.FLYINGHEAD WACKY IPOD ACCESSORIES
.TITLE Is the iCush the perfect iPod accessory for your iTush?
.AUTHOR David Gewirtz
.SUMMARY In the last installment of our Wacky iPod Accessories series, we reviewed a $39.95 product that we described as "tacky, crappy, cheesy, and disappointing". Before we pulled it out of the box, we fully expected to give the $99 HoMedics iCush, a digitally-enabled massage pad, a similar beating. We were very, very wrong. Read this article to find out why.
.OTHER
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.
.FIGPAIR A The iCush is, in fact, wonderful for your iTush.
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.
.TEASER What makes the iCush so special? Tap here and read the full article.
.H1 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.
You could also connect this back to your entertainment system, so if you’ve got a powerful surround sound system for game play, you could still get the full audio experience as well as the physical kick in the iCush.
.H1 Therapeutic modality
HoMedics pitches this product as a video game accessory. Their press materials say:
.QUOTE Although gaming enthusiasts are itching to play Halo 3, HoMedics helps take the edge off the long wait with the introduction of a new gaming accessory that allows video game fanatics to become one with their favorite games. Simply plug in the HoMedics iCush to any gaming device and become part of the action as your muscles vibrate in sync with the gunshots, exploding bombs and car crashes.
They’re missing the point. Yes, the iCush does vibrate in time to game explosions, but that is a gimick. Where the iCush is truly special is in how it integrates with the music in ways that could be very healing.
In neuro-linguistic programming, we have a concept called "anchoring". Anchoring is a term that describes a trigger that can reflexively alter a state of mind. Sounds can form powerful anchors. We’ve all had the experience of hearing a song that transports us back to a special frame of mind.
Touch can also powerfully anchor an emotional state. The iCush brings both sound and touch together.
If you play some empowering music while sitting on the iCush, you could effect a powerful state change and anchor that as a positive state. What’s cool is that if you do this, you might be able to play the same music at a later time (perhaps when you’re away from the iCush and need to de-stress) and the positive anchoring may well be able to bring back that positive state of mind.
For the record, Iron Man is not exactly positive music. But I did play a wonderful Cirque du Soleil piece and the effect with the iCush was marvelous.
.H1 Our rating
As crapulicious as our last reviewed product was, this product is just as fabulous. The massaging portion works quite well and is built by one of the leading companies making such products, so they know what they’re doing. The sound quality is quite good and, at $99, the price is both affordable and you’ll certainly get your money’s worth.
We do have a single minor issue with the weirdly-named iCush that keeps it from getting a perfect score: the thing’s too small. To be fair, I’m a weightlifter, so I’m a big dude. But I’m far from the only big dude and the speakers wound up embedding themselves in my shoulders unless I put a pillow under them. My wife’s much smaller (and prettier) and the iCush fits her perfectly.
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We recommend that HoMedics create a second, extra-large version of the iCush. It’s fine to charge a bit more for the thing, but as it is now, I found it kind of annoying to feel like I was climbing into a Mini Cooper when I really needed a Cadillac-sized chair.
Other than that one complaint, this is a very special product and if you’d like to experience something quite unusual and therapeutic, we can unreservedly recommend you get yourself one. We give the iCush four happy iTushies out of five.
.RATING 4
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
For more information on the iCush, visit http://www.homedics.com/prod/detail.aspx?ID=308.
For more information on anchoring, visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchor_%28NLP%29.
For more information on Cirque du Soleil, visit http://www.cirquedusoleil.com.
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.BIO
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