Review of the Luraco Legend Massage Chair

February 16, 2018
 By Dr. Alan Weidner
February 16, 2018
 By Dr. Alan Weidner

Review of the Luraco Legend Massage Chair

Luraco Legend Massage Chair

Luraco Legend

The Luraco Legend massage chair was announced at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in January 2017. It was to be the first non-Chinese L-track massage chair option in the market. It wasn’t until December of 2017 that this chair finally was released to the public. We ordered one for each of our showrooms a couple of months before the release so that we could get our hands on it as soon as possible and be able to answer customer questions which would come (and had already come during the entire 2017 year!).

When the chairs arrived in December, both of our chairs had a problem with the 3D mechanism. Luraco, to their credit, sent out a tech to each of our stores to find out what the problem was. They figured that it was a part damaged in shipping in both cases and went about making it right. It delayed further deployment of the chair, but the problem was rectified and the chairs started to roll off the line in late December/early January. We have not had a problem with the chair since! I’m glad we were able to help them with this problem that didn’t raise it’s ugly head until the chair went through the rigorous shipping process.

In my review of the Legend, I will, from time to time, reference the flagship Luraco iRobotics 7 massage chair (i7) in comparison to it, but a full comparative review will be done at another time. Here are my observations of the chair:

  1. The literature specifies height limits of 4’10” to 6’2″ tall. We have found that if you are 6’2″ and more torso than legs, the top of your neck/base of your skull may not be reached by the rollers. You may have to slump down a bit to get the rollers to hit those areas. The ottoman/leg rest has plenty of room to extend so they will fit the 6’2″ body whether you are all legs or torso.
  2. This is a 3D L-track, which means you can adjust the depth of the roller mechanism and, thus, the intensity of the roller massage. At it’s deepest point, you will get a good, strong roller massage of the neck. Like the i7, you can adjust the depth of the rollers in segments, independent of other segments. What that means is if you want to increase the depth of the rollers only in the neck or only in the buttocks or low back or mid back, you can do that independent of the other areas. It is a fantastic engineering idea that I love. Pretty much all non-Luraco chairs have 3D roller depth adjustment that, when changed, affects the depth of the entire roller mechanism.
  3. By the way, the 3D function has 5 different depth settings for each of the 4 independent sections of the spine.
  4. The Legend is a smaller chair than the i7, but looks similar in it’s overall appearance and upholstery. It has the same colors as the i7, same stitching and faux wood accents. It can handle folks up to 240 lbs and does NOT have a space saving/wall hugger feature.
  5. Elbow Airbags

    Elbow Airbags

    The Legend has hand, forearm, and shoulder airbag massage, like most other chairs nowadays, but also has an interesting elbow airbag massage. This “cuff-like” airbag mechanism inflates onto the medial and lateral epicondyles of the elbow. Fancy words for the areas of the elbow where golfer’s elbow or tennis elbow occur. It’s the first I’ve seen of this…and I like it.

  6. By the way, the forearm and hand airbags have sequentially inflating airbags, which means that there are two airbags for each side and they inflate one after the other, or sequentially, during the arm/hand massage. It is very comfortable and feels more therapeutic than just one airbag inflating like a balloon. I should also say that both sides of the arm massage inflate at the same time.
  7. The shoulder airbags are adjustable up and down for shorter and taller torsos. The purpose of the shoulder airbags are mostly for pinning down the upper torso during the stretch program and when the rollers come up the spine.
  8. 3-Tiered Leg Massage

    3-Tiered Leg Airbags

    The leg massage involves 3 tiers of airbags, one for the feet and two for the calves. I like this because for taller folks the airbags will cover more of the longer calves and for shorter folks the top tier has a good chance of massaging the knees, which is something that some folks are looking for.

