Infinity IT-8500 Inversion Massage Chair
$4,999
+5 Year Standard Warranty
Originally $5,499
The incredibly advanced Infinity IT-8500 delivers a timeless blend of technology, relaxation and aesthtics at half the cost of comparable massage chairs. Immerse yourself in two positions of Zero Gravity and indulge your body in the powerful therapeutic techniques. Complete with state-of-the-art foot rollers for reflexology, a seat swivel for spinal alignment, inversion stretch for spinal decompression, lumbar heat and music features, this massage chair is power at your fingertips.
Product Description
This chair truly delivers one of the most advanced massage technologies available today. One of the greatest chairs on the market, the Infinity IT-8500 is designed to offer state of the art features and techniques that set it apart from the rest. Offering the ultimate customizable & targeted massage, it’s equipped with music, lumbar heat, body scan sensors, state of the art foot rollers, spinal correction & decompression, and so much more. Experience and feel the difference in one of the most advanced massage chairs today.
QUICK PRODUCT FEATURES
- Deluxe 2 Stage Zero Gravity: Introduced by NASA more than 2 decades ago, the Zero Gravity position is a relaxing and stress-free position on your body in which the legs are placed above the heart and your weight is evenly distributed throughout the chair. This position relieves pressure on the spine, relaxes the neck and back, increases circulation and blood oxygen levels, and expands lung capacity
- Inversion Therapy: The backrest of the chair will recline even further than the deepest Zero Gravity recline position to 190 degrees, inverting your body entirely upside down. The position allows the massage chair to stretch the spine (spinal traction), and research has shown it is an effective way of relieving back pain
- Foot Rollers: Uses reflexology technology to activate pressure points to knead the bottoms of your feet with mechanical rollers. The IT-8500 features three mechanical foot rollers, which soothes sore and tired feet and stimulates circulation
- Spinal Correction: This advanced technology uses upper body airbags to stretch the back while quad style rollers simultaneously move up and down the spine and the shiatsu swivel seat swings the hips from side to side. An ideal feature for those suffering from lower back pain
- Computer Body Scan: Automatically detects the whole body curve and makes micro adjustments as needed to give you a customized, humanistic massage
- Accu-Roll Shoulder Massage: This sensor-driven feature locates and gives a deep, rejuvenating shoulder massage. The word “locates” is a key word here because the sensors of many competing chairs are unable to accurately locate your shoulders area
- Tru-Grip V Stretch: This advanced thai-stretching feature grips several parts of the body — including the arms, shoulders, hips, feet and calves — while the seat of the chair simultaneously swivels back and forth
- Waist Twist Function: Airbags are deployed to your waist area, swinging your hips and lower back from side to side and grasping hard-to-reach muscle groups
- Lumbar/Lower Back Heat Therapy: Lower back heat therapy provides relief to those suffering from lower back pain by increasing the oxygen flow to help heal damaged tissue. Heat therapy also forces your lower back to press more firmly against the backrest for a stronger and deeper massage
- Four Auto Programs: Choose from Extend (deep tissue/stretching), Recover, Refresh, and Relax
- Six Manual Massage Styles: Manual modes featured on the IT-8500 include Kneading, Shiatsu, Tapping, Knocking, Dual, and Music Synchronization
- Fits Big & Tall Users: The IT-8500’s above-average seat clearance can accommodate users up to 325 pounds. Its ultra-long automatic footrest can comfortably fit users from 5’0 to 6’5, making it a great chair for a wide range of users
- Neck & Head Air Massages: The IT-8500 is equipped with a pillow cushion featuring two airbags that provide a variety of massage options for your head and neck. Whether your neck is tense, cramped or in pain, the airbags relieve tension and restore your head and neck to a state of ease and comfort. Through gentle swinging motions, trailing massages and pressure points, the airbags continuously inflate and deflate to provide superior comfort and relaxation
- MP3 Music System: Relax to your own music selection by inserting a USB Flash Drive into the included USB port. Simply download your favorite music onto any USB Device and plug it into the port on the rear of the chair. To listen to the music, use either the headphone port or the external speakers that point toward the person utilizing the massage chair
- Ultra-Long 30″ Massage Roller Track: The massage track boasts a massage range of just over 30 inches, which is not only an unusually large track for a mid-range priced massage chair, but it also allows the chair more than enough coverage to reach the lower tailbone area for users up to 6’5 ft in height.
