I had a wonderful visit to the Las Vegas Furniture Market this last week and will share with you what I learned. I have already posted 3 videos from the trip on our YouTube channel, each video representing a visit with a different supplier of ours.
My video of my visit with Jim Coppins, co-founder of Infinity Massage Chairs, and his demo of the new Overture model was somehow deleted from my video camera and I have been unable to recover it (I'm pretty sure that I'm the one who deleted it, being so savy with electronics and stuff!). So, I will be visiting them in March for a personal tour of their new facility and to go over the new Infinity Overture in greater detail.
Synca Wellnes JP110o & Kagra
These were the two models that Synca had on display at the Furniture Market. They are new models for Synca. The Synca JP1100 massage chair is the first Japanese-made massage chair with mechanical foot rollers. It also comes with a 5 year parts & labor, in-home warranty, which we've not seen before as a factory warranty. Quite impressive. It also comes with dual rollers, instead of 4 rollers, for a deeper more target-specific massage.
The Kagra is an upgraded version of the Johnson J6800, which I learned from the rep will be phased out along with the whole Johnson line. They are moving towards the Synca line being their primary line-up. The Kagra is a Chinese-made chair but with the design and engineering input from former Panasonic, Inada, and Fuji engineers.
You can see the video of my visit here...
DreamWave M8
As I have discussed before in my Massage Chair Industry Update, DreamWave is a new line of chairs. The old, familiar Inada DreamWave is now called the DreamWave Classic and the M8 is the newest model for this new line. It is the brainchild of Cliff Levin, President of Inada USA and Furniture For Life. It is a 3D L-track chair with a very unique feature that we've never seen before...arm rests that swing open like a car door. It allows for older, less mobile folks and people with back pain to get into the chair easier, a problem we've experienced in our showrooms. It is a beautiful chair, made in Japan, and is a great sequel to the DreamWave Classic. It also has mechanical foot rollers and chromotherapy that turns on when you approximate the chair in a darker room. You can check out my interview with Ian Hays, VP of Sales for FFL, in this video at the Furniture Market..
It won't be fully deployed until May or June of this year. It will be priced in the $9500-$10,000 price range.
Osaki Titan
We dropped by the Osaki Titan showroom and saw an array of many of their models, some of which we carry. They had a new floor model called the Osaki First Class. It is also a 3D L-track chair with the usual features, i.e. mechanical foot rollers, zero gravity, BlueTooth, etc. It has a strong base of neck/shoulders massage, like the Maestro (made in the same factory). It has a comfortable fit and a great stretch program for an L-track. Not sure if we'll be carrying it, but should have a better idea in the weeks to come. Take a look here...
Infinity
As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, my video interview with Jim Coppins mysteriously disappeared so I can't show you the Overture. I can tell you, though, that is another high end 3D L-track chair and an upgrade of the Infinity Presidential. It is a J-track chair (you can search J-track vs. L-track on my site search field to see what the differences are) that also has air ionizing, voice recognition, calf rollers and oscillating calf airbags, a USB charging port and a very nice wireless remote. Although I don't have the video, at least I have a picture of Jim Coppins, Michael Milone, and to prove I was really there!
I will do a thorough video on the Overture when I go visit their new headquarters in New Hampshire in March. Stay tuned.
Human Touch
Although Human Touch did not have a presence at Las Vegas Furniture Market this year, we met our contact from the company, Cathy Lou, at the Furniture Market for lunch and a chit chat about Human Touch's newest offering, the Super Novo. It is like the XT2 but with some upgrades that escape me now, but I will discuss it in detail after I've sat on it at their headquarters in Long Beach, CA. It's just a skip and a jump from our Cerritos showroom.
uKnead
I had a chance to see my friends, Nina and John, who own the run the uKnead massage chair business. Although they don't have any new products right now, they still had a booth at the Furniture Market. They are working on a 3D L-track as we speak and hope to have it later this year. Great people, great visiting with them again.
Cozzia/Ogawa
I visited the Cozzia showroom, although I only have a couple of their e-commerce models on my site. We can't carry the "good" Cozzia chairs on my site unless I have at least 4 different Cozzia models in at least one of my showrooms. Well, I don't have room for 4 models of any one brand in my showrooms, so it may be a long while before we can carry any fancy Cozzia models on our site. I put a brief video on our Facebook page of a blinged up Ogawa Smart 3D, which caught my eye when I walked into the showroom. Go check it out. I think you'll get a kick out of it like I did.
https://www.facebook.com/massage.chair.relief/
I also had a chance to learn a bit more about the new Fujimedic Kumo massage chair, purportedly the first Japanese-made L-track chair. It is built by EasePal, which is the same company that builds the Cozzia and Ogawa models. It has been a bit of a mystery to all of us until this last week when I spoke with the Cozzia rep at the Market. I found out that it has Chinese-made components AND Japanese-made components. It looks just like the Cozzia QiSE, with the same body, roller mechanism, and non-critical components. The assembly, Quality Control, and some programming is done in Japan. It is not associated with other Fuji products, although the name is a bit misleading. The name will be changed to the JP Medics Kumo at some point.
