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Comment by mapleoin | Hacker News Reader

Interesting. How easy is it to switch between sitting and standing? Does it make sense with a heavy 4K monitor on it?

You adjust the chair so the seat is just slightly lower than your butt then to switch to standing you slide forward off the stool. To switch back you do a little half hop onto your butt.

I think they were asking about adjusting the table's height.

You don't.

That's the point: the table never moves. You buy a table thats tall enough for comfortable standing use then buy a chair tall enough to that you never adjust the table. What's great about this is that there is no conscious effort needed to switch between sitting and standing you don't have to set a timer to remind you to stand up, crank your desk into standing position, nothing. You just flow on and off your chair.

Adjustable standing desk is more than a desk -- it's a multi-use work surface. I can push my monitors out of the way and move it all the way up to have the right height for taking computers apart. I can then move it to writing height and fill out paperwork like it's 1995 and then adjust it again for typing height and pull my monitors back into place.

If I could, every surface I owned would be adjustable height.

The whole point is that you're NOT constantly adjusting the desk, but using a taller chair when you sit.

Oh, then what's the point of comparing it with the Sit/Stand desk in the submission?

I believe the idea is that it is you essentially get the best of both worlds with this setup because 1) switching between sitting and standing is more fluid, as you need only to sit down or get out of your chair to switch (rather than needing to change desk height) 2) it is in general cheaper and longer-lasting because there are not motors, etc. involved.

If all you are trying to accomplish is to move from sitting/standing while working at a computer, they solve the same problem in a way that has been solved for at least a hundred years and is generally cheaper.

There are some merits to adjustable desks above and beyond that though.

What are they?

My motorized adjustable desk and highly adjustable Capisco chair work for both me (6'2") and my wife (5'3") at standard-office-chair height, tall saddle-stool height, or standing. It can easily be slightly tweaked for typing or writing with a pen.

If we wanted to do the same thing with a fixed desk, we would need some kind of platform for her to stand on, plus at least two adjustable-height seats with adjustable foot rests.

Standing work on a computer is different than standing work for a soldering is different for drafting is different for drawing. A moving desk can support all those use cases but a adjustable chair and static desk can't.

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