Real Relax PS3100 Massage Chair Review 2024

Are you on a budget? Do you have to make regular visits to your local chiropractor to help mitigate the chronic pain you suffer from?

If you answered yes to either of those questions, then you’re going to be intrigued and then some by what you read in this – our detailed Real Relax PS3100 review.

Real Relax isn’t a giant in the industry. They are a smaller company with a limited brand footprint, but Real Relax massage chairs are worth considering if you’re on a budget.

In the following sections, we’ll tell you everything the Real Relax PS3100 offers and quickly point out the areas where the chair falls short.

Even if you ultimately decide that this isn’t the model you’re looking for, we think that by the time you reach the end of this review, you’ll be impressed.

If you are interested, let’s jump right in and take a closer look at what this machine offers.

Key Features Of The Real Relax PS3100 Massage Chair

The first time you see the 3100, you’ll know exactly what it is and what it’s for because it looks like what it is. There’s absolutely no mistaking that it’s a massage chair.

That’s not bad because most people in the market care more about results than aesthetics. But it’s important to mention that unless you’ve got a high-tech or sci-fi décor scheme in your house, the 3100 will tend to stick out.

The good news is that this isn’t a huge chair, at least not by massage chair standards. With a footprint of 30” W x 54” L x 48” H and a total weight of 152 pounds, finding a permanent home for it won’t be too challenging – even if space is at a bit of a premium in your living room.

Despite its modest footprint, this model can support up to 400 pounds of user weight, substantially above the industry average of 300 pounds. So, right off the bat, thank Real Relax for designing a chair that more than 95% of the market can use!

One final point to mention is that the company did try to incorporate “wall-hugging” technology here and was at least somewhat successful. Chairs without this feature can require up to two feet of clearance between the seatback and whatever wall they are placed near.

In this case, you only need about twelve inches.

That’s decent, but certainly not best in class. It’s not difficult to find models that only require 3-4” of clearance. So, if space in your house is at a premium, you may be better off looking for a model that hugs the wall more closely than this one does.

SL-Track Paired With Quad Rollers

Many smaller companies tend to cut corners here, which is a strong component of our Real Relax PS3100 review. The company has incorporated the current industry standard of quad rollers, which do an admirable job of mimicking the feel of human hands.

Even better, Real Relax decided to go with an “SL” massage track. It starts at your head and neck and travels down the length of the seatback, then turns and continues underneath the seat so the rollers can massage your glutes and the backs of your thighs.

This is a 3D massage track, meaning that the rollers can move along the X, Y, and Z-axis, rendering a deeper and ultimately more satisfying massage. That’s outstanding, and we’re happy to see Real Relax using the latest technology in this design.

Body Scanning Tech

Most massage chairs on the market today offer some kind of body scanning tech, which positions the rollers before the massage begins to hit your pressure points precisely.

Real Relax does fairly well here, but its body scanning tech is a bit inferior to some of the bigger brands. 

Even so, in practice, it gets the rollers in the right spot more than 90% of the time. In those rare instances where the rollers aren’t positioned exactly where you want them, the 3100 does offer manual roller positioning via the remote, so you’ll never have a substandard massage with this chair.

Basic Massage Options Available

Here, the PS3100 massage chair winds up being a little underwhelming. The company says its chair offers twelve massage techniques, but that’s false. You’ll find the following techniques on offer:

Those are the basic massage options on most of the chairs sold today, so what’s happening here?

The company counts the three intensity settings for each option as a separate technique.

It isn’t, so we’d ask readers to disregard that claim (note that the rollers can also be adjusted via the remote through three different speed settings).

In addition to that, you can either enjoy a full body massage or choose from the following body regions if you want to focus on a particular area:

Note that these body regions also apply to the airbag massage, which we’ll discuss later.

Finally, the 3100 offers six pre-programmed massage options for one-touch convenience. These are:

Taken together, this gives you an impressive number of options, given the modest price of the chair.

A Decent But Not Outstanding Air Massage

A moment ago, we mentioned that the three different intensity levels applied to both the airbags and rollers, which was a giveaway that this model has airbags. It does, although there aren’t a tremendous number of them.

The older PS3000 massage chair, which the PS3100 replaces, had 20 airbags. This one has 24. Generally speaking, more airbags equals more fine-tuned control and a better overall air massage. But twenty-four – strategically placed on the chair – are sufficient to give you a decent, relaxing air massage.

It’s not world-class, and we don’t think anybody would buy this chair based on its airbag massage, but it’s very good that the company incorporated airbags into the design. The airbags provide a solid, relaxing experience that enhances the chair’s value.

Two (and a Half?) Therapeutic Features On Offer

So far, everything we’ve discussed in our Real Relax PS3100 review has portrayed this as a massage chair ideal for casual users on a budget.

