In a Nutshell:
The Panasonic EP30007 is a well-designed chair built with Do-It-Yourselfers in mind. Great for hobbyists, people who suffer from chronic back pain, and DIYers who want to be able to control all the aspects of their massage.
Overall Massage Quality
Customization options
Ease of Use
Value for the Money
Overall Rating
4.5/5
Benefits
Drawbacks
Recommended For: Hobbyists, people who suffer from chronic back pain, and DIYers who want to be able to control all the aspects of their massage.
Unfortunately, this product has been discontinued. Check out other Panasonic massage chairs we’ve reviewed.
Are you a gearhead or a diehard Do-It-Yourselfer? Are you looking for a massage chair that is essentially a blank canvas? Loaded with options but giving you the freedom and flexibility to create your perfect massage experience?
If you answered yes to those questions, you’ll love our Panasonic EP30007 review.
This chair offers an incredible array of options and excellent therapeutic benefits, combining them in a well-priced, mid-range chair that won’t bust your budget.
We’ll discuss all of its features in the sections below, and we think you’ll agree. If you love controlling every aspect of your massage, this chair is for you!
Key Features of the Panasonic EP30007KX Massage Chair
The first thing we should note here is some confusion over this model’s name. In some places, it is listed as the “Panasonic EP30007,” and in other places, it is called the “Panasonic EP30007KX Real Pro Ultra.”
We have investigated, and these are just two different names for the same model, so if you see either of these or variations of them, know that they are referencing the same chair.
Panasonic does not have a separate user manual for a “KX” variant of the chair, nor is there any mention of a model variant in the company’s published user manual.
Every instance of a “KX” model we have investigated has revealed a chair with identical features. That is to say, don’t pay more just because one model has “KX” at the end and another doesn’t—they’re the same chair!
S-Track Design
This is the industry standard, so it’s no surprise that the Panasonic EP30007 Real Pro Ultra is built around an S-Track. This allows its quad rollers to follow the natural curvature of your body’s spine and thus render an excellent back massage every time you use it.
3D Body Scan
Panasonic does a great job with this feature. Before your massage begins, the chair scans your body to locate your pressure points.
Based on the scan’s findings, it automatically adjusts the rollers’ position to ensure that they hit where you want and need them to when the massage begins.
If the tech gets it wrong, the remote also features manual roller adjustment buttons, allowing you to make any last-minute changes, including modifying the width of the roller field.
Many chairs offer one or the other solution – either just the Body Scan or just the manual roller positioning. Seeing both featured in the same model is awesome because it gives you total control over the experience.
A Mind-Boggling Array of Options
This is hands-down the best feature of the chair, and our Panasonic EP30007 review wouldn’t be complete without drawing special attention to it.
It offers more than a thousand massage combinations, and nothing else in its price range comes close.
Starting with the massage techniques on offer, there are:
So, right off the bat, we see more techniques on offer than most chairs, including significantly more expensive models.
Then, we move into the pre-programmed massage routines, which are:
We’ll talk about the body stretch function separately below, but here, the thing that will draw your attention is the “Deep Massage Program.”
There aren’t many chairs on the market today that offer a real Deep-Tissue massage, but several Panasonic massage chairs do have this feature.
This is of tremendous therapeutic value for anyone suffering from chronic back pain, although casual users will likely find this massage far too intense for their liking. It is a very nice addition to the chair’s feature set.
All of these massages can be customized through three different intensity levels from the remote.
You can also select local massage options and create programs focusing on specific areas of your body, particularly the neck, shoulder, back, or lower back.
Air Massage
Utilizing 36 Second Generation Airbags, the Panasonic EP30007KX massage chair delivers an excellent air massage that is on par with and perhaps slightly superior to the chairs it is in direct competition with.
This is a competently implemented feature but not exceptional. For the same price, you can find other chairs that deliver similar performance.
Extendable Ottoman
Given that this chair is all about customization, it’s no surprise that it also comes with an extendable ottoman. This is a great addition because, surprisingly, few chairs make use of it. The EP30007 can accommodate users up to a height of 6’4”. Taller users, rejoice!
Calf & Foot Massage
Most massage chairs use airbags for calf massage and rollers for foot massage. The Panasonic EP 30007 massage chair takes a different approach, and we feel it is slightly inferior, utilizing airbags for the entire calf/foot massage experience.
