Comfier CF-9212 Massage Chair Recliner Review 2024

Are you tired of hurting all the time? Has your aching back and sore feet sent you on a quest to find a low-priced massage chair so you can get some much-needed relief from the comfort of your home any time you like?

If you answered yes to either of those questions, and your search has brought you here, we urge you to read this Comfier CF-9212 massage chair review before you spend your hard-earned money.

While the Comfier massage chair recliner is an interesting design in a lot of ways, it simply cannot compare with a well-designed massage chair that uses state-of-the-art technology. Because of that, we’re unable to recommend this model. 

In the sections that follow, we’ll tell you why and do a deep dive into this chair’s capabilities, going over everything it gets right and why it ultimately fails to deliver the goods in our view. If you’re curious to know more, read on, and let’s take a closer look.

An Overview Of The Comfier CF-9212 Massage Chair

At first glance, this model looks like most of the other massage chairs sold today. It has the same futuristic aesthetic and sports leg massage ports for you to slide your calves and feet into to get a good calf and foot massage.

It’s a fairly sizable piece of furniture, measuring 29” W x 54” L x 40” H (65” L x 30” H at full recline). It’s also worth mentioning that this chair is not designed with space-saving technology, so in addition to accounting for its size, you’ll also need about 20” of clearance between the back of the chair and whatever wall you decide to place it in. 

If you’ve got a big house with large rooms, that shouldn’t be a problem, but if you live in a smaller home or apartment, the sheer size of the thing is going to make it difficult to find a permanent home for the chair.

On the flip side, it is very lightly constructed and only weighs 125 pounds. That makes it relatively easy to move around, but there’s a drawback. Given its lightweight construction, this chair only supports a maximum of 220 pounds of user weight.

That’s problematic, or it can be, and given that the informal average supported weight limit of massage chairs is around 300 pounds, this one falls well short of that mark.

If you weigh less than 220, it won’t be an issue, but if you or anyone in your household who is likely to use the chair happens to weigh more, the weight limit is another strike against this model.

The Comfier Full Body Massage Chair Relies On Outdated Technology

This, unfortunately, is a relatively weak component of our Comfier CF-9212 massage chair review. Starting with the fact that the chair, which is often described as a “full body massage chair,” actually isn’t.

It does have what can more or less be described as an S track in that it conforms to the shape of your spine and runs from the base of your spine to your upper shoulders.

Sadly, this chair doesn’t use industry-standard rollers, opting instead for a combination of eight semi-stationary Shiatsu rollers and fourteen rotating massage balls.

There is some movement of both of these, but the range is quite limited. The massage “rollers” operate in eight localized zones of your back, with the rotating massage balls covering the rest of your back. Of interest, there are controls on the (wired) remote that allow you to change the rotational direction of the stationary massage balls.

The coverage is quite good, and the chair offers a decent—if limited—massage, but it in no way compares to the experience of 3D or 4D quad rollers. 

The tech employed here hearkens back to the first generation of commercially available massage chairs.

The implementation is slightly different and more robust, but as clever as it is, it’s essentially a retro design trying to compete with modern massage chairs, and it just can’t offer the same kind of massage quality.

The company does take some pains to try and overcome the difference. 

For example, the rollers can be adjusted for speed via three levels, but there’s no way to adjust the massage intensity. Comfier’s solution to this is to include an extra bit of padding on the seatback. If you want a more intense massage, you get up from the chair, remove the pad, and restart the massage. Needless to say, this works but is far from an optimal solution.

Further, there’s only one “technique” on offer, courtesy of the Shiatsu massage rollers. It’s not actually a Shiatsu massage, but given the limits of the dated technology they’re using here, it comes surprisingly close.

Again, the chair is capable of giving you a decent basic massage, but it doesn’t hold a candle to what you’ll get from a comparably priced chair using state-of-the-art massage rollers.

So, absent any techniques to talk about, let’s take a look at the pre-programmed massage options.

There are six of these. They are:

Honestly, the neck and shoulders and waist and back routines aren’t genuine pre-programmed massage options but rather, selective activations of a subset of the rollers and massage balls. So, in practice, there are four distinct massage options available.

They all feel pretty good, but the differences tend to be scant, and this is, once again, simply a limitation of the dated tech they’re using. Even so, it’s nice that the chair offers some one-touch convenience.

The CF-9212 Offers A Trio Of Zero-G Seating Positions

This is one of the strongest components of our Comfier CF-9212 massage chair review. As the subject heading indicates, this model offers an impressive three Zero-G seating options. It’s an excellent feature, and the company implemented it well.

On the remote, the three options are listed as initial, comfort, and deep. Whichever you select, you’ll be treated to a genuine feeling of weightlessness. On top of that, studies have shown that spending time in a Zero-G seating position helps to lower blood pressure and improve circulation. 

