Infinity Overture

We received the new Infinity Overture massage chair in our California and Utah showrooms this past week. I’ve been excited about this new model since I saw it at the Las Vegas Furniture Market in January. It has been a popular pre-sell model for us since it was announced there. It has virtually the same silhouette as the Infinity Presidential but with a slightly different feature set. I spent 2 hours on it this morning feverishly writing notes about it’s function. This article is the final product of those notes. By the way, you have no idea how hard it is to write notes when sitting on an operating massage chair! I hope you find this review helpful.

1. Quad (4) Rollers – Although the roller system is a 3D/4D L-track with quad (4 ) rollers, like the Presidential, it has a somewhat different feel. Because of that, I suspect it uses an altogether different roller mechanism. I can’t be sure, but it felt different in the neck and low back, which made me think it is a different mech. I’m not saying it’s better or worse…just different. It reached down to the bottom of my buttocks and all the way up to the middle of the back of my skull. Their literature says this chair will fit someone up to 6’6″ tall. I have no doubt that it will, but, like the literature from most companies whose chairs we carry, the height limits are a bit high for actually getting the neck massaged in a tall body. In other words, someone 6’6″ tall will surely fit in the chair, but the roller track may not reach the top of their neck.
2. Roller Track Build Quality – I couldn’t help but feel that the build quality of this chair is very good. The rollers seem very solid. Sometimes a chair can feel like the rollers are going to fall off any moment, but the Overture felt solid throughout. By the way, when the chair is shut off, the rollers park under the buttocks. I could actually feel the rollers lifting my butt up from the cavernous cavity that is the roller track home. For folks who say that massage chairs don’t support your back all that well when the rollers aren’t being used, it may ease your mind (and back) a bit knowing that you are getting some low back and pelvic support from the rollers, albeit very simple.
3. J-Track vs. L-Track Roller Technology – I’ve spoken about the differences between the L-track and it’s variant, the J-track. The Overture is one of the few J-tracks that is out there. You can watch this video I made a while back explaining the differences between the S-track, L-track, and J-track roller systems… http://track.reviews/jtrackltrack. The glute and piriformis massage is virtually the same, but the more obtuse angle (approx. 135 degrees vs. 90 degrees) facilitates a better stretch program, for which L-tracks are notoriously bad! A perfect segue into this next point…
4. Stretch Program – L-track models cannot offer the kind of stretch programs that
   

   Reclined stretch program

   S-track chairs have for one primary reason: the L-track cannot flatten out to a horizontal position allowing the chair to fully extend the user’s body to get an effective stretch. The J-track changes that. The chair can get much closer to a horizontal position because the J-track does not have a hard 90 angle between torso and seat. It is more like 135 degrees, which is a heck of a lot closer to the 180 degree horizontal position than 90 degrees. That is a large reason why the stretch in the Infinity Overture is the best I’ve seen in any extended roller track configuration. The other reason is that the ottoman is high enough off the ground that it can drop down quite a bit to really give the spine a pull, while the shoulder airbags are pinning the shoulders down. I really loved it. It was quite strong and felt akin to an S-track stretch. I noticed that the heel airbags didn’t grab my foot as much as the Presidential, but the overall pull on the legs was quite satisfactory.

5. 3D/4D Rollers – It appears as though the roller depth can only be adjusted in the Manual settings and not during any of the Auto programs. I’ve asked Infinity about this to make sure I’m not missing something. I like it when I can adjust the depth of the rollers in any program I am in, be it Auto or Manual programs.  Having said that, the overall intensity of the chair’s rollers is strong. Even with the 3D/4D depth adjustment capability in the Manual programs only, the difference between highest and lowest intensity is not that much. The 4D menu is located in the Manual settings of the remote. When you want to adjust the depth of the rollers, and you are in the Manual 4D menu, just tap the “OK” button on the remote to increase or decrease the depth one level. You do not need to push and hold the “OK” button. It won’t help. You have to momentarily tap/push it only once for each depth change.
6. Wireless Remote Control – A very nice feature. Other than the concern for
   

   Remote control

   misplacing or outright losing the remote (ala TV remotes that go missing from time to time!), I found the freedom from the wire “leash” to be quite refreshing. It is a heavy remote that has the feeling of quality in that heaviness alone. I like it very much. It feels good in my hands. It comes with a charging cord that plugs into a USB port at the inside front of the right arm rest and into the remote control. I suppose you could charge any device through that USB port, like your phone, while you are enjoying your splendid massage program. The power button needs to be held down for 4-5 seconds to turn on and about the same to turn off. If, during one of your chair sessions, the remote control display goes black, just push any button on the remote and the screen will “wake up” again for you.

7. Pair Your Wireless Remote With Your Chair – To pair your remote control to your new chair for the first time, do the following: a.) Turn on the chair, b.) Hold the MENU and OK buttons at the same time for 4 seconds. The screen should indicate that the Bluetooth pairing has begun. c.) The Bluetooth icon will light up on the screen display. d.) After successful pairing is complete, turn the controller off and on again and your wireless remote is now ready to operate your massage chair. Your remote and chair will connect every time after the pairing is done. One of our customers had trouble getting the remote paired with the chair. What finally worked was laying the remote at the back of the chair by the power switch and the pairing eventually happened. After it’s paired, you are in good shape. Just a tip if you have trouble pairing the remote.
8. Quick Keys – The Infinity Overture has another, more simple remote control
   

   Quick Keys

   built into the top of the right arm rest. I like to call these types of controls “Quick Keys”. It contains just enough buttons to get you started in an Auto program as well as position the chairback and the ottoman/footrest to where you want it. It also has a button for the 2-stage zero gravity positioning (2-stage means the chair has two different zero gravity positions). The Quick Keys also include a power button as well as an emergency stop button. Very convenient for fast and easy chair operations.

