By David Gewirtz
I have the world's worst job. I do. I sit around all day getting massages -- and I get paid for it. Seriously! In fact, I have such a cushy job that I get paid to test products like the iCush, a digitally-enabled massage pad. Yep, I've got the tough life. Don't envy me (too much) because I'm so very lucky.
In the last installment of our Wacky iPod Accessories series, I reviewed a $39.95 product that I described as "tacky, crappy, cheesy, and disappointing". Before I pulled it out of the box, I fully expected to give the $99 HoMedics iCush, shown in Figure A, a similar beating. I was very, very wrong.
FIGURE A
The iCush is, in fact, wonderful for your iTush. (click for larger image)
HoMedics is well known for making massage pads. We've all seen them at Bed, Bath, and Beyond (I'm married now, so I know all too well about Bed, Bath, and Beyond). Massage pads fit on a desk chair or a recliner, with a section that goes under your posterior maximus and an another part that goes up your back. When you flip the switch, the pad nicely massages your body.
At its most basic, the iCush does exactly this. You plug it into the wall, plop it on your seat, sit your butt on down, and flip it on. The iCush runs some nice programs and makes your body feel nice.
Audio integration
The iCush adds two interesting features to the massage pad concept. First, it's got a pair of speakers, so you can plug in your iPod or some other audio device and the sound plays from the speakers. Second, and where this gets really interesting, the iCush can trigger the massaging action so it massages in time to the audio signal coming into the pad.
This seems like a total gimick, but it's really quite amazing.
What's nice, especially after the crappy sound quality of the last product we reviewed, is that the iCush has pretty good speakers. We didn't put them through instrumented audio quality tests, but subjectively, the speakers sounded just fine, even playing something as intense as Black Sabbath's Iron Man.
To enable the vibration to play in time with the music, you've got to plug your iPod (or other audio device) into the iCush. When you do this, the speakers on the iCush play. This could be annoying to a partner who doesn't want to hear what you're playing.
When we first looked at the iCush, we thought it would be far better to have an option to play the iPod through headphones and have some ability to turn off the iCush speakers. It turns out you can. The iCush has a headphone jack (not easy to find, but it's there), and when you plug in your headphones, the iCush massages in time to the music, but the music plays through your headphones.
