In a Nutshell:
The Flash Furniture BT-7672 Massage Recliner is a surprisingly stylish, comfortable office chair, offered by a great, if less well-known company that offers both massage and heat, in addition to being a good general-use office chair! Recommended for anyone, but especially those who suffer from chronic pain or arthritis.
Value for the Money
Comfort
Brand Reliability*
Aesthetic Flexibility**
Overall Rating
3.9/5
Benefits
Drawbacks
Recommended For: Anyone, but especially those who suffer from chronic pain or arthritis.
Are you unhappy with your current office chair? Is your chronic pain and/or arthritis pain keeping you from being as productive as you once were? If you answered yes to either of those questions and are in the market for a replacement for your current office chair, you’re going to love what you read in this review.
Dealing with chronic pain is never fun, and depending on its severity, arthritis pain can make you feel as though you’ve been sidelined by life itself. It doesn’t have to be that way, and surprisingly enough, this chair, offered by Flash Furniture, can play an essential role in restoring productivity to your day.
Many chronic pain and arthritis sufferers rely on heat to help ease their pain, but it’s inconvenient to have to bring a heating pad to work or into your home office, because every time you get up, you’ll find yourself tripping over the power cord.
Fortunately, the fine folks at Flash Furniture have a solution, in the form of the BT-7672. We’ve featured a number of the company’s products in other reviews, and of interest, Flash Furniture often winds up beating out products offered by much larger and better-established brands. They make excellent furniture, and this model is no exception.
While it’s true that the Flash Furniture BT-7672 Massage Recliner falls well short of being a true massage chair, it’s surprisingly full-featured and comfortable. We’ll cover everything this chair has to offer in the sections below, and even if you ultimately decide that this isn’t the chair you’ve been looking for, we think you’ll agree; the BT-7672 has a lot to offer. Let’s dive in and take a closer look!
An Overview of the BT-7672 Massaging Recliner and Ottoman
The Flash Furniture BT-7672 Massage Recliner occupies a curious middle ground. While the company advertises and markets the chair as a “heated massage recliner” its appearance is similar to a standard office chair, save for the fact that it sits on a stationary base, rather than rolling casters.
Designed along conventional lines and offered in black, this chair is delightfully unobtrusive and will blend in easily with almost any home or office décor scheme. Here are the core stats that define the model:
There are a couple of things that jump out at you right away when you review these stats. First, the complete lack of adjustability. The measurements of this chair are what they are and can’t be tweaked to improve your seating experience. It either fits you well as is, or it doesn’t.
The good news on that front is that the seat height, depth, and width are all fairly common measurements that will serve a broad swath of the market well but continuing to look down the list of stats we come to another shortcoming: The weight limit.
Given that the chair is only capable of supporting a modest 250 pounds of user weight, this chair clearly isn’t going to be for everyone. If you’re heavier than that, even if you love everything about this model, it’s simply not going to work for you.
Adjustability and Comfort
Flash Furniture’s massage chair utilizes conventional block foam for padding, and there’s a generous amount of it, so it does provide a comfortable seating experience, but there’s a catch. Bonded leather has some serious limitations.
Not only is it not as durable as genuine grain leather, but it’s also not breathable. If you plan on spending the better part of each day in your trusty office chair, that’s going to be problematic because, after just a few hours, you’re going to start sweating uncomfortably. That will happen even more quickly if you use the built-in heat function, which of course is the major selling point of this chair.
We dearly wish the company had upholstered this chair in a durable, breathable fabric. In our view, the decision to go with bonded leather is the single biggest design flaw in the model. We understand that many people prefer leather, but from a design standpoint, it’s just not a good fit for the problem this chair seeks to solve.
Unfortunately, nothing about this chair is adjustable, either, so you’ll want to take careful measurements to be sure it’s going to fit you well. If the seat is too deep, or if the seat height isn’t a good match for the length of your legs, you’re simply not going to be comfortable sitting in this chair, massage function and heat or no.
We’re not knocking the chair; actually, we like it very much! But we would be remiss if we didn’t point out its limitations and although it’s comfortable, its upholstery and lack of adjustability are things you have to take into account when making a purchasing decision.