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DETAILED FUNCTIONS & FEATURES
The Infinity IT-8500
The Infinity IT-8500 Massage Chair is designed to reflect the principles of Zero Gravity that NASA uses in all of its space capsule seats. Using the concept of Zero Gravity allows the chair to mimic an unadulterated weightless experience, not unlike that which astronauts experience in space.
Zero Gravity will allow your body to release all weight and tension into the chair, while inducing a sense of weightlessness that relieves stress, tension and muscle discomfort. All the while, your legs will remain higher than your body to improve circulation and blood flow, which, ultimately, provides the most comfortable, and relaxing massage chair experience.
When you invest in the massage chair of your dreams, you are investing in the comfort and quality that it will provide. The IT-8500 provides a timeless blend of aesthetics, technology and relaxation.
Powerful airbags located in the headrest, lower waist, posterior, shoulders, arms and wrists, legs and the soles of the feet work to both compress and decompress your muscles, relieve pressure and tension on the joints and alleviate stiffness. Gentle heat, soothing sound, adjustable speed, two levels of Zero Gravity and an audio MP3 interface combine to become the ultimate indulgence.
2 Stage Zero Gravity Recline
The IT-8500 massage chair eliminates pain within vertebral discs by maintaining and encouraging the natural “S” shape of the spine all the way from the neck through the lumbar region.
The steady rhythmic massage of the IT-8500 soothes fatigued muscles, releases tension and steadies a normal heart rate by assisting in the transmission of oxygen-rich blood throughout your entire body.
The IT-8500 offers two Zero Gravity recline stages, which raises your legs above your heart.
The Zero Gravity experience of the IT-8500 promotes overall well-being, reducing your heart rate, soothing stress and calming both the body and mind for a one of a kind relaxation experience.
Inversion Recline
Inversion therapy sets the IT-8500 apart from most other massage chairs. The IT-8500 is arguably the best full body stretching massage chair in the market, and it uses Inversion during some of the automatic programs (including the popular “Extend” pre-set mode) to invert the body fully upside down to 190 degrees. Once in inversion, the airbags and the roller track coordinate to grasp and stretch the body unlike any other massage chair on the market.
Computer Body Scan
The beauty and skill of the IT-8500 massage chair is threefold. First, the massage chair automatically detects the position of your body on the chair, giving it the unique ability to target specific areas of your body such as the shoulders or calves without having to manually interfere with the machine.
Furthermore, the IT-8500 has a highly tuned optical sensor that allows it to pinpoint areas of your body to apply precise and comfortable massage to specific areas of the body. Finally, the IT-8500 sensors target individual accupoints along the spine, neck and shoulders to deliver the most accurate, soothing and precise massage possible.
Spinal Correction
An advanced upper body airbag system allows for a firm shoulder retraction in conjunction with a lower extremity grip and stretch feature. These operations are performed simultaneously as the main back roller massagers moves up and down the spine and the seat’s shiatsu swivel feature swings the hips from side to side. This advanced multi functional system results in industry-leading state of the art spinal correction and can even correct your posture.
The shiatsu seat swivel feature can be increased up to 5 settings to help align the lower back even further.
Tru-Grip V Stretch
The advanced programming of the IT-8500 optimizes a full body grip, enabling a spinal stretch that is unsurpassed in the industry.
Deep Pressure Massage Along the Spine
All along your spinal column there are vast bundles of nerves that retain tension and result in stiffness and fatigue. The IT-8500 offers pressurized massage strokes from the cervical spine all the way through the lumbar region in long, continuous strokes. Simply sink deep into your massage chair, and allow the high-tech rollers to knead out tension, improve overall blood circulation and even promote healthier digestion. Give yourself just 20 minutes a day in the IT-8500, and you will experience a higher level of total well-being.
4 Automatic Programs
Indulge in the IT-8500’s four (4) full-body massage pre-set modes, which can be selected with the tap of a button on the remote control. The collection of therapeutic invigorating recovery programs range in strength and specialize in delivering a customized massage to different parts of the body. Each of these programs can be timed anywhere from 10-45 minutes.
