The Novo XT massage chair from Human Touch is a unique massage chair that offers a 3D L-track
feature that is not too common at the time of this writing. This chair is manufactured in China but some of the design and engineering input is made by the engineers at Human Touch here in the USA. It has taken me a bit to learn some of the nuances of this chair, which I mention below, but now that I have an understanding of how things work, I have found this chair to be very easy to use and understand. It has a lot of versatility, from the 3D L-track to 30 auto programs to a different type of body scan…and much more.
Here is a point by point discussion and review of this very popular addition to Human Touch’s Ascent line of massage chairs:
- To begin with, the chair appearance is pretty sleek. It has a unibody-type design which creates a
modern look. It comes in a variety of colors, including black, brown, red, cream, dark gray. We have the brown and dark gray in our showrooms. Both very nice colors. The brown is not a dark espresso-type color. It is a somewhat lighter brown, but certainly not beige. You can see the brown color in the image to the right.
- The Novo XT is manufactured in China at the Rongtai factory (same factory that manufactures some of the Infinity chairs, including the Iyashi). Rongtai chairs are known to be quite well built. Some of the designing and engineering is done at Human Touch’s main office in Long Beach, CA.
- One of the first things you’ll notice in this chair is how surprisingly quiet it is for a Chinese-made chair. I was quite impressed by that.
- The chair has a nice fit for pretty much any body type. When you sit in the chair, you feel comfortably snug and “surrounded” by the chair body. It is listed as being able to handle someone as tall as 6’9″, although I would say that the rollers would certainly not reach the neck of someone that tall. However, they could most likely still fit in the chair.
- The Novo XT massage chair comes an L-track roller system, with 3D roller depth adjustment, and quad rollers (4 roller balls). The 3D adjustment button is found under the “Menu” and “Settings” navigation items. You can adjust the depth of the rollers in manual and auto programs, but you will notice that when you change the roller depth in an auto program, it may not remain at the number which you selected. There are 5 depth choices and if you choose 1 “3”, you may return to the menu later in the program and see that it is now a “1” or a “2”. I asked Human Touch why the selected depth did not remain constant and this was the reply from the engineers: “The intensity setting relates to the maximum intensity of the 3D movement, as opposed to a fixed setting. For example, if you set the intensity to a “3”, it will adjust during the program between the low end and the middle of the 3D movement range. If you set it to “Strong” (“5″), it will adjust during the program across the full 3D movement range.” I take this to mean that whatever depth number you select, the chair’s roller depth will fluctuate between the lowest setting and the number you select, in this case a “3”. If you choose the “5”, or strongest depth setting, the depth will fluctuate between “1” and “5”. I hope this makes sense. It is a dynamic, not static, depth setting based on the number you select.
- The engineers go on to say that all the “Deep Tissue” programs are automatically set to full intensity, i.e. “5”.
- There is a bar graph on the remote control main screen which represents the 3D depth of the rollers. It is NOT a precise correlation to the actual 3D intensity setting, but rather a general representation/image.
- Speaking of the remote control, there are two pouches to house the remote when not in use. Both pouches are located at the inside aspect of each arm rest. Perfect for righties or lefties!
- The default time for a program is 20 minutes, however you can adjust the program lengths in increments of 10′ up to 30′.
- This chair comes with mechanical foot rollers and what’s kinda cool about them is that you can adjust the speed of the rollers. Foot pads also come with this chair so even at it’s slowest speed, you can make it feel less intense with those pads.
- Besides the foot rollers, the Novo XT massage chair also comes with foot airbags that inflate on one side and then the other thus pushing the foot across the rollers from side to side. Among the airbags of the feet, there is one that grabs the heels to hold them in place nicely during the massage. The foot airbags began to feel a little much after a while (I was sitting in the chair for close to two hours evaluating the chair for this review!). You can adjust the intensity of the airbags pushing your feet across the rollers, but you can’t shut off the foot rollers. The foot pads would come in handy at a time like that.
- The arm airbag cover material is linen with rubber nobules that “grab” your forearms so that your arms don’t slip out of the airbags when they inflate. This is very similar to that of the Infinity Iyashi, which is built in the same factory in China. The airbags inflate sequentially in the arms, as well, which enhances circulation of the blood and lymph. The arms have 3 sequential airbags while the calves have 2 sequential airbags behind the calves. The arm massage feels fabulous in the Novo XT.
