The vibe of Aescape’s massage rooms is familiar: soft lighting, inviting earth tones, a fresh smell, and stylish chairs with fluffy pillows that you only use to daintily pile your clothes on top of. Like a typical spa, the room also has a massage table, but instead of the classic flat surface covered in a white sheet, it’s a large, pill-shaped device. And then there’s the pair of large robotic arms.
Aescape is a New York City-based company that has created an “AI-enhanced” massage table. As a person who is highly skeptical of robots but loves massages, I volunteered to find out if a robot massage can live up to the incredibly satisfying experience of a massage by a human.
Aescape calls itself “The World’s Most Advanced Massage” but will it alleviate the stubborn back knots of a middle-aged mom who walks everywhere but refuses to stretch or properly hydrate and spends all day hunched over a laptop? On a Monday afternoon in February, me and my aches and pains visited Aescape’s offices and test labs for an appointment with the massage table to find out.
Now at this point you may be wondering but scared to ask: Are you naked for the massage? The answer is no. Instead of stripping down and awkwardly positioning yourself under a sheet, Aescape provides “Aerwar apparel” for rent or purchase. The tight-fitting dark gray pants and matching shirt feel like a combination of yoga gear and a wetsuit. After squeezing into the stretchy ‘fit and pulling my hair back, I took a moment to appreciate how I looked like a humanoid sea lion.
Now it was massage time. Aescape CEO Eric Litman helped walk me through the setup process, but the machines are designed to be self-service. Litman has spent seven years developing Aescape with $80 million in funding. He says that the idea for a…
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