In a Nutshell:

The Ootori Asuka A600 Massage Chair is a surprisingly full-featured chair, given its modest asking price. Recommended for anyone on a budget, between 5’1” and 6’3,” weighing 400 pounds or less who’s on a budget and looking for a good S-Track massage chair.

Overall Massage Quality
Customization options
Ease of Use
Value for the Money
Comfort
Brand Reliability*

Overall Rating

4.4/5
* Brand Reliability is a measure of the strength and longevity of the brand, which by extension, is a measure of the level of support you can expect.

Benefits

  • Decent roller-based massage
  • Excellent airbag massage
  • Very good calf and foot massage
  • Three different Zero-G seating positions

Drawbacks

  • No Bluetooth speakers
  • No pre-programmed massage routines or body stretching
  • Limited number of massage techniques
  • Weak implementation of heat feature
Ootori Asuka A600 Massage Chair

Recommended For: Anyone on a budget, between 5’1” and 6’3,” weighing 400 pounds or less who’s on a budget and looking for a good S-Track massage chair.

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Are you on a tight budget and looking for a cost-effective way to help manage your pain?

Are you tired of having to schedule appointments with your local chiropractor, or do you just like the idea of being able to enjoy a soothing massage from the comfort of home any time you like?

If you answered yes to any of those questions, then you’re going to love what you read in this review.

We’ll be quick to say that the Asuka A600 isn’t the perfect massage chair. It’s a budget option, and as such, it’s got its share of limitations. On the other hand, it manages to pack a lot of great features into a surprisingly modestly priced chair.

In the sections that follow, we’ll tell you everything the Ootori Asuka A600 massage chair is capable of, and we’ll be quick to point out the limitations of the design. Even if you ultimately decide to go in some other direction, by the time you reach the end of this review, we think you’ll agree; this is an excellent chair for the money! If your interest is piqued, read on, and we’ll tell you all about it, starting now.

An Overview of the Asuka A600 Massage Chair

As with every massage chair made by Ootori, the design team makes no effort to hide the function or purpose of the A600. It looks like what it is; a big, burly massage chair. As such, no matter where you put it in your house, it will probably dominate the room and completely clash with your other furnishings.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing. People understand and accept that when they purchase most massage chairs. Although if you are looking for a chair that has an easier time blending in with its surroundings, this isn’t the one you want. Our recommendation would be to have a look at some of the models Human Touch offers. They sell several that look like conventional recliners at first or even second glance.

If you don’t mind the massage chair aesthetic, the other potential problem is the sheer size of the chair. The Ootori Asuka A600 massage chair measures 30.7” x 61” x 43.3” and weighs nearly two hundred pounds. If you have a smaller home or apartment, or if the room you plan on putting the chair in is already a bit cramped for space, understand that you may have to get a bit creative to find a permanent home for this beast.

Chair Specifications

While we’re on the topic of basic stats, here are a few others of interest:

Specification Stats, Ootori Asuka A600 Massage Chair, Right View
  • Maximum Supported User Weight: 400 pounds
  • Manufacturer’s Recommended Height Range: 5’1” to 6’3”
  • Seat Width: 21.65”
  • Maximum Recline Angle: 180 degrees
  • Track Length: 47.24”
  • Total Number of Airbags: 38

These are really impressive numbers for the most part. Remember, this is an S-Track chair (one of the few Ootori offers), and the track length is quite remarkable given that, and the number of airbags is fantastic on a chair with such a modest price tag. 

We’ll have more to say about both of those features in later sections. For the moment, it’s enough to simply call your attention to them.

Also, note that this chair lays completely flat, which is rare for an Ootori chair. Most of them recline back to a maximum of 170 degrees. That extra ten degrees of movement may not seem like a lot, but depending on what your needs are, it can make a tremendous difference.

The only thing that may prove to be problematic here is the width of the seat. It’s the same seat width you find on all Ootori chairs, but given that this model was optimized for heavier users, we were a little surprised and disappointed that the seat width wasn’t increased slightly on this model. Since it’s not, you’ll want to take careful measurements to be sure that this model is a good fit for you before committing to a purchase.

