Last month I wrote a pretty lengthy review of the Osaki Pro Maestro massage chair. It is quite a popular model and has some wonderful features. Regarding the topic of the manual settings, I wrote the following:

When you go into the “Manual” section of the remote control, prepare to be confused! You’ll see 4 menu options: “Neck/Shoulder”, “Upper Back”, “Lower Back”, and “Full Back.” When you select “Neck/Shoulder”, “Upper Back”, or “Lower Back” the screen will display 4 options labeled “Characteristic I”, “Characteristic II”, “Characteristic III”, and “Characteristic IV”. It turns out that these are each auto programs for 3 of the 4 Manual program options. I have no idea what each one does or what makes one unique from another. That is nowhere to be found in the owner’s manual. The counter intuitive thing about this is that you can’t adjust the modes, speed, or permanent roller positioning during any of these “Manual” and “Characteristic” programs. So, from what I can tell, there isn’t anything manual about them. However, if you choose the last option, “Full Back”, you can now select and adjust the roller mode (kneading, tapping, shaitsu, and rolling) as well as select a spot or partial massage. This is the only place where the spot and partial massage and roller modes can be selected, adjusted, and set. Although the “Spot” and “Partial” options are displayed in all of the manual subprograms, it can only be permanently set in the “Full Back” program. If you try to move the rollers in those other programs, they will move but as soon as you take your finger off the screen the rollers will go back to the pre-set positioning for that particular program.

After my experience and review, we had other customers contact us, inquiring about the same thing to find out if we had figured out what these programs represented. Although they are listed under the “Manual” section of the programming, they really are a type of auto program since everything is preset and can’t really be adjusted once you are in any of them. We petitioned Osaki Titan for an explanation of what the “Characteristic” programs were.  Here is what we got back from Osaki Titan:

Characteristic 1: Rolling type massage, Low strength, small section of only 4-10 Inches

This characteristic starts out with a slow roll very light and then does a deeper in to lighter up rolling, focusing on the immediate tissue on either side of the spine.

Characteristic 2: Rolling and kneading massage styles, Wider roller head position, small section of only 4-10 Inches, Middle intensity

This Characteristic adds heat at certain points and combines kneading to relax and release tension.

Characteristic 3: Shiatsu and Rolling massage styles, Lower and Longer strokes, Middle intensity.

This Characteristic has heat and combines Shiatsu to break up knots and loosen tension in the back.

Characteristic 4: Very unique slow pressure point style massage. At points it adds some kneading, but is mainly meant to focus on knots and deep tough tension.