- Recover: This program is excellent for those who have an active lifestyle and/or endure a lot of physical activity throughout their day. The Recover mode provides a deep tissue massage along the back using the kneading, pummeling and knocking massage techniques. As the rollers work the back, the airbags deploy throughout the chair to provide a wonderful shoulder, waist, arm, calf and foot massage
- Extend: The most popular program offered in the IT-8500 is the Extend mode. It uses the kneading, knocking, pummeling and shiatsu massage techniques along the back and provides an unrivaled stretch program that sets the IT-8500 apart from other chairs. While in this program, the chair reclines 190 degrees to the Inversion position, which is an ideal angle to enjoy a decompression stretch along the lower back
- Refresh: Ideal for when just waking up, the Refresh programs provides a moderate massage along the back and is designed to revitalize and refresh your body
- Relax: The lightest mode offered in the IT-8500, Relax is an impressive program to use just before bed to relax and unwind after a long day
6 Manual Massage Techniques
Dive into the IT-8500’s manual mode to create your own customized massage program using any of the massage techniques offered: Kneading, Tapping, Knocking, Shiatsu and Combination. You can even connect your favorite music to the IT-8500 and have the rollers sync to the beat of your favorite playlist using the Music Synchronization mode.
Regardless of which massage technique(s) you use, you can can control whether you want the the back rollers to target the entire back, a partial area of the body, or even geotarget a specific point of the back. Additional manual controls include how far apart of close together you want the rollers to be relative to each other (3 settings) and whether you want the speed of the rollers to be slow or fast (6 settings).
Conforms to Your Body’s Natural Shape
Your body has a natural “S” shaped curve that is created by your spine. As such, your spine often bears the brunt of stress, tension and the basic support of your body. However, this tension often builds, leading to various ailments including pain, numbness and, in some cases, can even affect your heart rate. The IT-8500 features a unique slide rail for its massage rollers that conforms to that natural curve of your spine so it can soothe stress, alleviate pain and tension and provide a deep sense of long-lasting comfort and relaxation.
Accu-Roll Shoulder Massage
The IT-8500 incorporates 5 sensors to detect the neck and shoulder, which provides an accurate and thorough upper body massage.
38 Airbags
The IT-8500 has 38 airbags that are strategically distributed throughout the chair to massage the areas of the body not covered by the 30″ back roller system. The airbags are located in the shoulders, the waist, line the inside of the arm pockets, the calves, the sides of the feet, inside the seat, and in the neck pillow. Depending on how mild or vigorous you want the air massage to be, it can be adjusted up to five (5) settings – from weak to strong. Take a look below for detailed information on what the airbags offer.
Head Rest Pillow Airbags
The IT-8500 provides a pillow cushion, which features two airbags that provide a variety of massage options for your head and neck. Whether your neck is tense, cramped or pained, the airbags relieve tension and restore your head and neck to a state of ease and comfort. Through gentle swinging motions, trailing massages and pressure points, the airbags continuously inflate and deflate to provide superior comfort and relaxation.
Lower Waist Airbags
The deep, kneading motion of the 3-layer massage airbags mimics the motion of human hands to twist your hips from side to side. This stretch motion massages the hard-to-reach hips and stretches the lower back, leaving you feeling refreshed, centered and alive.
Lumbar and Buttock Airbags
The twisting motion of two powerful airbags acts like the hands of a licensed masseuse to deliver an invigorating massage that rolls out tension and revives the buttocks and thighs.
Calf & Foot Roller Massage
Because you normally hold tension, stress and fatigue in your feet, our powerful massagers will revive your entire being. In each foot unit of the massage chair, there are 8 airbags and 6 rolling massagers that knead the bottoms of the feet. Each airbag is designed specifically to squeeze, knead, roll and swing massage the sole, arch, heel and ankle.
Each leg of the massage chair features 12 individual airbags to provide a deep tissue massage that boosts blood circulation and gives your feet a healthier, revitalized feel.
Tension, stress and fatigue compounds in your feet, so the kneading, rolling and swinging massage motion deeply refreshes your soles, arches, heels and ankles.
Shoulder Airbags
Airbags below both shoulders offer powerfully refreshing, kneading, rolling and twisting massage motions. Much like a professional massage, they provide the highest level of comfort and relaxation to areas with the most tension.
Arm and Wrist Airbags
Lightweight but powerful, the airbags along the wrists offer a soothing wave-like motion to smooth away tension, promote circulation and leave your arms feeling refreshed.
Up to 45 Minute Timer
Most massage chairs have a timer that range from 15-30 minutes, but you can extend your massage session even longer with the IT-8500 — from 10 to 45 minutes.