The chair fares better where ergonomic features are concerned, boasting three:
If you suffer from leg pain, the generous padding and seat design will be of great benefit, helping to improve blood circulation in your legs. If you suffer from head and/or neck pain, you’ll appreciate the double-padded headrest, especially when you recline back in the chair to take a short break, and the lumbar support is a nice touch, useful to just about everyone, whether you suffer from chronic pain or no.
Unfortunately, none of the chair’s ergonomic features are adjustable in any way, but the fact that they’re present at all is definitely a boon. Also note: This chair comes with a padded ottoman. If you’re planning to use the chair in your home office, you can simply store the Ottoman beside your desk when you don’t need it, then pull it out when you’re ready to take a break and relax.
The Massage Function
The Flash Furniture BT-7672 Massaging Recliner and Ottoman offers a very basic massage function, which it renders by way of stationary massage heads that vibrate when the feature is activated via the wired remote. You don’t get any actual massage techniques, which is a limitation, but the overall massage quality is better than you might expect and the remote offers nine different massage presets and five different intensity levels you can choose from, giving you some ability to customize your massage experience.
These presets are mostly variations on a theme, but the BT-7672 does offer the advantage of providing a spot/partial massage function where you can selectively activate only certain massage heads, leaving the remainder off.
If you only want to activate some of the massage heads, you can choose from:
It’s a nice touch that allows you to zero in on the parts of your body that hurt and focus the massage on just those areas. The remote also features a simple massage timer with the duration remaining on your current massage shown on a simple LED display on the remote.
It Comes with Heat, Too!
The heat function is, in our view, the best feature of this chair, and the reason most people will end up choosing this model over some other chair. Few chairs offer heat with temperature control, and this model is no exception, but the heating elements warm quickly and provide soothing relief, especially if you suffer from chronic lower back pain or arthritis.
Flash Furniture did a great job on this front. While the heat is limited in its range (lumbar heat only), the elements heat quickly and are at a pleasant temperature, providing soothing relief, anytime you need it. Best of all, you can activate the heating element independently from the massage heads, so you can either enjoy a heated massage or just the heat, at your preference.
Does Not Come Assembled
Although the BT-7672 does not come assembled, you won’t find a large number of pieces to contend with, which vastly simplifies the process. It will probably take you longer to completely unbox the chair and Ottoman than it will be to get it ready for first use. Once that’s out of the way, just plug it into the nearest outlet, have a seat and get ready to be impressed!
Pros and Cons of the Flash Furniture BT-7672 Massage Recliner
So, where does that leave us? While there’s a lot to like about the BT-7672, it’s clearly not a chair for everyone, but in our view, the pros outweigh the cons, and by a significant margin. Here’s our take on the chair’s plusses and minuses:
PROS
CONS
Again, in our view, the advantages this chair brings to the table far outweigh its negatives, but it would be a mistake to gloss over those negatives or pretend they don’t exist. If you’re looking for a new office chair, you’ve got to take this model’s limitations into account, or you’re almost sure to be disappointed by it.
Flash Furniture BT-7672 Massage Recliner Review Conclusion
We think that the Flash Furniture BT-7672 Massage Recliner is a great chair, but it’s admittedly something of a niche product. If you’re not a chronic pain sufferer, then the heat and massage functions will be helpful “extras” but not really essential and as such, you’d probably be better served by an office chair that has casters to increase mobility and offers a high degree of adjustability so you can customize it to fit you like a glove. Unfortunately, this chair doesn’t provide any of that.
For the right user, it can be a life saver. It can take you from a point of being in so much pain that you can’t get anything done to being able to manage and mitigate your pain so you can stay productive. On that basis, we provisionally recommend it.
REFERENCES & RESOURCES:
- Flash Furniture, Official Brand Website.
- Keep Ergonomics in Mind at Work, Safety+Health Magazine.
- Working at Your Desk All Day Could Be Killing You, Entrepreneur.
- Long Sitting Periods May Be Just as Harmful as Daily Total, Science Daily.
- Workplace Ergonomics: How To Improve Your Posture At Work, Relax The Back.
