Massage Chair News & Notes

April 1, 2016
 By Dr. Alan Weidner
April 1, 2016
 By Dr. Alan Weidner

Massage Chair News & Notes

The biggest news right now is all the new models that have come out in the last week. Infinity announced 2 new models and Ogawa announced one more. We have also dropped some models from our website.

Before I go into the models changes, I thought I’d give you a link to a YouTube video made by one of my customers. This video shows you how to assemble the Panasonic MA73 massage chair. It’s a better video than any of mine and is a great resource for anyone who purchases this model. Here is the video…

Good job, Matt, and thanks for this great resource!!

Human Touch has decided to pull it’s HT-7120 and the HT-Bali from the online distributor sites, including ours. So, we have taken them down. However, I do have a black HT-Bali floor model from my Utah showroom for sale now. I’ll sell it for $3200. Let me know if this interests you.

Infinity announced two new models this last week, one of which is particularly interesting to me:

Infinity IT-8500X3 Massage Chair

Infinity IT-8500X3

Infinity IT-8500X3

The IT-8500 has been our top selling Chinese-made chair for years, but the one thing it didn’t have that a lot of folks wanted, was the 3D roller technology. If you are unfamiliar with the  term “3D rollers”, it means that you can move the rollers forward and back to increase or decrease the roller massage intensity. It is a nice feature to have, but a lot of the chairs don’t have it. Infinity introduced the new Infinity IT-8500X3 to offer the 3D roller experience for the discriminating user.

Along with the new 3D roller technology, the IT-8500X3 also comes with Bluetooth synch technology to allow you to play the music directly from your phone. The old IT-8500 had a USB port at the back of the chair into which you would plug in a jump drive with your music previously downloaded from your computer. Although not many folks buy a massage chair for the music system, this does make it easier to access your playlists.

The remote control on this chair is also new…it looks more like the Infinity Iyashi remote – more slender and sleeker. It is also not a pedestal remote control like the IT-8500; the new remote can be tucked away out of sight. This chair has some additional auto programs that incorporate the 3D roller technology.

One last feature this chair has is the neck auto-extend. As it is explained to me by my friends at Infinity, when the rollers come up to the neck region, they extend further forward into your neck muscles to increase the intensity of the neck massage as well as to traction the neck intervertebral segments a bit. I haven’t experienced it yet, but am very curious to see how that feels.

Incidentally, all the rest of the chair is the same as the older IT-8500. It looks the same, has the same number of airbags, and has the same speaker system. You wouldn’t be able to tell the difference from the exterior of this chair…except for maybe the absence of the remote control pedestal.

It is available in black, dark brown, and taupe – the same colors as the IT-8500. Price: $5495

Infinity Evoke Massage Chair

Infinity Evoke

Infinity Evoke

This chair was introduced by Infinity as a direct competitor to the popular, but older Osaki OS-4000T. It is priced the same, but is really quite a different chair and offers some great, newer features:

  • Zero Gravity
  • Deep Tissue Massage
  • Space-saving Technology
  • Airbags from Head to Toe
  • Lumbar Heat
  • Foot Rollers
  • Heel Rubber

I haven’t seen or tried this model at all, but it sounds like a great bang for the buck. Definitely a chair to consider if you are looking for a chair in tha price range. It is available in black and dark brown and is priced at $2695.

Ogawa Smart 3D Massage Chair

Ogawa Smart 3D Tablet

Ogawa Smart 3D Tablet

This is Ogawa’s 3rd offering to the market and it is quite unique, based on their literature. Here is the feature list:

Full Control through our Ogawa App that Comes Pre-Installed on a Samsung Android Tablet

On-Demand 3D Massage with 5 Strength Settings

3D Body Scan that Maps the Users BioMetric Profile and makes Micro Adjustments throughout the Massage

Patented SmartSense Technology that controls the PSI in the Ottoman Airbags and Length Adjustments

Updatable Massage Programming

Self Diagnostics for a Rapid Repair Process

Quick Touch User Controls on the Armrest

Unlimited User Profiles and Memory Settings

Interactive TryMe Video to take a User through a Visual and Sensual Demonstration of the Chair

17 Automatic Programs

Custom Massage Programs Designed for Each Individual User Profile

Samsung Tablet is WiFi Enabled and can be used as a Personal Computer

Patented Air Suspension and Insulated Frames make the Ogawa Smart 3D one of the Worlds Quietest Massage Chairs

It sounds like a very user-friendly chair. I’m not sure of the specifics of some of these features, but the ones that intrigue me are the self diagnostics, interactive TryMe video, the “air suspension” for a quieter massage, and, of course, the Tablet interactivity.

This is a pricey chair for a Chinese-made chair at $6999, but until I try it out and experience this interesting feature-set, I’ll reserve full judgement on it. But, I will tell you that I am very curious about it and look forward to giving it a go. If we do carry it in our showroom, it will be the SoCal showroom. Colors are cappuccino and black. The exterior is black on both models, so the cappuccino color is only on the interior, ala Infinity Iyashi.

Well, that’s about it for today.

Dr. Alan Weidner

P.S. Give us a “Like”, “Share”, or “+1” and leave me a comment or question below to share what you learned or ask any questions, so other folks can benefit from this material.
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