Warm and Relax Your Muscle Stress
Because the majority of your stress is trapped in the muscles of your back, the powerful heating function of the IT 8500 is designed to soothe and prepare your muscles for the massage. The heating elements located in the lower lumbar area gently warm up to gradually reduce pain and tightness, as well as restore healthy circulation and the rigidity of your muscles.
Easy to Use Remote Control
Easily navigate through the four auto programs, adjust the recline angle of the footrest and backrest (or select Zero Gravity), turn on/off the heat, activate the music system, create a manual program, make micro-adjustments, and much more using the remote control pedestal.
MP3 Music System
Soothe and satiate your senses as you enjoy a deep, relaxing massage. The IT-8500 allows you to customize your massage by surrounding yourself with sound. Upload your favorite music using a USB flash drive, then sit back, relax and enjoy. This combination of soothing massage therapy and audio ambiance provides a truly one-of-a-kind therapeutic experience.
Low Impact & Environmentally Sound
The IT-8500 is designed to deliver not only powerful results, but also the lowest environmental impact possible. Your massage chair uses a very low amount of energy (about 220W while in operation) and a steady and constant voltage. Because comfort should never come with strings attached, the chair produces very little noise while providing you with the comfort of a professional massage in your own home.
A Sophisticated Design and Look
The luxurious all new full body look of the IT-8500 along with the deeper massage places this chair at the top of the hierarchy. You will be thrilled with the many new advances of this latest Infinity chair.
The IT-8500 Stands the Test of Time
When you invest in the massage chair, we know you’re investing in the comfort and longevity that it will provide. The IT-8500 provides unparalleled wear resistance and is highly protected against corrosion – we’ve even tested it in a potent dose of sodium hydroxide for 72 hours. The material of your chair is easy to clean, protected against extreme temperatures and features a very breathable material for simple care and maintenance.
SPECIFICATIONS
| Suggested User Height | 5’0 – 6’5 ft. |
| Suggested Max. User Weight | 325 lbs. |
| Roller Track Length | 30.2 inches (S-Track) |
| Number of Airbags | 38 Airbags |
| Number of Auto Programs | 4 Auto Programs |
| Heat | Lower Back |
| Chair Upholstery | Synthetic Leather |
| Weight | Product net weight: 230 lbs. |
| Timer Settings | 10, 20, 30 or 45 minutes |
| Maximum Operating Period | 45 minutes |
| Product Dimensions | Approx. Upright: 45.7″ H x 35.4″ W x 59″ D Approx. Reclined: 36.2″ H x 35.4″ W x 74″ D |
| Ships in 2 Boxes | Big Box Dimensions: 31″ H x 33″ W x 63″ D Small Box Dimensions: 19″ H x 23″ W x 21″ D |
| Remote Type | LCD Pedestal Remote |
| Power Consumption | 260 Watts |
| Number of Motors | 8 Motors |
| Usage Benefits | Spinal decompression; Relieving muscle fatigue; Increasing blood circulation |
| Origin | Made in China; Ships from the USA |
PRODUCT VIDEOS
Choose From One of These 2 Shipping Options:
1) Curbside Shipping - FREE
All of our massage chairs qualify for free curbside delivery, which typically ships within 1-3 business days of placing your order. Once the chair arrives at your local delivery terminal, the delivery company will give you a call to arrange a delivery window. Please note that the delivery person is not responsible for carrying the chair into your home, though they may if you ask them to do so. Also note that depending on the chair you are purchasing, it will arrive unassembled. Assembly instructions are included in your chair’s packaging and can be installed in about 15-60 minutes.
2) WHITE GLOVE DELIVERY - $179
If you prefer to have your massage chair assembled for you, a White Glove Delivery upgrade is offered for this massage chair. If this option is selected, a professional installation team will schedule an appointment with you to determine the best time to deliver your massage chair. Once the delivery team arrives, they will carry the chair into your home or business, remove the packaging, and install it in the room of your choice. Your chair will be operating correctly before they leave.
Choose From One of These 3 Warranty Options:
Infinity 5 Year "Peace of Mind" Warranty with Limited Parts and Labor - FREE
Infinity guarantees that your qualified product will be replaced or repaired at our option, without cost to you, should it be deemed defective because of faulty parts, workmanship or structural defects during the first five (5) years of ownership. This warranty plan includes one (1) year of in-home labor, three (3) years of parts, and five (5) years of structural framework.