- The body scan of the Novo XT massage chair works a little differently on this model than others. Rather than the chair automatically determining your shoulder and head height, a screen pops up immediately with a body chart and numbers 1-9, “9” representing the tallest body and “1” representing a short body. You set your own height and if you don’t get it right at the beginning of the massage, you can adjust the roller height anytime during the program simply by changing the height number on the screen.
- Another interesting feature I like about this chair is that you can select 3 different regional/zone massages in the manual settings. Most, if not all, other chairs have a spot massage and a regional massage option in the manual mode. The spot massage has the rollers stay in one place (of your choice) and the regional massage usually rolls up and down around the spot of your choice in a 6″ or so radius. With this chair, you can select short, medium, or long zone massages. That way, you can have the modalities you want covering a larger or smaller region rather than a spot massage or a whole spine massage. By the way, you can adjust the height of the rollers in the spot or regional manual massages.
- Many massage chairs offer a weak neck massage. The Novo XT is not one of them. You can feel the rollers dig into your neck musculature very effectively. And remember that you can adjust the depth of the rollers in your neck to make it more or less intense.
- The Novo XT also offers a good roller massage experience in the glutes and piriformis muscles. If you’ve never tried an L-track chair, you will love the butt massage. The Novo XT massage chair does a great job at it, plus, again, you can make it more or less intense with the 3D settings.
- This chair offers a good low back and mid back massage in that it “rubs” across the muscles rather than just kneading the muscles. A great full-spine massage, in my opinion.
- The roller width adjustment only works in modalities other than kneading.
- You can turn on and off the heat function of the Novo XT massage chair, but there is not a heat intensity adjustment with this chair.
- The remote control has a voice response and it comes in 4 different languages: English, Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese.
- When you end a program prematurely, you will have to select a couple of different things on the
remote display to get the chair upright. First of all, press the power button. At that point, a “Stop” and “Power Off” selection will appear. Move to the “Power Off” option with the remote directional buttons and press the enter button (“OK”) to stop the chair’s functioning program. When that is selected, the word “Restore” will appear on the screen. Hit the enter button (“OK”) again to select that option. That will bring the chair back to it’s upright position. This last option is a safety feature. It reminds you to check under the ottoman to make sure a pet or child is not hiding underneath the calf and foot rollers before bringing the chair upright.
- You can electronically adjust the length of the leg ottoman of the Novo XT massage chair by using the buttons on the remote control face. Usually the chair scans the leg length pretty good, but sometimes you will need to make a little adjustment to fit your legs better in the ottoman.
- When you select the “Auto” button on the remote face, you will be given the option to select each of the 6 main auto programs. Each of those main auto programs also have 4 sub programs from which you can also choose: Shiatsu, Swedish, Sports, and Thai. The Energize main auto program also has a “Stretch” option, which is the chair’s stretch program. You can only reach those sub programs by pressing the “Menu” button and then selecting the auto programs button to sift through the options. Together with the 3- 3D programs, you have a total of 30 different auto programs to choose from. You could be using your chair for hours to finally get through all of the options!
- The stretch program is something that I see a lot of people looking for on any massage chair. The stretch program (remember, it is a sub program of the main “Energize” program) of the Novo XT massage chair tightly squeezes the shoulders with the shoulder airbags andย then the calf and foot airbags grab the legs before the ottoman drops down. This creates the extension stretch of the spine which so many people like about massage chairs. Because this is an L-track chair, the chair does not recline completely horizontally so the stretch on an L-track chair is never as strong as that of a regular S-track chair, i.e. Infinity IT-8500.
- The stretch program involves primarily the rollers hitting the low back area while the shoulder, arm, and leg airbags do their thing.
- This chair has BlueTooth connectivity so that you can play the music from your device over the chair’s speaker system once you have paired your device with the chair. Nothing to write home about as far as sound quality goes, but speakers are included nonetheless.
- There is only 1 zero gravity setting and the button to recline the chair in that zero gravity position is on the remote face.
The Novo XT massage chair from Human Touch is a fantastic overall L-track chair, with all the features you could possibly want in a new massage chair, including the 3D roller feature. It’s priced at $7999 and on our site and showrooms we include the full 5 year premium protection extended warranty and white glove delivery with that price. When it first came out, I had my doubts about folks paying that price for a Chinese-made massage chair. But, Human Touch’s engineering and design input have been worth the money and customers are quite willing to spend their money on this latest addition to our high end line of massage chairs. It has become a very popular chair in our showroom because of it’s versatility for massage, overall feel, and body fitting.
If you have any questions, feel free to comment on this article below or call or chat with us at anytime. I am always at your disposal to assist you in the decision making process.
Dr. Alan Weidner
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