The 3100 is that, but it also has some very good therapeutic features that make it useful to those with chronic pain.

The first therapeutic feature I’d like to mention is zero-g seating. Inspired by NASA, this feature won’t make you float around your living room, but it will make you feel weightless, which is very relaxing.

In addition, zero-G seating has been shown to help improve blood flow and circulation and to help people who have had surgery recover more quickly.

The final benefit is that if you combine your Zero-G seating position with a massage at the highest intensity setting, the 3100 can come pretty close to rendering a deep tissue massage.  It’s not quite that intense, but it comes pretty close. And that’s amazing for a chair offered at such a modest price.

The “almost a deep tissue massage” is the “half of a therapeutic feature” we referenced in the bolded heading for this section.

The second “full-sized” therapeutic feature to talk about is heat. Massage feels great, but heated massage takes it to the next level. Only about a third of the chairs on the market today offer heat and most of those only offer heat in the lumbar region of the seatback.

The 3100 takes it further, extending the offered heat well into the mid-back. We would have loved it if the 3100 had also offered heated footwells, but that’s almost unheard of in value-priced massage chairs, so we can’t really hold that against the design team.

A Surprisingly Good Calf & Foot Massage

Airbags in the leg massage ports provide calf massage, and rollers at the bottom of the footwells provide foot massage. Both can be adjusted remotely using three different intensity levels.

The net result is a surprisingly good calf and foot massage. And if you spend several hours each day on your feet, this feature may be why you pick this chair over one of the other models you’re considering.

The only thing that would have made it better would have been if the design team had included heat in the footwells, but that would have increased the price of the chair, so we understand why they opted not to. Even so, this is a solid feature implementation, making this chair punch a bit above its weight class. Again, kudos to Real Relax!

A Trio of Finishing Touches On Offer, Too!

If you’ve been impressed by what you’ve read thus far, you’ll love that the Real Relax PS3100 massage chair offers a few high-value extras, too. These include:

• A handy USB port that allows you to keep your phone charged while you’re enjoying your massage
• Built-in Bluetooth speakers, which you can easily sync your phone to and listen to your favorite music or podcasts while getting a massage.
• There is also a massage timer that allows you to customize the duration of whatever massage you choose. All of the massages default to a fifteen-minute duration, but you can customize this to a minimum of five minutes or a maximum of thirty.

These are all outstanding additions we hadn’t expected in such a modestly priced chair offered by a smaller company.

Pros & Cons of Real Relax PS3100

As long as you’re not especially brand-conscious, the Real Relax PS-3100 is a surprisingly good chair that’s as attractive to casual users as it is to those with basic therapeutic needs.

Although it’s not hard to find a massage chair with more therapeutic features and better implementations (more extensive heat, a more advanced body scanning system, more Zero-G positions, etc.), those chairs will inevitably cost you much more money.

In our view, the strongest selling points of this model are:

On the other hand, the model has drawbacks and limitations. These include the fact that:

Keeping in mind that this is a value-priced chair, we regard all of this model’s shortcomings as forgivable, and we think most people will agree.

Real Relax PS3100 Review Conclusion

The Real Relax PS-3100 massage chair does a good job of straddling the line between a chair that is attractive to casual users while offering enough therapeutic features to make it attractive to people who suffer from chronic pain.

Most remarkably, it does this without raising the price to the point where the chair is out of reach for many who could benefit the most.

That’s no easy feat, and we regard this model as an impressive design. We recommend it, especially if you’re on a budget. This chair, offered by a plucky little company you may not have heard of before, delivers.

Other Options To Consider

If you’re not completely sold on the PS-3100, or it’s just not a great fit for you, here are a couple of other options you may want to consider:

This is one of the best values in the massage chair market today. Kahuna is a legend in the industry, and all the chairs they offer are loaded with features. It’s also worth mentioning that Kahuna offers the best body stretch in the industry today, and the little 6800 makes that available to you.

It is a little more expensive than the model we just reviewed, but if you’re interested in buying from an industry leader, this one should be on your shortlist of options.

Osaki is another industry leader, and the OS Monarch is an excellent example of their work. This model features more auto-programs than the model we just reviewed and has a fantastic suite of features—all of them superbly implemented.

While we don’t regard Osaki chairs as being as good as Kahuna’s models, they don’t miss the mark by much, and Osaki’s quality is consistently good. This is a superb value-priced option to consider.

Official Manufacturer Support

References & Resources:

• Real Relax, Official Brand Website.
• Real Relax PS3100 Massage Chair User Manual
• What To Expect From A Full-Body Massage, Blys. 
• The Evidence for Shiatsu: A Systematic Review of Shiatsu and Acupressure, BioMed Central (BMC).
• Massage Therapy for Osteoarthritis of the Knee: A Randomized Controlled Trial, National Center for Biotechnology Information.