EXTENDED WARRANTY OPTIONS:
1) 3 year parts & labor warranty - $399
For an additional price, Infinity offers a three year parts, labor & framework bumper-to-bumper warranty. This includes a total of three (3) years of in-home labor, three (3) years of parts, and three (3) years of structural framework coverage.
2) 5 year parts & labor warranty - $599
For an additional price, Infinity offers a five year parts, labor & framework bumper-to-bumper warranty. This includes a total of five (5) years of in-home labor, five (5) years of parts, and five (5) years of structural framework coverage. This extended warranty plan offers the most comprehensive coverage.
NOTE: Your preferred warranty option can be selected prior to adding this massage chair to your cart. The free 5 year warranty option is selected by default. You have 30 days from the date of purchase to add an extended warranty. Warranties cannot be stacked. Call us at 844-862-4391 to add an extended warranty to an existing purchase.
1 review for Infinity IT-8500 Inversion Massage Chair
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24 Hour Customer Support
Have a question? Ready to make a purchase? Give us a call any time toll free at 844-862-4391. You may also talk to a Massage Chair Specialist directly on the bottom right side of this page via live chat.
Lowest Price Guarantee
All our massage chairs are listed at the minimum advertised price (MAP). If you find the same model at the same price, contact us and we will price match our competitor and may also offer you an additional discount.
Free Shipping on All Purchases
All massage chair orders are shipped free via curbside delivery. White Glove Delivery -- where an installation team will take the massage chair into your home or business and assemble it for you -- is also available.
No Sales Tax
Customers outside the state of Illinois are not subject to state sales taxes.
Nhung Nguyen –
Great chair & serviceI been eyeing massage chairs for the longest time and decided to treat myself upon seeing this great deal! It arrived quicker than I expected, and I’m happy with the great customer service that was able to assist me before making the decision to purchase!
Dennis Joyner –
i purchased my massage chair two months ago and had a little trouble when the chair was initially delivered and setup. I contacted the company and within two days they sent out another team to check and fix the chair. It has been working remarkably well and my wife and I use it almost every day! I highly recommend it. Prior to purchasing the chair, the wife and I would go to spas, have a nice relaxing massage, then have to get in the car and fight traffic getting back home and by the time we would get back home, we would be tense again. Now, we get in the chair for 30-45 minutes, then jump in the hot tub for 20 minutes, grab a shower and fully relaxed!! One of the best purchases I have made for our health and well being. I also like that I can plan soothing massage music via the chair while I am being massaged! Only wish it was able to handle Bluetooth rather than just a USB port.
Dyanne Parnel –
How'd we live before it?This chair is amazing!! My hubby had hip problems and went to chiro every two weeks to no avail. I have TOS and would get regular massages. We we're apprehensive bout these chairs but got hooked at a trade show.
We have NOT been disappointed! The customizable settings, heated seat,zero gravity!! Hubby hasn't been back to chiro and I other did massage once in the year we've owned this chair. It is absolutely a life saver!!
Kim Anderson –
Love our chair. Use it every day!
S.R. –
I've had this chair for several months now and wanted to give a review. I needed a chair that had (1) deep tissue, and (2) that offered an above average stretching program and this model was recommended to me immediately as the gold standard chair on both of those fronts. It delivers on both.
This chair offers a phenomenal lower back stretch and provides a fantastic neck and shoulder message. just what i was looking for. The Extend mode is amazing and is the deepest tissue of the different auto programs. It provides a better stretch than the other programs. 45 minutes of pure bliss. If I have time before bed I use the Relax program as it's the least aggressive program and incorporates the airbags in the neck/head area to the message. The foot rollers can be aggressive on some modes over the other. I recommend wearing socks to lessen the pressure somewhat if you find it too intense like I did initially.
The remote control has quite a few different auto set programs to select from, all of which are different from each other depending on what you're looking for and mood. It did take some time to get used to the different settings and working my way around the remote control settings. Take a look at the video on this site and it explains it a lot clearer than the User manual does. Very helpful.
The manual controls are great too. If you just want to target the neck for example you can just message that area. If you want just the air bags to message the feet, you can do that. If you want the rollers to work a region of the lower back, you can pinpoint that area with the back rollers. It's like instructing a personal messuse where to work your body.
