The New Inada Nest Massage Chair

I spoke of the Inada Nest massage chair in my video recording of my visit to the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) back in January. It is a new model from Inada that has some pretty cool features, which I will get into below. Inada just announced that they are taking pre-orders of this new model prior to the April 1, 2017 launch date. You can see the video, and the demo from my Inada rep, here…

I was quite impressed with this chair. It looks a lot like a hybrid between the Inada DreamWave, which has been Inada’s flagship chair since it overwhelmed the market 8 years ago, and the Flex 3S, a smaller chair with a very mild massage and awesome stretch function.

But, a few of the features of this new model really separate it from it’s predecessors:

1. 3D LR Roller technology – This feature employs quad rollers, with the left two and the right two rollers acting independent of each other, in terms of mobility along the spine. Imagine a car that has independent suspension for the left and right wheels. That is kinda like what the Inada Nest has in terms of the roller system. In my mind, I see this being of great benefit particularly for folks with a spinal curvature. Undoubtedly, there is an imbalance of the musculature on either side of the spinal curvature that would merit different attention from the left and right side rollers. One side may be hypertonic (tight) and the opposite compensatory side may have more flaccid (loose) muscles. This chair will address those differences with 3D LR feature.
2. Redesigned Roller Balls – Honestly, I’m somewhat surprised that his hasn’t been invented before
   

   Inada Nest Rollers

   now. It is quite ingenious but seems intuitively appropriate for a massage chair. Rather than having smooth surfaced roller balls, the roller system uses a “corrugated” or ridged roller ball surface. To me, the texture reminds me of a small pumpkin with it’s typical ridges around the sides. When I sat on the chair at CES, the rollers really felt like they were digging deeper into the levator scapulae muscles (top of the shoulder blades) better than most other chairs. I couldn’t help but think that the ridged roller balls were contributing to that deeper massage feel.

3. Self-Adjusting Headrest – Another feature that makes intuitive sense. When the chair back inclines or reclines, the headrest will move with the body to make sure it stays behind the user’s head, regardless of the height of the user. In many massage chairs, when the chair reclines fully, the headrest gets pulled up higher than the head of the user. Can be irritating and frustrating when you are trying to relax and not worry about your body positioning.
4. Targeted Shin Massage – The Nest has a calf massage that not only wraps around the greater part of the circumference of the calves, but also has nodules in the front-most part of the air cells that dig into the shin muscles (anterior tibialis) when the air cells inflate. This provides a shin massage similar to how the foot nobules massage the feet of non-foot roller chairs. If you run a lot and/or have shin splints, this is a very interesting feature.

The new Inada Nest also has these other features, more typical of most massage chairs:

Inada Nest Massage Chair

1. 64 aircells
2. 11 auto programs
3. Full arm massage (similar to the DreamWave)
4. Whole body scanning
5. Can fit users 5’0″ to 6’2″ tall

I’m looking forward to having this model in both of our showrooms in April. Once we have them there, I will provide a more comprehensive review of the chair.

Dr. Alan Weidner

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