Quad Rollers on an S-Track

While many of Ootori’s massage chairs sport 3D roller technology, this is not one of those models. That’s not much of a surprise as the inclusion of such advanced massage technology would raise the price of the chair, and the whole point of this model (aside from the fact that it is optimized for heavier users) is the fact that it’s a low-cost model.

Even so, it does boast quad rollers, which are the current industry standard. Also, the chair is capable of delivering a world-class roller-based massage experience.

Even better, you can modify the roller speed through five different speed settings on the remote and change the massage intensity, choosing between five different intensity settings.

S-Track Massage, Ootori Asuka A600 Massage Chair, Side View

Average Number of Massage Options

In terms of massage techniques, the Asuka A600 offers:

  • Kneading
  • Tapping
  • Knocking
  • Shiatsu

We’re not overly surprised to find only a limited number of massage options available. That’s one of the first things designers pitch over the side when trying to lower the cost of one of their chairs. Even so, it has the basics covered and offers one excellent advanced massage technique, so it’s a pretty good value for the money. Even better, although there aren’t a ton of options here, Ootori implements them all very well.

3D Body Scan

The chair does come with Ootori’s outstanding body scanning technology. Not all value-priced chairs have it, but we’re glad to see it included here. When you take a seat in the chair, it automatically scans your back and adjusts the rollers on the fly to ensure that they hit your pressure points precisely.

In practice, it works about 95% of the time. On those rare occasions when it doesn’t, you can manually tweak their position via the remote to ensure that you get the best massage the chair is capable of every time you use it.

Zero-Gravity Seating

This is a real surprise on such a modestly priced chair. Zero-G seating was inspired by NASA. It works by placing you in a position such that your knees are elevated slightly above your heart, and it really does leave you feeling weightless.

Zero Gravity, Ootori Asuka A600 Massage Chair, Side View

More than that, it has also been shown to lower blood pressure and improve circulation, which facilitates faster healing among people who have recently had surgery.

While a fair percentage of the chairs on the market today offer Zero-G seating, most of the chairs that boast the feature only provide a single seating position. This Asuka A600 sports three, which are insanely good for a chair in its price range. In fact, it’s the only value-priced chair we can think of that has so many different Zero-G seating options on offer. It’s a powerful therapeutic feature and a superb addition to this chair.

Seat Vibration Massage

The A600 also sports a vibrating plate in the seat, which gives your buttocks a simple vibration-style massage. This is something you usually only find included on older fixed-frame massage chairs. Proponents of the feature will tell you that it helps to facilitate blood flow in their buttocks and thighs. People who don’t like the feature will tell you it feels like it’s trying to vibrate their teeth out of their heads.

We’re not overly fond of it, but since it comes on the chair anyway, it’s worth experimenting with it to see if you get any value out of it. If you do, awesome! Use it regularly. If you’re not a fan, just pretend it doesn’t exist.

An Insanely Good Air Massage For the Price

While there’s nothing remarkable about the A600’s roller-based massage, it boasts an incredible air massage for its price. Featuring 38 airbags strategically placed throughout the chair, modified by three different intensity settings via the remote, the air massage is heads and shoulders better than you’ll find in most other chairs in its weight class. It’s truly exceptional.

Air Massage, Ootori Asuka A600 Massage Chair, Front View

Even better, controls on the remote allow you to selectively activate airbags by body region: Upper body, lower body, and arms. It’s easy to find massage chairs that offer more control by breaking the selective airbag activation into more body regions. But on such a low-priced chair, three regions certainly aren’t bad, and we’re glad to see some flexibility where selective activation is concerned.

Lumbar Heat Offered

In addition to Zero-G seating, the Asuka A600 offers another excellent therapeutic feature in the form of lumbar heat. It is delivered via a pair of heating pads in the seatback. Ostensibly this is lumbar heat, but the heat radiates up to the mid back and down to the hips. So it’s actually much more extensive than that.

We love the coverage of the heat, but the A600 suffers from the same limitation that many of Ootori’s other models do; the heating elements just don’t get hot enough for our liking, and there’s no way to increase the temperature from the remote. It’s still a useful feature addition, and it definitely enhances the massage experience you get from the chair; we just wish it was hotter.