Just a note on delivery: I opted for White Glove but as they were unpacking it I noticed a huge scratch on the foot rest but the Message Chair Deals team worked with me quickly to send out a replacement and it got here within a couple days. The White Glove team came out again and put it together for me a day later. The customer service and quick turnaround was highly appreciated. Thank you.
Pat & Cindy –
We've spent thousands of dollars on massages at our local therapist for years for lower back and shoulder issues that have built up over the past few decades and recently stumbled upon this chair at a friend's house in California and my wife and I were bewildered by not only how beautiful it is but its flexibility in providing a massage. I prefer deep pressure massages BUT my WIFE prefers somewhere in between a deep and moderate massage and we were amazed at how wonderful of a massage it gave both of us. Honest to God I've spent thousands of dollars at our therapist over the years but it never once occurred to me to look into a massage chair. After trying it out at our friends' home, he gave us the model number and we placed an order shortly upon returning home. I'm in my late 50s, wife is in her early 50s. I weigh a little over 200 pounds and am 6'0, she weighs about 150 and is 5'6 and the IT-8500 fits both of us comfortably.
We decided to go the White Glove Delivery route as my wife was worried that it wouldn't function properly if I set it up myself so we did spend a few extra hundred dollars for that feature. It took about 2 weeks for it to arrive.
We've had it for about 2 months now in our home and we couldn't be happier with it. I love all the auto programs including the Extend (stretching) and Recover mode. The auto programs provide me such comfort that I admittedly haven't dived much into the manual modes (my more tech-friendly grand kids have though) but I plan on playing around with them more this weekend. Also the massage around the neck and the rollers in the feet are a joy!
For the feature set it offers, I wouldn't think twice about buying this. The customer support team was also helpful in answering any of my questions I had before buying the chair. Highly recommended.
We still see our therapist but have considerably reduced our visits since receiving this chair. I figure it will pay off but itself in a few years with the bonus of having a chair in our home capable of giving us a massage whenever we need it.
Dominic Reed –
The Infinity 8500 is an AMAZING chair. Almost every mode in this chair is excellent -- especially the extend and stretch mode.
The deep tissue massage and foot rollers are incomparable to any other massage chair that we tried, and my wife and I knew it was the "right" chair almost immediately after we sat in it at Brookstone. I immediately went online to purchase it because of the sales tax savings. It took nearly two weeks to arrive but saving >$300 on taxes was a great decision.
I almost immediately saw my stress and lower back pain reduce within a few uses. Took a little under two weeks to arrive due to a small back order but we finally received it & are verry satisfied with it.
william hutt –
Research: Like most consumers, massage chairs of this caliber isn't sold in my area. Researching the chairs online was my only option.
Unpacking: It's very heavy!! I'm not sure why they put wheels on the back of the chair, especially when you will likely hurt your back trying to lift the front of the chair in order to use the wheels to move it.
Solution: The chair sits on 4, 2X3 inch rubber feet. Save your back, put furniture sliders under the chair's feet prior to assembling the chair. Adding the sliders enables me to easily move the chair where I want it.
Assembly: Before repositioning the chair back, make sure the loose air tubes are clear from pinching. Facing the chair, look where the seat and back intersect : 3 tubes on the left and 1 tube + 1 speaker on the right.
Arms: Watch YouTube Video on assembling the IT-8200. The chair comes with a long Philips head screw driver and an Allen wrench. In addition you will need a very, very short Philips head screw driver. The short screw driver will be used on the back 2 locking inserts for the arms. The front locking arm insert and the shoulder airbag/speaker sections require the long Philips head.
Foot/Calf Section: If you assemble this section by yourself as I did, the foot/calf section will need to be place on a 2X4 or something comparable in order to align the mounting points between the chair and the foot/calf section. You can't simultaneously hold this section up and screw in the hex head bolts.
Head/neck airbag: When you install the back pad section (contains head/neck and lower back airbags) you may need to tug on the air tubes in order to get the head/neck airbag into position. In all of the videos I looked at online, the bottom of the airbag sits just above the shoulder airbags. That position doesn't fit me or my wife correctly. It becomes very obvious when using the relax program.
You can gently pull the head/neck air tubes through the back section which allows the head/neck airbag to drop down, lining its bottom up with the shoulder airbags bottom. This makes a world of difference in the neck massage using the relax program.
