Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsGreat stall force, but the finish and firmware needs work
Reviewed in the United States on January 28, 2022
I'm a cyclist so my main application is my quads and hamstrings. First, most reviewers seems to freak out about the "metal" chassis. It's not a metal chassis, it's a facade. The chassis is plastic with a metal outer case. How do I know this? If you hold the front of the unit while inserting a massage head, the metal skin will come right off... at least with mine it did. It's just glued on there and I suspect they're using a glue which is not well suited to gluing metal to plastic.
Second problem, they did an awful job with the firmware. If you want to go from full speed to a slow speed and you cycle around, it does not slow down, in fact ALL speeds become high speed. In order to get to a slow speed you have to wait until the motor stops and then cycle through again. As a former software quality assurance manager this just tells me their QC was lacking. That's a bug that should have been caught in prototyping, it should have never made it to a production unit.
They advertise a "force meter." This either doesn't work, or it's completely useless. There's not enough granularity to be able to tell how much force to apply if you're using that as a reference for say, massaging a partner's back. It would be nice to get a visual indicator on the force you're using so you can replicate their preference every time BUT, the meter is so unresponsive that you'd be in physical pain before it even starts responding. Also, there's only 3 LEDs. Hardly useful for that application.
Amplitude... they advertise 11 mm. I've seen other reviewers measure it at around 9.5 mm. I suspect the later to be the case. Even if you make up for the lack of amplitude by using more pressure it still doesn't dig in like models with 15 mm or 16 mm amplitudes.
That brings me to stall force. It's excellent. You'll probably be crying before you can stall out this motor.
Now, I mentioned I'm primarily looking for something to use on my quads, and hamstrings (and glutes, they're often sore after an intense ride). Even with the conical head on this massager just couldn't dig in to my muscles so cyclists... maybe this isn't for you. When I first tried a Theragun which has 16 mm of travel it instantly felt amazing, and like it was breaking up all the knots. For me this massager feels like it's just vibrating my muscles, but not digging in. If I wasn't a cyclist and did lots of upper body work, I might keep this but I will say having the thing fall apart in my hands right out of the box does't give me the warm fuzzies about it.