I’m Looking for a good office chair.
Thanks! Found a good price for a Steelcase Amia.
Get an office chair and not one of those “gaming chairs”
Source: I use a “gaming chair” and it sucks ass
Herman Miller
AeronEmbody and Steelcase Leap are both good.Check out Crandall’s Office Furniture for good refurbished chairs.
Edited because apparently the Embody is just way better.
Will echo the aeron. Have had mine for about 5 years, rock solid.
Bought one from a guy who refurbishes them for $500. Definely get it used and look at Craigslist/Facebook marketplace for local deals. May luck out.
I got a refurbished Aeron for $400. The thing was originally manufactured in 2002 and it is still rock solid.
That’s it, these two. There are more expensive options in those two brands, but these are the baseline. They are actual professional chairs, not Chinese gamer chair bullshit like the stuff that gets marketed everywhere. Because they last forever due to actually being well built, you can oftentimes find them second hand.
When work from home first started during covid, lots of offices liquidated. I got my steealcase leap V2s for $200 a pop.
My Aeron is nearly 10 years old and still great
Heck the aeron!
I used to work in the warehouse where we shipped them. They’re good chairs. If you’re gonna spend that money though, get the Embody. Make sure to get the correct size. After hours of lugging designer couches around and other overly heavy stuff, sitting in an Embody chair makes the hurt stop immediately.
I’m not a promoter and they stopped paying me over some stupid shit a coworker pulled. It’s just a damn good chair. The eames lounge is also sick, but so incredibly expensive.
Go to a brick and mortar store like Staples and try them out yourself.
The chair that suits one person will be agony another.
You have to find out for yourself.
Second this. Don’t get a gaming one, go to an office store. They build them expecting people to need to sit in them for hours.
Don’t cheap out either. Remember the most important things to never cheap out on are things that go between you and the ground. Chairs, mattresses, shoes.
Personally I found a great mesh one that doesn’t get hot in the summer and is still very supportive after 5 years
I second the mesh chair. I got this one at Staples for $100 a couple weeks ago and my ass is thanking me. I was using a fancy gaming chair before that felt like sitting on concrete.
I like Hercules office chairs. They’re meant to hold 300lb people for 8 hours a day. I’m not that big, and I don’t sit that long, but the chair has lasted me a lot longer than cheap or even moderately priced office chairs.
I’ve never tried those expensive Herman Miller ones though. That’s just too outside my budget and mesh doesn’t look very comfortable to me. Not too mention my cats would shred that up.
The mesh of a HM Aeron is the best part. Never getting sweaty is something I never considered before, but its a game changer
Aeron chairs are grossly overrated. They have been clever in both making a durable kind of chair and marketing like Apple. They aren’t that comfortable and are designed to keep you “upright” but not much else. Originally there wasn’t much like the Aeron, but now you have many, many choices for a much better price and comfort. It’s personal taste, but I prefer a chair with a headrest. Also, your desk is equally as important for long sessions. Size, leg room, height etc. I built my own custom workstation to suit my needs. I ended up using a cheap Corsair gaming chair and my neck and mouse shoulder has never been happier.
The breathable mesh material of the Aeron alone makes it head and shoulders above most other chairs, for anyone who ever gets sweaty while sitting. It’s interesting to me how basically no one seems to notice this but me…
Also, buying a $200 chair every 2 years costs more than buying a $1300 chair for life.
Who would buy a $200 chair every two years(!?). There are so many other breathable mesh chairs out there that have more articulation/adjustment. and aren’t $850-1300. Aeron’s just aren’t comfortable after 3-4 hours let alone a marathon work day. They are designed to keep you upright and facing a monitor, not for comfort. I think they get away with it because they have become a corporate status symbol. Especially new production offices/agencies/startups love to populate their workspaces with aerons or mira (another terrible chair). Like the eames lounge chair: Gorgeous and futurist to look at, but nigh impractical and uncomfortable.
This is either a very uninformed statement or a random opinion stated as fact. People buy these chairs because they like them. I spend 50 hours a week in one and I disagree with you heartily.
As far as who would buy a chair every couple of years, people who buy cheap chairs. I used to be one of them and know people who also were. Even a particularly cheap person I know ended up buying a used Aeron, got a great deal, and loves it. It’s not that hard to find them used because they are heavy to move cross country and offices upgrade all the time so they are out there.
But sure, your opinion is gospel, they’re objectively shit and all their popularity is unearned. /s
Does anyone sell KAB where you live? They are the absolute best, 24h-certified chairs money can buy. I have a Director at home and a K4 at work and I would not trade them for anything.
What is the price range for these?
Director is around €1400 if I remember correctly.
Oof. They look nice but that’s hard to justify to me without being able to sit in one. And I’d have to save up for that for a while
The most important thing, no chair can solve the problem of uninterrupted sitting for 8+ hours. No matter what you spend or what materials they use. Sitting for 8+ hours will slowly do permanent damage to your body. No matter what chair you sit in, stand up occasionally, take little walks, do exercises or calisthenics or something, whatever feels right for you.
I’m Autistic and when I play videogames I can get so hyperfocused that I don’t realise the outside world has moved forward a whole day. Until something physically interrupts my gameplay. So I set timers now, and I strictly obey them. Nothing short of surgery will ever heal my tailbone issue, but I can at least prevent it from getting worse.
I also have a standing desk, so I will swap it between standing and sitting every 2 hours if I don’t want to take breaks. And I have a VR headset for using my computer from different chairs; a recliner, a kitchen chair, anything different from my computer chair. I also use the VR headset for most of my non-computer gaming. It has become my current console gaming platform.
VR games are a great way to spend 8+ hours uninterrupted in a game without causing body problems, lol. Plus, if it’s mixed reality, you can still do real life stuff while playing, like walking over and getting a glass of water or talking to and interacting with the other people in the room. In full Virtual reality it’s still a good idea to have timers set, just as a check-in, if you have been standing still in the game, your knees could need some exercise, if you are hungry or thirsty or have to go to the bathroom… you know, the kinds of things you might not notice while the game is running, hehe.
For your tailbone, have you had a ganglion impar nerve block? It may help. A pain management facility can do it.
I would prefer to feel pain when something is supposed to be painful. The whole point of pain is to avoid doing things that are causing you damage. The reason I’m in this mess is my unnatural ability to ignore pain. Not feeling pain isn’t a solution to a problem, it’s a cause of further problems in the future.
Chronic pain often doesn’t carry a “something is wrong” signal.
i’ve been sitting in cheapo office chairs my whole life and i’m still having a blast.
honestly, any office chair will be fine as long as you are comfortable in it.
no armrests; they get in the way and are pointless when your arms are on the desk already. if your arms aren’t on the desk, you aren’t actively working; i’m not saying get the fuck back to work, i’m saying if your hands aren’t busy, stretch your arms and wrists. RSI is a reaper coming for us all but you can at least alleviate it.
the key is to get up and have a walk around any time you feel like it. stretch, get a snack or a water refill, give your eyes a break from the screen while you mull over legacy code or whatever problem is currently stumping you.