Use the head/neck Velcro attaching point as a reference. You should be able to pull out the air tubes to the point where you are still able to attach the airbag to the Velcro and have a 1/2 - 1" of play in the tubes.
Massage: The preset programs relax, extend.... scans your back to determine your height. The manual modes don't do this. From my research I noticed website adds referencing optical scanning for this chair. As an electrical engineer I don't any optical sensors.
What actually happens when the chair scans your back?
Basically, the massage rollers runs up your back until the pressure against the rollers is reduced. The reduced pressure position, generally your neck area, is used as a reference point for your massage.
Neck and Shoulder: I like a good neck and shoulder massage. After extending the head/neck air tubes I get a nice squeeze on my neck. Before the air tube adjustment, it didn't.
When using the other programs I would suggest moving the head/neck airbag out of the way and locking it in place. By doing this, the scan seems to be more accurate on your neck location.
Note: If you don't lock or tie down the head/neck airbag, especially on the extend program, it will pull the shoulder/head pad off the back of the chair. Without the pad in place, the head (base of scull) massage is rough.
Shoulder Blade and Upper tail/hip bone areas may need extra padding if you lack any natural padding in these areas. Massage rollers hitting bone doesn't feel that good.
Foot/Calf: Years ago I tried a massage chair that squeezed my calves to a painful point. The calf massage on the IT-8500 is tight, but comfortable. The foot tendon airbag feels very nice, wish I could get more massage in that area.
The 1st time I tried the foot rollers they felt good most of the time, however they did put me on edge a few times. Since, I didn't want to turn off the rollers, and didn't want my massage to be interrupted by pain in my foot, I placed carpet on the rollers (carpet side facing the rollers) to reduce the intensity.
My main issue is the roller intensity in the arch of my foot. I would like more roller intensity in the heel and toe. Cutting out some of the carpet may solve this issue.
Hand/Forearm: This is nice. I would like more intensity on the hand and finger areas, more on the order of someone massaging each individual finger. When I get a chance I want to make a bean bag which I can lay my hand on. The combination of bean bag and airbag may get more of the massage I'm looking for in this area.
At home, I work a lot with my hands and depending on what I'm doing, my hands get pretty sore at times.
Extend Program: This is my favorite. Other than issues mentioned earlier, I really like this one. On the other hand, my wife and daughters enjoy the stretch, but not the pulsing or vibrating part of the program. It would be nice if you could select another massage technique when the pulsing starts. I saw a review were the reviewer indicated you could do that, but every time I try it goes into manual mode which dis-engages the extend programs routine.
I'm not sure if I can manually simulate the extend program. When I get a chance I will look in to it.
Summary: In my 3 year search for an upgrade to my IJOY massage chair, I purchased the IT-8500 and have been using it for the past 2 days. The chair's price, and by nature, I don't buy before I try, kept me from buying. My wife, who has back issues due to car wrecks and degenerative disc, would not use my IJOY chair unless she was desperate. The chair didn't fit her right and the massage is intense.
The expectations of the extend program and neck massage pushed me into taking the IT-8500 plunge. My hope is that my wife will use the chair on a regular basis to alleviate some of her back issues. As for myself, other than issues mentioned, I'm happy with the chair.
If interested, we purchased the chocolate brown, which is very good looking rich brown. The internet pictures don't give it justice. It looks a little darker in person.
Miguel Antonio –
We've had this chair for several weeks and the wife seems very happy with it after I surprised her with it for her birthday. Before making the purchase, I did a bit of research and found that it offers roughly the same features as the Osaki 7075R but one reason I opted for this one is because its finish is much more in the line of a traditional massage chair versus the 7075R's unconvential look. I feel that the 7075r would have stood out look a sore thumb in our living room.
I tried both at a chair at a store and both offer solid and intense deep tissue massages but this one seems to have a more snug fit. This chair also offers an MP3 option and quite a bit more preset programs. Another selling point was the inversion therapy. Osaki's line don't offer inversion therapy and I thought it was a bit of a ploy until I tried it out. It really is a cool feature and the angle really helps hit all the right spots. I recommend this.
Emma S. –
I was in the market for a massage chair and only wanted one that was capable of giving me an intense massage and this one does it. It's the perfect sweet spot between the lower end and higher end chairs. It was delivered last month and so far I've been using it everyday after work and have been caught sleeping more than I can count. There was a short delay in it arriving but the massage this chair offers more than made up for my impatience.