Guide · Buying

The figures no manufacturer publishes

Across 42 products from two companies, the spec that decides the purchase is missing more often than not. Amplitude on every percussion device. Pressure on one product sold as compression. Temperature on four thermal devices. Wavelength on a product with LED in its name.

Products checked

Percussion w/ amplitude

Thermal w/o temps

Hyperice warranties

PERCUSSION: AMPLITUDE AND STALL FORCE

Not one percussion device from either brand publishes stroke length or stall force. Thirteen models, $109 to $649.99. Those two figures are what determine whether a device works the surface or the tissue underneath it, and both are absent everywhere. Any amplitude figure you find quoted online for a Theragun or a Hypervolt is an estimate.

COMPRESSION: MILLIMETRES OF MERCURY

Every Normatec publishes 40–110 mmHg. JetBoots Prime publishes 25–100. But JetBoots PRO Plus at $1,149.99 publishes no pressure range at all, and RecoveryPulse Calf — sold in the compression category — publishes a motor count instead of a pressure. The entire compression research literature is dosed in mmHg, so a device without that figure cannot be matched to any protocol in it.

THERMAL: DEGREES

Publishes every temperature: Hyperice X 2 Knee and Shoulder, all three Venom 2 wraps, Venom Go, CryoTherm Palm, ThermBack LED.
Publishes none: RecoveryTherm Cube, RecoveryTherm Knee, TheraCup, SmartGoggles.
The gap runs down brand lines. Every Hyperice thermal product states its figures; four Therabody thermal products do not.

LIGHT: NANOMETRES

TheraFace Mask publishes 633 nm, 830 nm and 415 nm. TheraFace Mask Glo publishes the same three. TheraFace PRO, which has an LED ring, publishes none. ThermBack LED, which has infrared in its name, publishes none. The same company states wavelengths on two products and withholds them on two others.

WARRANTY

Therabody states a one-year limited warranty on every product documented here, and flags the two exceptions where a component differs — RecoveryTherm Knee's battery at 90 days, TheraCup's cups at 90 days. No Hyperice product page we read states a warranty term at all, including the $1,549 Normatec 3 Full Body.

Worth knowing

Each brand is more transparent than the other in a different column. Hyperice publishes temperatures and rates and no warranty; Therabody publishes warranties and withholds temperatures. Neither publishes amplitude. There is no brand here that simply tells you everything.

WHAT TO DO WITH THIS

Buy on the figures that exist — runtime, weight, price, attachment count, and pressure or temperature where they are stated. Treat a missing spec as missing rather than assuming a review site has it. And where two products cost the same and only one publishes its numbers, that is a real difference between them, not a technicality.