Review (1/5): More pain inducing than pain relief
Where to start with this thing...?
Pro's first I guess:
- Sturdy and well made. It was relatively easy to put together once it arrived, but somewhat cumbersome trying to do so alone. Assembly involves raising up the back seat from the bottom portion (Akin to folding up the back seat of a car) and sliding on the arm bolts into a groove, attaching the hoses, rotating it onto a metal beam, and screwing in a screw into the wooden beams of the arm through a hole in the seat.
- The S-Beam thing was pretty powerful, so it is definitely capable of doing that "deep tissue" massage on your back but is more of a Con in this case (Will describe later)
- Leg supports were "extendable" (according to the exact words of the images on the product) in that if you pushed hard enough, the spring loaded support would give out a bit and allow the leg segment to go out a bit. If you didn't apply constant pressure, it would spring back into place (somewhat of a con / misleading feature advertisement)
Now for the Cons:
- The biggest and most glaring issue is that this thing *caused* more pain than helped it. The S-Track system they have in place is falsely advertised in their product video and images showing the track going all the way down to the hips / buttocks. This is not even remotely the case. It stops right at the lower back. I have attached a screenshot of their product demonstration video and a red line indicating exactly where the S-Track system *actually* goes down to. In addition to the fact that the massage is not complete, this is compounded by the fact that the product description lists the width of the rollers as "adjustable" This is also *not* the case as there is no method to do so from the user's controller. The rollers DO adjust outwards and inwards, but this is a feature of the massage, not something that the user can control to suit their needs. A bit of deliberate misleading on their part, if you ask me.
- As stated before, the S-Track system isn't at all what it advertised as. We also had no indication of this "Body Scan" feature working as intended. The instructions state that when you turn on the unit, it scans your body. There is no LED / Indicator / noise / alert / etc. indicating that this is taking place. When we turned on the unit it just immediately going into a default massage mode. There were no buttons to invoke this feature manually, nor any way to adjust the body settings. You get a rudimentary "Massage Type", "Intensity Setting" and a "manual mode" where you can direct the S-Track to a specific spot up or down the track. Thats all.
- The Air pouches that are used are WAY too strong. I had this thing turned all they way down on the "Intensity" setting and the air pouches were still cutting off circulation of our wrists on both myself and my fiance who used it. The feeling is akin to placing your entire arm in one of those blood pressure arm cuffs filled to the maximum - It is not enjoyable and it does not feel relaxing, it just borderline hurts and feels like someone is squeezing your arm. There is a video review by TJ that said the same thing, so it certainly isn't just our unit.
- There is another set of air bags that attempt to press on your shoulders, which actually did feel nice, but the sheer force on the bags hold you in place unless you make a concentrated effort to get out - this wound up causing problems later on when the S-Track got to the upper back / neck area as the rollers were so far forward for the massage it was genuinely stabbing us in the back with the air bags keeping us held in place unable to relieve the pressure of the rollers digging into our spine. The situation is hard to describe in words sadly, but effectively think it of as someone digging their elbows into your back as hard as they can with another person holding you in place unable to move - in most situations on massage chairs you can just arch your back a bit to get off the rollers until its in a more comfortable spot... You cannot do that while the shoulder bags are inflated as they hold you down pretty well. A relatively fit person like myself can get out of it easily, but this might not be the case for people purchasing this unit for medical reasons / disabilities, or for the elderly = Just something to keep in mind.
- There were no pre-drilled holes in the chair where you were required to put the screws. I triple checked the instructions to ensure what I was about to do was correct.... You must force the provided screws through the leather lining and into the wood beams inside the arm segments manually. I was not happy that I would be potentially tearing / ruining the leather to follow their instructions. If I need a screw there, pre-drill it during manufacturing.
- Chair has built in speakers on the arm units, but I have no knowledge on how to use them, nor were they listed in the instructions. There was no instructions to download any apps for the unit, nor did I see any bluetooth devices on my phone pop up while in discovery mode, so they seem to be for the chair itself, but we never heard anything aside from some female voice in what I assume to be French when we plugged the thing in the wall. There were no 3 millimeter jacks or any other type of audio jack on the chair itself.
Problems specifically related to the *SELLER* and not the chair:
There were numerous shipping issues we encountered with the third party seller here. Not only did we receive our chair, but we received half of another customer who also bought this chair in my area. We contacted the company that delivered it and we made them aware of the mistake but they had told us the earliest they can come back would be in another 2 weeks and we would have to hold on to it until then - despite that they had just been to my residence 3 hours ago. So essentially I was stuck with a 120 pound box that was about 6 feet in length in the middle of my living room. Luckily I found the intended recipients Name, Address, and Phone number and gave him a call. He was happy to come pick it up from my residence. I didn't have to wait 2 weeks to get it out of my house, and he didn't have to wait 2 weeks to get something he had paid for. The fact that the recipient had to pick up his own delivery from me because the company would not fix it in a timely manner was unacceptable. During the return process for this, I ended up having to call Amazon support today because they had come to pick it up July 9th (July 25 at time of writing) and I had not been refunded my payment even though the product was picked up from my residence more than 2 weeks ago. The support agent called them and confirmed that they had the product, but it has been sitting in the warehouse for a week and was scheduled to be sent back to the retailer sometime soon - effectively artificially delaying my refund until after the due date of my first payment on this. Props to Amazon though as the agent processed the refund for me anyway, as she confirmed they had gotten the product back from me and the third party company were just being slow. Otherwise I would be missing a credit card payment on my Amazon card for a product I technically didn't owe money for anymore.
Overall, we were not happy with this unit at all as we were suffering more pain simply using it than dealing with our existing pain so we returned it. The headache alone from the delivery company responsible for this seller is more than enough for us to void any future consideration of these products.