8 Things You Absolutely Need to Know Before You Even Consider Investing in a High Quality Robotic Massage Chair.’ Well, things have changed a little bit since I first put that out. We have an American-made chair now, we have butt rollers, or L-tracks, we’ve got different types of warranties now, and more information about certain chairs. So, anyway, if you want to download that, you can do it on my website, you just have to click the link, and put in your name, your first name, and your email address. Also, when you do subscribe to the Free Report, you also will be put on our mailing list. Now, don’t worry, I don’t send tons of emails, and I don’t send very many at all, except maybe around Black Friday and Christmas time when we have our sales. But I would encourage you to sign up, if for nothing else, then just to be notified when there’s a particular sale going on, or if there’s a new model out, or if, you know, maybe there’s some returned chairs that we have available, and oftentimes, you’ll be notified of that before we put it on the website, on our Pre-Owned Chair Directory.

[SCREEN TEXT: Leather on the iRobotics 7 from Luraco]

Alan: Anyway, OK, also, two weeks ago, I had talked about the HT-9500 from Human Touch being discontinued, which was a leather chair, and I had mentioned at that time that there weren’t any other leather chair options, except for the Inada DreamWave, which does have a genuine black premium leather model. Well, one of my viewers, and one of my customers, correctly pointed out that the Luraco iRobotics 7, though not a complete leather chair, does have leather touchpoints. So, the main parts of the chair, the main parts of the upholstery, you know, the exterior, the body, along the sides, that is all synthetic leather, or faux leather, or Naugahyde, but the touch points, where your body touches, where your skin touches, your hands, the hands and forearms, the feet and calves, the hips, the neck, those are all black leather touchpoints. So, on a black leather chair, you can’t tell the difference – or I mean, on a ‘Black’ Luraco iRobotics 7, you can’t tell the difference – but if you look at the ‘Beige’ or the ‘Brown,’ you can see black accent points, and those black accent points are the touchpoints. So, if you look at a picture, you’ll see that those are the places that have genuine leather, and it has a different feel. The genuine leather is a little more softer and malleable – and a little bit more, a little more easily, a little more, just easier – it’s just softer, and a more textured surface, whereas the Naugahyde, or the synthetic leather does have a tendency to be a little more stiff, a little harder, and that’s how it is with most massage chairs, but you can feel the difference on that chair when you do take the time to kind of palpate around the upholstery of that chair.

[SCREEN TEXT: Osaki Pro Dreamer $4295 Sale]

Alan: Now, also, the Osaki Pro Dreamer is regularly $5295, it’s on sale for $4295 for the month of April.

[SCREEN TEXT: Ogawa Sale on for Another Month]

Alan: The Ogawa sale continues on, they’re extending it another month to May 3rd, where you have $500 off the Ogawa Smart 3D, you have $250 off the Ogawa Active SuperTrac, and $200 off the Ogawa Refresh. And the Osaki Pro Dreamer is a chair that’s been around for three or four years, I had it in my showroom right from the get go. That one, and the Cyber, I’ve sold both those floor model since then. They were nice chairs at the time – they’re still nice chairs – but three, four years in massage chair life is a long life. You know, the Inada DreamWave is probably the one major exception to that, and I would also say the Infinity IT-8500, those are two exceptions to the rule. They are timeless chairs that we sell a lot of, and we have been for years. But the Osaki Pro Dreamer is a nice chair, it has foot rollers, zero gravity, lots of airbags. It was the first chair to kind of come out to be a lookalike of the Inada DreamWave, or back then, it was called the Inada Sogno DreamWave, eight years ago when it came out, and the body design was so different from what they were used to. You know, the Panasonic chairs, if you look at them, that’s a more of a traditional – if you look at those chairs, they’re a little bit more traditional-looking chairs – but the Inada DreamWave, Sogno DreamWave, comes out with this whole different body shape, like kind of the kidney-shaped side arms, and at first, it was mocked a little bit by people in the industry, because it was such a distinct and different design, and it was kind of out of the norm of what we were used to. And it won awards for the design in Japan, or the Japanese designer, I can’t remember his name, but he won awards for the design, and it was fairly innovative. Well, anyway, as much as the other companies kind of scoffed at it, they started bringing out imitation lookalikes, and the Infinity IT-8500 was one of those, and the Osaki Pro Dreamer was one of those, and even though it looks like the DreamWave, it is a very different chair, same with the Infinity, a very different chair. But you will see that a lot of the chairs nowadays, have kind of that kidney-shaped design. I mean, it’s a fairly popular design on a lot of massage chairs. So, Inada really pioneered the way with body design, and these other companies kind of imitated it, but the Dreamer, for the money, for the $4295, is a great chair. It’s got everything you’d need, it’s got a little plug-and-play music system, if you plug in your phone or your device, you can play the music over the speakers. You’ve got foot rollers, which are quite mild, and it’s got a stretch program. It has lots of airbags, zero gravity, so anyway, that chair is on sale for $4295. Of course, you can call me if you have any questions about it, I’m always available.