There’s also evidence that Zero-G seating can help speed post-surgical recovery, in addition to generally improving the quality of the massage you get from the chair. This feature has genuine therapeutic value, and while it’s not enough on its own to recommend this model, it is an undeniable bright spot in the design.

This Chair Also Offers Heat

In yet another strong component of our Comfier CF-9212 massage chair review, heat is another high-value addition that offers real therapeutic benefits. Even better, you’ll find heat in both the lumbar region of the chair and in the seat itself, which makes the heat offered here more expansive than what you typically see offered in low-priced massage chairs.

That’s good, and we love that the design team made the feature available, but even the combination of heat and Zero-G isn’t enough to offset this model’s shortcomings.

The CF-9212 Offers A Competent But Uninspiring Airbag Massage

There’s not much to talk about here, but we wanted to mention it for the sake of completeness.

Yes, there are airbags scattered throughout the chair, and you can use them to get a decent airbag-based massage, which you can customize via the remote through three different intensity levels.

This feature is reasonably well implemented, but there’s nothing special or particularly noteworthy about it. You’ll be glad it’s available, and it’s well worth experimenting with, but let’s be honest. In the entire history of massage chairs, very few people—if anyone—buy a chair on the basis of its airbag massage.

You’ll Also Find A Basic Calf And Foot Massage

We’d rate this as an about-average component of our Comfier CF-9212 massage chair review. The calf and foot massage is rendered by a mixture of airbags for your calves and feet, supported by massage rollers at the bottom of the footwell.

Unfortunately, the rollers cannot be adjusted for speed or intensity, which would have made this feature more noteworthy.

Even without that, though, if you spend most of each day on your feet, this might wind up being your favorite aspect of the chair’s design. It might be basic, but if your feet are killing you at the end of a long day, it will definitely offer some much-needed relief, and that’s not nothing.

A Trio Of High-Value Extras Too!

This was a genuine surprise for us. Given the retro nature of the design, we honestly weren’t expecting much—if anything—in the way of extras or finishing touches, but Comfier offers three on this chair.

You’ll find a massage timer that allows you to set the duration of any massage you get to your choice of 15, 20, 25, or 30 minutes, a USB charging port to keep your phone charged while you get your massage, and Bluetooth speakers built into the chair.

While it’s true that the speakers are one of the more commonly available “extras” you’ll find on offer on most of the massage chairs sold today, low-priced models sometimes skip them to keep costs low, so it was a pleasant surprise to see them included.

Pros & Cons of Comfier CF-9212 Massage Chair

Despite its shortcomings, this is an interesting design, and it’s particularly interesting if you’re a fan of retro tech, as is the case with the other models in our Comfier massage chair reviews.

Unfortunately, some industries are better suited to retro offerings than others. Take the resurgence of vinyl in the music industry.

Some people swear that vinyl offers a more “authentic” sound, and even if you don’t agree with that assessment, there’s an argument to be made there.

Where massage chairs are concerned, though, it’s a lot harder to make that argument. The whole point of a massage chair is to come as close as possible to replicating the feel of human hands giving a massage, and the simple truth is that modern technology gets you a lot closer to that than remastered old tech.

In our view, the best features of this design are the offered heat, the three Zero-G seating positions, and a decent—if unexceptional—calf and foot massage.

As a massage chair, though, it doesn’t hold a candle to comparably priced models that use state-of-the-art tech, and that’s just a crippling shortcoming, even if the design itself is somewhat interesting.

Comfier CF-9212 Massage Chair Review Conclusion

Given the above, and even though we’re generally fans of retro offerings, we cannot recommend this chair. It’s too easy to find a modern massage chair offering a much better massage experience for the same money.

Other Options To Consider

If you find yourself in agreement with our overall assessment, here are a couple of massage chairs you’ll almost certainly like better:

Kahuna is one of the best companies in the industry today, and they have a long history of producing exceptional and exceptionally capable chairs.

While this one is a lower-priced model, it’s brimming with state-of-the-art technology and offers more pre-programmed massage options, actual massage techniques, and a massage experience that is heads and shoulders better than the chair we just talked about.

Even if you decide it’s not the right chair for you, this one is well worth a look.

If you’re a fan of smaller brands, you can’t go wrong with Real Relax. While they don’t have the market presence of industry giants like Kahuna, they’ve been in the business a long time, and their chairs generally punch well above their weight class.

This is an excellent example of their work. Sure, it’s got its limitations, but this is a full-featured massage chair with lots of bells and whistles, offered at a price that will leave you smiling. It’s a smartly designed, incredibly capable chair.

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Official Manufacturer Support

REFERENCES AND RESOURCES

• Comfier, Official Brand Website.
• Comfier CF-9212 Massage Chair User Manual.
• Slow Down With Shiatsu, American Massage Therapy Association.
• Local Heat Applications as a Treatment of Physical and Functional Parameters in Acute and Chronic Musculoskeletal Disorders or Pain, Science Direct.
• Determining the Benefits of Massage Mechanisms: A Review of Literature, Research Gate.