Best Massage Chair Recliners Reviews & Ratings

So, the first, obvious question is why?  What was it about this model, out of all the massage chairs on the market today, that made it our top pick?

It didn’t get a perfect rating.  It’s not the most expensive chair on the planet, and it doesn’t have the best price to feature ratio. What then? It’s a fair question, and ultimately it comes down to this:

Let’s take a closer look at each of these items, in the order we presented them above. Starting with the massage track.

Massage Track

The Human Touch Novo XT utilizes a hybrid L/S track that extends for 50”, starting at your neck and extending down under the seat to give your glutes and the backs of your thighs a massage. The track length is insane – one of the longest in the industry at the time this review was written.

Quad Rollers + 3D Tech

Quad rollers are the current industry standard. While they don’t precisely mimic the feeling of human hands, they come surprisingly close, and render an exceptional roller-based massage.

In addition to that, the fact that the Novo XT incorporates 3D roller technology (sometimes referred to as “4D technology”) further enhances your massage experience. It accomplishes this by allowing the rollers to move away from the massage track by up to three inches, resulting in a deeper, more penetrating massage experience.

Lumbar Heat + Body Stretch

A great massage though, is about more than just the rollers, and on this front too, the Novo XT delivers, offering both lumbar heat and body stretching, which are two powerful therapeutic features that are capable of providing immediate relief to chronic pain sufferers.

Connectivity Support

On the convenience side, the Novo XT offers Bluetooth compatibility, which enables you to connect your smartphone to the chair’s eight built-in Altec Lansing speakers, allowing you to enjoy your favorite music while enjoying a relaxing massage. On top of that, you’ll also find a USB port that allows you to recharge your phone while you’re sitting in the chair.

Zero Gravity Seating

Massage Options

Music Sync

The music sync massage isn’t a proper technique, but it is interesting.  It ties the action of the rollers to the music system built into the chair, with the motion of the rollers being determined by the beat of whatever music you’re listening to.

Listen to Chopin, and you’ll get one type of massage.  Listen to the Beastie Boys, and you’ll get a very different experience.

Massage Programs

It gets even better, because if you’re not especially tech-savvy, the XT offers 34 different one-touch pre-programmed massage techniques that allow you to sit down and start enjoying your first massage in a matter of minutes, without having to spend a lot of time trying to figure the ins and outs of the chair’s operation out.

Further, both the airbag-based and roller-based massage can be adjusted through three different intensity settings, and the rollers can also be adjusted for speed (three settings there as well).

What this means is that no matter which massage you choose, roller- or airbag-based, you get your massage, your way, every time you use the chair, and that’s simply tremendous.

Even if you’re a casual or hobbyist user, you will find these features to be very much to your liking. Few things are better than coming home after a hard day’s work, and relaxing in your new favorite chair for a soothing heated back or foot massage.

The two key features that hobbyists will tend to love most is the space-saving technology, which only requires two inches of wall clearance to recline fully, and the exceptional MP3 support.

Another common way of defining the best massage chair is by taking a look at the total number of options and massage combinations available. If this is what matters most to you, then there’s only one choice to make.  The chair you want is the Inada Dreamwave.

Massage Quality

With a staggering 101 Second Generation Airbags, it offers the highest quality air massage on the market today, and with more than a thousand total massage combinations on offer, you’ll have a mind-boggling number of choices at your fingertips.

To put that into perspective, and to give you a sense of scale, as good as our top pick is, the Novo XT “only” offers a bit more than a hundred different massage combinations. So in that particular category, the Dreamwave offers literally an order of magnitude more choice.

Having said that, the designers of the Dreamwave put so much time and effort into maximizing choice that it forced them to make concessions in other areas.

This is not to say that the Dreamwave is in any way a bad design.  It isn’t!  By any reckoning, it is a magnificent chair, but it is also a highly focused one, and if the guiding design principle (maximizing the number of options available) is at odds with what you’re looking for, then you’ll probably be happier with a different model.

Core Technologies

The Dreamwave uses a slightly different set of core technologies than the other models we’ve looked at so far.  It has a substantially shorter massage track (S-track) that only goes to the small of the back; there’s no Space-Saving Technology, and only a single Zero-G seating position.