9. Speech Recognition Feature – If using the remote or even the Quick Keys are too cumbersome, you can activate the Speech Recognition Feature by simply saying aloud the words “Turn on speech recognition mode”. Once you do, the chair will speak back to you through the speakers that it is activated. Then, you can speak any of a list of commands to get the chair to respond. Words like “Voice Off”, or “Massage Chair Shut Down”, or “Body Stretch”, or “Pain Relief”, etc. The list of commands are conveniently located on the back of the remote control. I tried it today and it was VERY easy to use…not to mention that it’s kinda cool.
10. Air Ionizer – The ionizer is a feature that uses some kind of ionizing technology to clean the air, around your face, of pollutants. Or, at the very least, it blows “fresh” air around your face. The ports for air passage are located on either side of the your head, just below the music system speakers. To turn on this feature, you just have to press the “OK” button before selecting anything from the chair’s menu. You turn it off the same way.
11. Bluetooth Music System – You can also pair your personal device with the chair in order to play your playlists over the stereo speaker system of the chair. The speakers are pretty decent. Just go into your phone’s Bluetooth settings and look for a device with the word “Overture” included in the device name. On my Utah chair, the Infinity Overture chair is called “overture1810020”. I’m not sure if it is the same on every Overture chair or unique to your chair.
12. Calf Massage – This model has a great combination of modalities to make your calf massage a truly therapeutic experience. Of course, as with pretty much all massage chairs, the Infinity Overture has calf airbags that compress the calf muscles. Well, additionally, this model facilitates the up-and-down movement of the calf airbags, creating a kneading or, in Infinity’s terms, “oscillating” of the calf muscles by said air bags. To top it all off, this model has 4 rollers behind each calf that add to the whole therapeutic experience. If you stand, walk, or run a lot during your day, you will love the calf massage.
13. Mechanical Foot Rollers – Nowadays, we certainly expect a massage chair to have mechanical foot rollers, but something that not many chairs have is the ability to adjust the speed/intensity of those foot rollers. The Infinity Overture has “Quick”, “Slow”, and “Off” options for that feature. Nice to have some choice since feet can be quite sensitive for many different folks.
14. Heat – You have 3 independent heating options: back, waist, and feet. You can have 1,2, or 3 of the heating elements working at the same time. You can also adjust the temperature of the heating elements through the remote control. I was a bit confused by the ON and OFF menu items. I didn’t feel heat after using the chair for quite a few minutes. I went into the Heat menu item and it said “Back ON”, “Waist ON”, and “Feet ON”. I figure they were on! Well, it actually meant that the heating elements were off and, to turn them on, I had to select the “ON” display option, at which time the display changed to “Back OFF”, “Waist OFF”, and “Feet OFF”. A little confusing at first but quite manageable once you get the hang of it. As a side note, the feet heat combined with the mechanical foot rollers and the foot airbags makes for a wonderfully therapeutic experience.
15. Massage Quality – I found that the neck massage was strong, with the suboccipital muscles (under the skull – I like to call them the headache muscles) getting a great massage. The midback area, like with all chairs, is quite strong, but I really noticed and enjoyed how far out laterally the rollers traveled during the kneading; it felt like the rollers were hitting the outer third of my rib cage. The low back/lumbar massage was a bit lighter than I had expected. The strength of the roller massage in the buttock area was very good.
16. Sequential Arm Massage – I like arm massage that employs more than one air cell per side because this air cell configuration creates a sequential massage. It gives you the feeling that the movement of your blood and lymph circulation is being supported and encouraged by successive compression of those air cells. The arm massage also has rubber nobules on the surface of the material that touches your skin. These nobules act as “grippers” to keep your arm in place during the air cell compression.
17. “Quick Relaxation” Program – This is an auto program with it’s own button on the remote control. It is an easy way to get started in the chair without having to mess around with the remote. It is an 8 minutes program that is ideal for a quick in-and-out massage (a great “Demo” program for our showrooms!).
18. “Pain Relief” Program – I gave all the programs a try and I really liked the way the “Pain Relief” program worked my low & mid back. It was quite vigorous in terms of roller activity and intensity in conjunction with concurrent air bag deployment and body positioning. Something I didn’t even notice until I tried this program was the hip airbags. A lot of L-track chairs do not have hip airbags. These ones grabbed the sides of my hips during the “Pain Relief” program and anchored my pelvis into the chair while the rollers worked the area over and the chair positioning changed from flexion to extension. I really like this program. I would recommend it to those of you who have low and/or mid back pain.

Of course, this chair comes with all the other things you’d expect in an L-track (or J-track) chair today, like body scanning, auto restore, session timer display on remote, zero gravity (2-stage), space saver, nice color options, 5 year limited warranty, and great customer support from Infinity.

I hope this review helps you in your decision-making process of buying a new massage chair!

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.