No Body Stretch Offered

While many of Ootori’s chairs feature an excellent yoga stretch function, in a bid to keep costs low, the designers opted to leave the feature off of this model. We don’t blame them, and we certainly understand the need to cut features for the sake of price, but it is sorely missed here. In any case, if body stretching is something you’ve just got to have, this isn’t the model for you.

A Very Good Calf & Foot Massage

There are a lot of things Ootori gets right with the design of their chairs, but perhaps their best feature implementation is their calf and foot massage. It is rendered via a combination of rollers and airbags, and on their best chairs, the experience is impressive.

Foot Roller, Ootori Asuka A600 Massage Chair, Illustration

The company somewhat scaled back its calf and foot massage ambitions for this model. The roller design in the footwell is both simplistic and straightforward. But even given that, the A600 still offers a better calf and foot massage than just about any other chair in its price range.

If you have a job that sees you on your feet for several hours a day and you’re specifically looking for a value-priced chair to give your aching feet some much-needed relief, this will probably be your favorite aspect of the model.

A Massage Timer, Too!

Some of the massage timers used on Ootori chairs allow you to set up a quick massage of as little as five-minutes long. This timer isn’t quite that flexible, but it will enable you to customize the massage duration you want, choosing between 15, 20, 25, or 30 minutes. From a practical standpoint, most people want longer massages, not shorter, so we’re perfectly fine with the timer used here.

No Bluetooth Speakers on this Model

This is another totally understandable omission. The Asuka A600’s design team had to make some hard choices about what to keep and what to toss to keep the price of the chair as low as possible. Unfortunately, a built-in sound system is just not critical to the proper functioning of a massage chair, so no surprise that the decision was made to leave the Bluetooth speakers off of this model.

It’s not the end of the world. Most people own a decent set of earbuds, and you can simply pop those in and keep your phone in your lap while enjoying your massage.

Some Assembly Required

Most of the chairs offered come fully assembled and ready to use. The A600 is not one of these. It will arrive in pieces in a couple of large boxes. The upshot is that it’s relatively easy to move the boxes into the room you ultimately want the chair in and then do the assembly right there.

3 Year Warranty, Ootori Asuka A600 Massage Chair, Right View

Or, if you prefer, you can pay an extra fee for Ootori’s White Glove service and have them take care of the assembly for you.

The assembly process is simple and straightforward and won’t take more than ten or fifteen minutes, but if you have a phobia about assembling furniture yourself or if you have some type of mobility issue that makes such a task a daunting proposition, then the White Glove service is well worth the extra fee.

A Very Slight Learning Curve

Given the relatively sparse number of options on this chair, it should come as no surprise that it doesn’t take long to master its basic use. Expect to spend no more than five or ten minutes mastering its use.

A Better Than Average Warranty

Ootori offers an impressive 3-year warranty on every chair they sell. While that’s not the best warranty in the industry, it’s significantly above average, and the company has a stellar reputation where post-sales service and support are concerned. If you do have any problems with your chair, getting help to put things right is a simple matter.

Pros & Cons of the Ootori Asuka A600 Massage Chair

We like almost everything about this chair. It provides a decent roller-based massage, an excellent airbag massage, and a very good calf and foot massage. In addition to that, it’s got three different Zero-G seating positions on offer, which is beyond impressive.

On the flip side, though, several key features are offered on more expensive chairs that are simply missing. No Bluetooth speakers, no pre-programmed massage routines, no body stretching, and a limited number of massage techniques on offer. Also, although heat is present, it is relatively weakly implemented compared to the strength of the other features on the chair.

As we said at the start, it’s not a perfect chair, but in our view, the pros far outweigh the cons, making this an excellent value for the money.

Ootori Asuka A600 Massage Chair Review Conclusion

We like the Ootori Asuka A600 Massage Chair but don’t love it. For the money, it’s a solid, highly capable design, but it is limited by the features not included in a bid to keep the price low. That’s not a bad thing, but it does make the A600 a fairly self-selecting chair.

If you’re shorter than 6’4,” weigh 400 pounds or less, have the space for it, and are on a budget, this is a great basic massage chair. The fewer of those that apply to you, the less impressed you’ll be with the design. On that basis, we provisionally recommend it.


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