Having said that, it retains quad rollers, so the massage quality is every bit as good, and given its massive number of airbags, the air massage is even better, and the Dreamwave offers extensive heat that covers the back and the seat.  This is absolutely superior to the Novo XT’s lumbar-only heat.

Convenience Features

Like the Kahuna LM 6800, the Dreamwave doesn’t put a lot of effort into convenience features, although it does provide an adjustable massage timer, which is something the models we’ve talked about so far don’t offer.

Of course, if you want maximum customizability, you’re probably not going to care much about the smaller details and again, there’s no other chair on the market that even comes close to this one.  In terms of total options, it’s in a class by itself.

About the BodyFriend Rex-L

For some people, the best massage chair on the market is defined as being the one that offers the most cutting-edge innovations.  If that’s what you’re most interested in, then BodyFriend’s Rex-L is, without a doubt, the chair you’ve been looking for.

Air Massage

It utilizes an impressive 98 Second Generation Airbags to render its excellent air massage that can be enjoyed either in full-body mode, or by selectively activating airbags by the following body regions:

Innovations

The two innovations that will most impress you, though, are these:

First, the chair utilizes multiple sets of massage rollers, broken out by the following body regions:

The chair isn’t cheap, although it’s not the most expensive model we’ve covered thus far, and it’s got a fairly steep learning curve, so if you’re not tech-savvy, you may struggle to master everything it can do.  For the right person, though, it’s hard not to see this model as one of, if not the very best that the industry has to offer.

About the Apex Pro Regent

The Apex Pro Regent is in a class by itself, not for absolute perfection, but rather for perfect balance and feature synergy. Sometimes, the whole really is greater than the sum of its parts, and some massage chairs just offer the perfect blend of features.

Core Technologies

Just about every feature the Pro Regent has to offer was put in place with one thought in mind.  Giving you an unbeatable massage experience. Everything else is secondary. To deliver that experience, this chair uses a blend of common features and ones that are utterly unique.

Here are the highlights:

Individually, these technologies only add incremental improvements to the overall experience, but the fact that the chair offers so many of them in tandem creates an experience that other chairs simply can’t match.  In the case of the upper shoulder massage, most other chairs aren’t even designed to reach this area, much less massage it!

Heat Function

It gets better, though, because the Pro Regent combines a stellar massage with the most extensive heat we’ve ever seen.  In addition to offering back heat, you also get heated calf wells and “Blanket Heat,” which is literally a large heating element you drape across the front of your torso to enjoy what amounts to a heated cocoon while you’re getting your massage (or, if you prefer, you become a human burrito!)

The heating blanket even includes heated pockets for your hands!

Massage Options

On top of that, the Pro Regent offers more than a hundred total combinations, eleven pre-programmed options and three memory slots that allow you to create your own custom experience and save it so you can recall it later at the touch of a button.

Additional Features

It doesn’t skimp on extras either, including finishing touches like:

It’s an amazing piece of engineering that will give you a massage you won’t forget.  In fact, it’s so good that you might find yourself having to wait in line to use it because your friends and family are always in it!

About the Luraco i7

Rounding out our collection, some people want to buy American, and are looking for the best American-made massage chair they can get their hands on.  If that’s you, then the chair you’re looking for is the Luraco i7.

Primarily designed as a therapeutic model, it’s versatile enough that hobbyist and casual users will also get a lot of use and enjoyment out of it.

Core Technologies

Air Massage 

It’s also no slouch where the air massage is concerned, featuring an impressive 80 Second Generation Airbags, which, as we’ve seen with other models, can either be enjoyed as a full-body experience, or be selectively activated by body region from the remote.

Therapeutic Features

In addition to those, the Luraco i7 also offers a raft of powerful therapeutic features which include:

This last feature sets the i7 apart and makes it a true healthcare device in ways that other massage chairs simply aren’t.

Some Convenience Features

When you put all that together with the chair’s surprisingly easy-to-use remote and its impressive five-year warranty (more than double the industry standard of two-years), it’s almost impossible not to fall in love with the model.