Where the foot massage is concerned, airbags gently squeeze and press down on the user’s feet, pressing them into stationary pads in the foot well, which contain stationary Shiatsu nodes. It’s not an awful foot massage; it’s just that rollers do a better job and offer more flexibility.
This is probably the model’s most average feature. The implementation does not meet the standards we see everywhere else in this chair.
Body Stretch Function
This is another area where Panasonic’s feature implementation blows the competition away.
Body stretching is a somewhat rare feature found in less than a quarter of the massage chairs on the market today. That’s a real shame because it offers tremendous therapeutic value to those who suffer from chronic back pain.
The reason is simple: One of the leading causes of back pain is compressed discs in your spinal column. A chair with a body stretch function provides the same kind of benefit as going to your chiropractor to get an “adjustment” gives you. It takes the pressure off of those discs and provides immediate pain relief.
What’s so great about the Panasonic EP30007KX’s implementation of this feature is that you can use the chair to get a full-body stretch, or you can opt to stretch only your arms or only your legs. This kind of granular control is fantastic.
Having said that, it should be noted that since this model’s stretch feature is centered on the arms and legs – it can still be counted as a body stretch, but its implementation is not quite as comprehensive as you find in other models.
However, chairs that offer a more comprehensive stretch tend to be much more expensive.
Adjustable Timer
This is arguably another weak point in the Panasonic EP30007’s design. All of the massage combinations this chair offers default to a fifteen-minute duration. You can adjust the time, but only downward, in five-minute increments.
The disappointment is that the industry standard is thirty minutes, and Panasonic seems stubbornly reluctant to embrace that. For many users, fifteen minutes isn’t long enough, and there’s no way to move beyond that.
You have to wait for the first massage course to end, let the chair stop, and then re-select the options you want. This is not a deal breaker, but it is a notable disappointment given how well so many of the chair’s other features are.
Memory Function
This is another area where the Panasonic EP30007 shines. Even though memory is cheap and ubiquitous, the massage industry has been slow to embrace it for reasons that aren’t entirely clear. Very few chairs offer memory slots that allow you to create customized massages and save them for later use.
The few chairs that offer memory slots tend to offer between one and three. The EP30007 massage chair offers twenty-four, divided into four user profiles with six slots each. That’s huge.
We’ve only found one other massage chair with more than three memory slots, and it only offered eight, so the Panasonic EP30007 Real Pro Ultra is the reigning champion in this area, and by a wide margin.
If you love the ability to customize and save your massage experience creations, this is unquestionably the chair for you.
Amazingly Easy to Use
Panasonic does a great job with usability, and every other firm in the industry should study the company.
Yes, the Panasonic EP30007 massage chair offers a staggering array of features and functionality, and you would think that it would come with a steep learning curve, but it doesn’t.
The secret to their success lies in their “smart” remote, which can walk you through its features. Once you’ve mastered the chair, you can mute the voice feature and continue using it without assistance.
It’s a small thing, but its attention to detail like this makes the entire Panasonic product line shine.
Pros & Cons of the Panasonic EP30007KX Real Pro Ultra
We love this chair! The level of control it gives the user over virtually every aspect of the massage experience is amazing.
Having said that, we do find ourselves wishing that the following features had also been included:
Panasonic EP30007 Review – Final Thoughts
The Panasonic EP30007KX Real Pro Ultra is fantastic as it is. We wouldn’t have given it 4.5 stars overall if that were not the case. Still, if Panasonic added the features we outlined above, this would be a perfect five-star chair, providing tons of customization options and powerful therapeutic benefits.
As it is, this chair is recommended for almost everyone. The body stretch offers a compelling therapeutic benefit for chronic pain sufferers, and the dizzying array of options, combined with its ease of use, courtesy of the “smart” remote, makes it a compelling offer.
One of the best mid-range chairs on the market today.
References & Resources:
- Panasonic, Official Brand Website.
- What is Swedish Massage?, The Good Spa Guide.
- Benefits of Calf Massage, Live Strong.
- Body Stretching Massage Therapy, San Diego Massage.
- Home Remedies for Low Back Pain, Harvard Health.