[SCREEN TEXT: Novo XT 3D Article Forthcoming – Some Questions]

Alan: Oh, let’s see, what else can I tell you? Oh, OK, so on my last update, I was going to, I told you I was going to post a review on the Novo XT, and I’ve held off on that. It’s not completely finished yet, because I’m trying to get some answers. My chair, in my showroom, in Utah, and I believe this also applies to the showroom in California, that chair is our first 3D L-track chair, right? 3D L-track, that means you can adjust the depth of the rollers, so that you can make it more or less intense. All the other L-track chairs we carry don’t have that feature. Well, Human Touch comes out with this Novo XT, and it offers this cool feature. Well, when you turn on an auto-program, and you want to change the intensity, you go to the menu, down to the ‘Settings’ button, and then there, you can adjust the intensity, from soft to strong, with five different intensity settings. Well, my experience with it was that as soon as you changed the intensity – let’s say it was on strong, or a five, and I changed it to a one, for a customer who wanted a less-intense massage – I would change it, and then a few moments later, I would go back in, and it was not at a five anymore, but it was maybe at a three, or a two, it wouldn’t go right to the one. Or, it had gone to the one, and then it moved to a two or a three. So, I inquired of that, from Human Touch – and one of my customers had also mentioned that in a review, if you look at the review on my website, and I think also on my YouTube channel, someone mentions comments about, you can’t change the 3D settings in the auto-programs – and I have made the changes, but it is a little tedious. You have to change it once, and maybe go back and make sure it’s still changed. I think, on this one setting that I did, in the ‘Awake’ program, I changed it from a strong, or a five, down to a one, and then it came back as a three, and then I did it again, back to one, and then it came back as a one. So, I don’t know exactly how that works, I’ve asked Human Touch about it. They say that on those programs, there’s some of those programs that don’t offer that, that you can’t change the settings, but for the ones that I was on, you can change it. So, I don’t exactly know why it doesn’t hold, or stick, but I’m trying to find out more about that, and before I write the review, which will be up, knock on wood, next week, I will have that hopefully explained more than, you know, to my satisfaction. Also, on that chair, the scan is a little different than other scans, other scans, you just turn on the chair, lean back, and wait for it to analyze your spine, and figure out how tall you are. A lot of times, those chairs, when they scan you, it overshoots or undershoots where your head is. So, sometimes you get the rollers massaging your skull at the end of the scan, or it’s too low, it’s down in the lower part of the neck, and you want it right under the base of the skull, so you have to override the scan, which means that when the – and I’ve got a video on this, too, on my YouTube channel, because it’s a fairly common thing amongst different massage chair companies – when a chair is doing a scan, and it’s doing the shoulder-height-determination component of the scan, and usually, the Chinese chairs anyway, will beep to tell you that they’re asking, when the chair beeps, it’s asking you, ‘Hey, is this the right height for the rollers?’ And if it’s too high, or too low, you can then push the arrow buttons up or down to move the rollers to right beneath the skull, and then you let go, and then the chair finishes the scan, and you’re set, and you don’t have to worry about it. Well, the Novo XT, when you turn on the chair, it immediately goes to the height, it’s got nine different height levels, and you can move it up, all the way up to where you feel the rollers are hitting your spine or not, and from what I understand, and what I did, I think you can change that midstream as well. So, let’s say you’ve set it up to setting seven out of nine, you know, I’m 5′ 9″, 5′ 10″, in that area, I change the setting to maybe a seven or an eight, and then I find, you know, once the scan is done, and the chair massage program has started, I find that ‘Oh, it’s still too low,’ then I can still go in and raise the height to a nine, or an eight, from a seven, or lower, to you know, a one through five, or six. So, that’s another thing that’s kind of unique about that Novo chair, you can set the height right away, and once you know what your height is, you know you’re a nine all the time, then every time you get in, you just move it to a nine, bang, and then your scan, for all intents and purposes, is done. So, that’s the Novo XT, I thought you might want to know about that.

[SCREEN TEXT: Blog Article – 2-Rollers vs. 4-Rollers]

