Market Size and Where the Chairs Sit
Shared massage chairs are placed in malls, cinemas, airports, high-speed rail stations, and hotels. A customer scans a code and pays for the session. iResearch put the China market at about RMB 4.5 billion in 2023, with more than 800,000 units in the field. Chairs sit in different cities and different spots, with no fixed Wi-Fi, so 4G/5G is a requirement and more than 90% are online. Status, billing, fault alerts, and remote control all run on that link. Without it, the operation does not work.
Core Pain Points
Chairs that are hard to service: Units are spread widely. Faults, missing receipt paper, and low consumables still depend on someone walking the floor, so response is slow and the visit is expensive. Billing and venue share: Scan-to-pay and the split with the venue need the chair online, talking to the payment platform and the site’s system. Site choice and day-to-day running: Session frequency, revenue, and fault rate decide which spots stay, where chairs move, and which units come out.
Technical Standards and Terminology
Sharing-economy appliances of this type fall under GB 4706, Safety of Household and Similar Electrical Appliances, plus mechanical-safety rules. Common terms: 4G Cat.1 (low- to mid-rate cellular, a fit for a massage chair); M2M (device-to-platform communication); IoT (Internet of Things); SaaS (the operations platform); OTA (over-the-air update). Uplink is about 1–3 Mbps. Payment is expected in under 3 seconds. A chair typically uses 50–120 MB a month. Typical operators: Lemobar, Shuangke, and First Class Interconnect.
A Field Example
One operator runs 50,000 chairs across malls and airports in more than 200 cities. Over 4G, billing, status, and faults report as they happen. Full-occupancy and fault alerts open a work order on their own. Maintenance response fell from 24 hours to under 6 hours, and utilization rose by about 15%.
Where IoT Is Used
Status on the network: The chair reports operating state, session count, fault codes, and remaining consumables over 4G/5G, and it supports anomaly alerts, remote diagnosis, and over-the-air updates.
Billing and payment: QR payment, membership cards, and coupon redemption need the chair online. Transaction records then settle with the revenue-share system and the venue.
Operations analysis: Session frequency, revenue, and fault rate guide site choice, where to move chairs, and when to restock consumables.
Where the Market Is Heading
Chairs are being paired with shared power banks, shared bikes, and similar on-site services. AI health checks and session recommendations are appearing. Chair data is being tied to the venue and the surrounding retail district. Operators are also looking at Southeast Asia.
Summary
A shared massage chair is monitored, billed, and judged as a site from its connection. SimtoLink supplies 4G/5G IoT SIM cards and communication modules for this business, so chairs stay online and operators can run a leaner field team without making the session harder to start.