  9. The calf airbags at full intensity are quite bearable. It think the airbags behind the calves are fantastic. It’s an area much neglected by most massage chairs.
  10. There are no hip airbags on this model.
  11. The Legend comes with mechanical foot rollers. The chair includes a pair of foot pads for those of you who have really sensitive feet. Those pads are already placed in the chair, under the upholstery that is directly under your feet. You can remove them by opening the velcro strip.
  12. The foot rollers work mostly the balls of the feet, but there are more under the arch of each foot although you don’t feel them as intensely as you do the rollers under the balls of your feet. The foot airbags are also programmed to move your feet from side to side across the moving foot rollers. This allows for the outer and inner most parts of the souls of your feet to also be massaged by said rollers.
  13. Although the chair will automatically adjust the foot rest portion to adjust to your leg length during the body scan, there is a sensor under your heels that you can press with your heels during the scan to lengthen the ottoman even further if the scan misses the mark. A great feature, in my opinion.
  14. The body scan of the Legend, like the i7, takes a bit longer to complete since it actually scans the entire body and not just the head and shoulder positions, like most Chinese chairs. It is shorter than that of the i7, which is 1.5 minutes long, but still a lengthy scan to map out your spine.
  15. The chair comes with two head pillows, one for head support and one for neck support. They are not attached to each other so one or both of them can be lifted out of the way if you want to experience the full depth of the neck roller massage.
  16. Remote Control - Programs

    Remote Control – Programs

    Remote Control – Settings

    The remote control is wonderful. It is smaller than that of the i7, but the same touch screen programming and icons. I find it to have a quicker response rate than the remote of the i7. It is a very easy remote control to use. There is no voice feature and no speakers/music system. That’s OK since the speakers of the i7 were nothing to write home about! There is a remote control pocket slot on the right arm rest and a Smart phone holder slot on the left arm rest.

  17. Like the i7, the Legend has a slower, more methodical massage function. Not a lot of tapping, but mostly kneading. Also, like it’s big brother, the Legend is a very quiet chair; you can hardly hear the rollers or airbags doing their thing.
  18. The Luraco Legend massage chair has quad rollers rather than the dual rollers of the i7. That means there are 4 roller balls going up and down your back rather than just 2.
  19. I love how the rollers hit the levator scapulae muscles, which are the muscles at the top of the shoulder blades. That’s the muscle you usually try to massage with your opposite hand when you have been sitting at your desk all day and your shoulders get sore. The rollers really work those muscles over well. Like most other massage chairs, though, the rollers really don’t do much for the trapezius muscles.
  20. The rollers are strong on the shoulders, neck, mid back, and lower back, but a little less intense in the lower lumbar and buttocks muscles, even at a 5/5 intensity setting.
  21. The roller track is reported to be 58″ long, which is longer than any other chair we carry. I think that because of that we all expected the rollers to go all the way down the hamstrings. Although the rollers do hit the hamstrings, it isn’t much further than other models we carry.
  22. I found something about the neck massage to be very interesting…in a good way. I could feel the quad (4) rollers doing the massage, but then it felt something like “side bars” behind my skull when the rollers went to the top of the neck. They felt like “guides” to keep my head in place while the neck was being massaged. Pretty cool feature. I liked it.
  23. The heating function covers the low back only but has 5 different heat settings. At it’s highest, it gets pretty warm.
  24. Very few massage chairs have a memory function, wherein you can save a program, be it an auto program or your own custom concoction, for future use. That way, with the push of a button you can bring back a massage program, and your associated settings, that you really liked before. The Legend massage chair will allow you to have 5 different programs memorized for instant recall. Great feature!
  25. There are 9 programs for the Luraco Legend massage chair. Most of them are fairly self explanatory. One of the 9 is a stretch program. A lot of customers want a good stretch program in a massage chair. L-track chairs tend to have weaker stretch programs than regular S-track chairs. But, I must say that I rather like the stretch program of the Legend. I thought I’d explain the sequence of what went on during the stretch program:
    1. The arm and shoulder airbags inflate while the chair reclines about 45 degrees and the ottoman rises to horizontal.
    2. The calf and foot airbags inflate to grab the legs firmly, yet comfortably.
    3. The heel airbags inflate to really grab the feet before the ottoman drops down and the chair reclines even further. While this is going on, the rollers are pushing forward on the mid back while the shoulder airbags are still pinning down the upper torso.
    4. The culmination of all these concurrent activities results in the low back being tractioned, i.e. stretched.
    5. The stretch program goes through this sequence repeatedly during the entire time of the program.

Well, that about does it for the Luraco Legend massage chair review. Feel free to ask any questions that I perhaps didn’t address here. At the time of this writing, the Luraco Legend is selling for $6990 and comes with a 3 year parts & labor warranty with an additional 2 years of parts coverage beyond that.

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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