Alan: So, instead, I wrote an article about – and I’ll hopefully have the Novo XT article out next week, once I have, like I said, when I have the thing about the 3D settings clarified – but also, I wrote an article about two-roller chairs versus four-roller chairs. And I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but most massage chairs have four rollers, so it looks like two sets of roller balls, two on either side of the spine, and those rollers go up and down, in concert up and down your spine. Other chairs have two rollers, instead of four, and so those two rollers, they also go up and down, in concert up and down your spine, but they seem to feel more intense than the quad rollers, and what’s happening is that the force of the massage through the massage arms to the roller balls is dispersed among four roller balls, or in some cases, four roller arms, to the end of which are attached four roller balls. And those roller balls, that energy is dispersed through the massage arm through four heads, and so it doesn’t seem as intense on a quad roller. You can make it intense, some of them have – like the Infinity IT-8500 is a fairly intense chair, as a matter of fact, we consider it a deep-tissue massage chair – and some have 3D rollers, so you can take those quad rollers and just drive them in to your back, and really increase the intensity. But the two-roller chairs, they have a more – like that energy and force coming from the massage arm is dispersed through two rollers, so it kind of digs in to those muscles on either side of your spine, in two spots. So, it feels more intense, it feels deeper, it feels like it’s kind of concentrating a little bit better, a little deeper, on the muscles at the time, and so the dual rollers do feel more intense. Chairs like the iRobotics 7 from Luraco, the Ogawa Smart 3D, the Osaki JP Premium 4S, and 4D, the Apex Regent, the old discontinued Navitas Sleep, those are all dual-roller chairs, and I’ll tell you, when you sit in those chairs, you feel like those rollers are digging in more, and there is definitely something to that. When I first got in the business, the Sanyo chairs, before Sanyo was bought out by Panasonic, the Sanyo chairs had dual rollers, and it was definitely a more intense chair. The quad rollers are more comfortable, you can make it intense, but they’re more comfortable. So, it seems to me that the companies that have like American and Japanese designers and engineers tend to like those dual rollers. Inada doesn’t have it, but the Osaki chairs, which those two Osaki models are Japanese made, the Apex Regent originally came from Johnson Wellness, which is a company out of Taiwan that has Japanese, and you know, ex-Panasonic, ex-Inada, ex-Fujiiryoki engineers, the Ogawa Smart 3D is a Cozzia, that’s from the same company as Cozzia, that’s 100% Chinese. So, maybe the Chinese will start coming out with more dual-roller chairs, I don’t know, but it’s pretty cool, and you can really tell the difference in the intensity. But I talk about it in that – you probably don’t need to read the blog now, because I just talked about it – but anyway, you can go to that blog and read my article about two rollers versus four rollers. I hope it makes sense, it’s a hard thing to explain, and even people like me, who have the gift of gab at times, it’s even hard for me to try to describe it in words, in a visual sense, so it makes sense. But anyway, I thought you might be interested to know that.

[SCREEN TEXT: Inada Nest Now Available!]

Alan: You know, I think that is just about it. We’ve got the new – oh, the Inada Nest is now out – if you want to get that chair.

[SCREEN TEXT: California Showroom Flood Update!]

Alan: I don’t have it in my showrooms yet, and I think I’d mentioned to you our California showroom flooded. We’re still not open, but hopefully, we can at least get going before all the drywall has been repaired. They had to cut off a foot of drywall all around the showroom because the water had gone under the carpet, and on the floor, and soaked up through the drywall, a bloody nightmare is all I can tell you. It’s been a pain in the royal rumpus. We have customers that are traveling out there that just know we have a store, maybe they didn’t call, or they just came out there, and they’ve driven an hour and a half. And in Southern California, an hour-and-a-half commute is, you know, it’s not uncommon, and holy cow, it’s very irritating for those dear, dear customers who have come out, and we’re not even open. And Michael, my manager down there is just, you know, he’s a good, good guy, and a real trooper, and he’s hanging in there, trying to get things organized with the insurance companies. We’re trying to get it open next week, trying to clean the carpets, and at least get the chairs set up, so people can come in, and at least sit on the chairs before, you know, even before we finish fixing the walls. But anyway, for those of you that have gone to the showroom, and you’ve not been able to get in, my most humble apologies. I feel terrible about it. It was one of those things that I just, it was out of my power, out of my control, and we’re just trying to deal with the aftermath. But hopefully, within the next week, we’ll have it up and running, and you can come on down and see all the cool chairs. And again, to those who have come to a locked door, with a sign on the door, I am so very sorry, I apologize, that is very embarrassing for me as a business owner.

[SCREEN TEXT: New uKnead Lohas Coming Soon!]

Alan: uKnead is coming out with a new model called the Lohas, which is another L-track chair. I mentioned that to you last week. It’s supposed to be out sometime this month, I don’t have the images or the data yet. I’ve asked for it, and hopefully, Nina and John will get it to me soon, and I can get it up on the website. And then of course, we are still expecting the Luraco Legend, which is the 3D L-track from Luraco, American made, that chair is not going to be out until the end of third quarter, fourth quarter. So, anyway, I’ll keep you posted about that, a lot of people are interested in that chair. It has a 58-inch roller track length, which is long, and it has 3D rollers, and in various segments. You don’t have to just do 3D for everything, you can 3D up in this area, or down this, mid back, or low back, or whatnot, pretty cool prototype. So, we’ll see how cool it is when it actually comes out.

[SCREEN TEXT: 888-259-5380]

Alan: Well, I guess that’s about it, eh? So, if you have any questions, feel free to give me a call at 888-259-5380, I’d be happy to chat with you.

[SCREEN TEXT: Please “Thumbs Up” Like This Video!!]

Alan: You can send me messages through the email, or through the website. You can talk on the chat software on our website. You can leave comments on the Facebook, or YouTube, and I’d be happy to answer them for you. I’m always here at your disposal. So, I’m Dr. Alan Weidner from ‘Massage-Chair-Relief.com,’ and I will see you again in two weeks. Bye bye.

Click on the following link to watch this Massage Chair Industry Update on our YouTube channel.

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