I’ve got a Herman Millar Aeron at work, and it’s definitely one of the most comfy chairs I’ve ever sat in for long periods of time.
I’ve given serious thought to buying one for my home setup.
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Thanks everyone for the advice and recommendations!
I’d love to buy a nice office chair or an Aeron, but $1000 for a chair is probably outside of my price range, so I’m going to have to do a bit more research.
Pro move: Get a used one. I got an Aeron for $200 from someone who was moving across the country in a hurry. I just took a 10 second glance at Facebook marketplace and saw several Aeron chairs in the $400-$600 range.
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I saved money to buy my Aeron way back in 2007, and I’m sitting in the same one right now.
Used Aerons are just as good as new ones. They honestly don’t wear out.
Also, for lolz, here’s the original forum thread about chairs.
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I hadn’t considered getting a used one. I’ve honestly never used Facebook Marketplace before, but just browsing it quickly, I see a bunch of chairs in the price range I’m looking for.
Thanks for the suggestion! Now I just have to figure out how to transport it to my house!
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A+
Facebook Marketplace is the only good thing Facebook has ever made. It basically destroyed Craigslist.
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My wife was able to get a really nice office chair (don’t remember the brand right now) from a local office supplies reseller. Old dude who collects office supplies from businesses that are closing up shop and then resells them at incredibly reasonable prices.
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If Facebook Marketplace fails to deliver on your needs definitely check this out. I’ve seen folks get nice electric sit/stand desks for $45 from a one near me, at least in the before times.
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Out of curiosity, why is everyone here so adamant about NOT getting a gaming chair and getting a “real” office chair instead?
I posted this same question on Facebook, looking for recommendations, and I’m getting a bunch of people recommending gaming chairs.
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Because you will give your body damage by sitting in them.
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From the research I’ve done there’s just not a lot of conclusive evidence that any particular type of chair is best or most comfortable. It comes down to wildly different human bodies and subjectivity regarding comfort. This is especially true for people with body shapes and sizes far from average.
I’m sure many people find gaming chairs comfortable. The same people probably find driver’s seats in sports cars comfortable, since they’re basically the same shape. But every time I have sat in one, I found it awful, even though I oddly do find driver’s seats in sports cars comfortable. I think the difference for me is that the race car seat is lower to the ground and my legs are forward and I can tilt it back a little bit. Sitting in that same seat elevated off the ground with the back straight up and legs straight down does not work for me.
The one semi-objective measure, is quality. Cheap chairs, of any style, just tend to fall apart. It’s one of those cases where it costs more to be poor. If you buy a $100 chair from the office supply store, it will probably need to be replaced so often that the expensive chair would have paid for itself, if you could afford it in the first place. I’m sure there are some high quality gamer chairs available somewhere, but the ones I have encountered were obviously lower quality. They use their aesthetic and other features to support jacking up the price on an otherwise cheap chair.
Even though the research on best chair is very mixed and inconclusive, it doesn’t seem like gamer chair manufacturers are even trying. They copied exactly one chair shape and stuck it on top of a stand with some casters, and called it a day. The major office furniture manufacturers are actually trying to design furniture. They make a product with a lot of thought, time, research, and care put into it. Without firm answers, I’m going to bet on them over the gamer chair.
They also have large support infrastructure that gamer chair manufacturers do not have. I was able to get some free, and some non-free, support for my Humanscale Freedom chair over the years. New arm pads for free that I was able to swap out. Cushions with new upholstery that I purchased and swapped. They have to have these structures in place because they are supporting clients who have filled entire skyscrapers with their office furniture. You can take advantage of that as an individual customer. The people making gamer chairs typically don’t have that in place because they have never filled a contract to supply an entire corporate campus with chairs.
Lastly, the aesthetic of the gamer chair just screams teenage bedroom. Nothing objective about it. If I see an adult in such a chair, I judge them. Are they also sleeping in a race car bed?
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If Kevin Magnussen did it, you would think it’s cool.
In my experience, “gamer” brand chairs are basically the same as much cheaper office chairs. They don’t usually offer any real benefits, and are often flimsy.
People are paying for the style and the brand more than the comfort or durability.
That’s the only reason. If you find one that is good, go for it!
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Mostly, I side-eye anything extraneous that is marketed at “gamers” or gaming culture generally. There is a tendency for people to try to wear a certain “uniform” that matches their principal hobbies, and a lot of companies will basically slap a skin on a shoddy product, up the price, and sell it to a target demographic.
I acknowledge that I’m a sucker for certain things, so I try to actively be a not-sucker everywhere else.
As Rym said, it’s mostly that gaming chairs are cheap office chairs, and you’ll probably be better served with a proper ergonomic office chair.
They’re also pricey.
When I was looking for office chairs for Nuri (she settled on the Steelcase Amia, which is a great chair but comes in around $800 so probably out of your price range), these two came up as solidly well-reviewed:
https://www.omseating.com/products/detail/?series=15&style=39#product=pt62
I also ran into some reviews of the Sidiz T50 chair, which was touted as an alternative to an Aeron Chair:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B083FBNWCD/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_Q4QS91XN71ZYJ92JD516?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
My only personal experience is with an Aeron chair, and I highly recommend one if you can find them for a good price.
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So looking through Facebook Marketplace, I found a company that sells used office supplies about 35 minutes away from me:
I might drive out there and check them out because they seem more legit than just a random person trying to sell a chair before they move. Prices are a little more expensive than random person on Facebook, but if the chair comes with a return policy and they ship to my house, because I don’t know if the chair could fit in my car, I can live with that.
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Doubly so in the Pandemic times, I will pay more money if a thing can just be shipped to my house. Other humans are icky. Please just make things appear in my driveway and preferably let me pay for them online without talking to a person.
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Yeah… although I kind of want to drive out there just so I can test out all their various chairs to see which one feels most comfortable for me. I’ll probably end up going with an Aeron, but might as well kick the tires…
If you go there to try out chairs you should honestly buy there unless there is an insane markup. They probably have home delivery of some kind.
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I can’t find it now, but I remember reading something suggesting the best chair health-wise is actually a bunch of different chairs.
A stool you can lean on, a recliner you can… recline in, a desk chair for computering, no chair for standing desk, etc. The important part was to move around so you’re not on your butt in one position all day.
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I’ve had some people say that for the money, while the Steelcase and Herman Millers are worth it for their longevity, there’s plenty of cheaper chairs that are equally worth it on a dollars-per-year level and are approximately in the same realm of comfort depending on what an individual’s preferences are.
So while I aknowledge that a high-dollar chair is a sound investment if that chair fits great, if they aren’t quite the right vibe, there’s lots of options on the lower end that are good.
I’ve also had some say that if you like a firm chair the Secretlab isn’t a bad option. They have some qualities that make them more compelling than a generic office chair… at a markup.
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