Ask HN: What is the best chair for developers? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What is the best chair for developers?

59 pointsmisiti378073 comments

I'm sitting for 10+ hours a day, what should I be sitting in ?

10 days ago, 157 points, over 130 comments: "Ask HN: Best office chair for home office work?"

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20371095

Anecdata: I have had good results with the Steelcase Leap. It's not cheap, but as you note, you're going to be spending a lot of time in it so this is probably not the place to economize.

I do wish there were more comparative literature on this subject, as it's difficult to find good objective ways to compare chairs.

Here are the Wirecutter's recommendations: https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-office-chair/

Comparative literature? Meh.

I wish there were someplace where I could go and actually try high-end office chairs. Chair preference is going to vary from person to person (which makes written reviews and comparisons kind of useless), but office supply stores like Staples or Office Depot only stock the low end (which may work for some, but don't have the adjustability or durability of higher-end chairs). I'd like someplace I can go to actually try out and compare a few models of, say, Steelcase, Herman Miller, and Humanscale chairs before I commit to spending the $800+ on one.

If you are in the Texas area , humansolution (https://www.thehumansolution.com) in Austin has a good selection of chairs. Not affiliated with them. I actually drove a few hours just to try out chairs before placing an order for my Leap. It was delivered without issue (well, except Steelcase mixed up the shipping labels with someone else in CO. lol).

The way to find such a place is to use the Steelcase authorized dealer finder, under the assumption that if a place sells Steelcase, they will probably also sell Herman Millers. I did exactly this after striking out at Office Max, and bought a Steelcase Leap with headrest two hours ago for $999.

Protip: ask for the right wheels; one is designed for carpets, one for wood floors

I've been wanting a shop like that in Paris for years.

If you want to try and buy a Steelcase here you have to make an appointment with a sales rep outside the city. I get that basically they don't want to deal with general population but it's kind of infuriating.

Same here.

Herman Miller dealers are everywhere, but I hate their chairs. The closest Steelcase dealer is an hour away, but it is worth the trip.

I'd see if you have any office supply liquidators in the area. It'll definitely depend on your location, but a good one will have a decent selection of high-quality chairs.

If you're in the DC area, the Healthy Back Store (https://www.healthyback.com/) is the place you're looking for.

If there's a Design within Reach in your area, they have all the high-end chairs to try there. I personally really liked the Humanscale line for their back support.

> I wish there were someplace where I could go and actually try high-end office chairs.

This doesn't make as much sense as you might think. It takes several days for the benefits or drawbacks of a chair to become apparent.

I can second the Steelcase Leap recommendations; Leaps (actually, Leap 2s) more or less fixed the problems I was experiencing with my back. But, again, that only became apparent after many days of use. (I didn't choose the chair; I was contracting at VMware.)

As a contrast to the "find a local store" comments, I'll note that madisonseating.com sells used office chairs.

+1 on Steelcase Leap, bought mine used for $400.

I think your question should be, "should I be sitting so long?"

There's ample evidence that extended sitting, especially relative to the amount of standing and walking, is detrimental to health (especially including weight).

I spent years on the popular Herman Miller Aeron chairs, but eventually I developed lower back problems in my early 30s! So when I left my job and started working from home, I tried the standing desk thing...

Indeed it takes time to get used to standing a lot, but I've been doing it now for the better part of 13 years. Even without proper (or consistent) exercise, I'm more fit than most of my peers. And when I pushed and pushed my finance company to get adjustable height desks, many of the naysayer employees eventually started standing for as much as half of their days.

It's especially good after lunch when you're full and your body wants to just shut down and sleep.

Ikea makes a great, cheap, manual adjustment standing desk. Keep a chair or stool nearby for when you do really get tired. But give standing a try (for more than a few days). Also, get a good padded mat to stand on. You can get a good one for $30.

You back, heart, legs, and mind will thank you.

I think that even standing a lot is A Bad Idea. You're trading one mobility problem (sitting with little/no motion) for another (standing with little/no motion).

Moving is better, all the way around. I'm biased I admit... but I think a walking treadmill (like the ones that LifeSpan Fitness makes) is the best all the way around.

A treadmill might be ok. I wouldn't object to trying it, but it definitely increases the cost and complexity of a standing workspace.

When I stand, I very rarely just stand still. I shift my weight from side to side, roll slightly onto my toes and back to my heels, and sometimes elevate one foot on a stool under the desk. So my position is never static.

I'm not trying to make it sound easy. It definitely took some getting used to. It took me about a month.

Now, I can't imagine going without it.

I've used an Aeron for close to 10 years, and it's the most comfortable and flexible chair for me. That being said, sitting down for 10 hours in any chair is not healthy.

I added a standing desk to my arsenal, and the routine of moving up and down every 40 minutes or so. Taking brisk 10-15 minute walks at least every 1.5-2 hours is crucial as well.

Core strength and flexibility have become so important to my fitness routine that if I go several days without exercising or stretching properly, I get pretty severe lower back pain.

Steelcase Leap. Similar to the HM Aeron, but has cushion instead of mesh, and offers a bit more adjustment. It comes down to a matter of personal preference, but many prefer the comfort of the cushion. Personally, I sometimes sit with a leg crossed under me, or sideways in the chair, just because I like moving around, and the Leap is comfortable in all positions. Before I purchased it, I was having horrible wrist and shoulder pain, but it vanished once I swapped to the Leap. I've owned mine for a few years and it still looks pristine.

I also bought it on Craigslist for $200 brand new, which was quite a steal.

The Leap and Aeron are among the best in class, and it's hard to go wrong with either. Go to an office store and try both for yourself.

I love my Steelcase Leap! The cushion is very comfortable and is holding up well after a few years. I sit criss-cross and am able to easily do this with the Leap. The Aeron prevents this because of the hard plastic around the seat dug into my legs. I also got mine with the adjustable headrest, which is very nice for reclining.

I basically live in my chair, so it was a solid investment.

Most Steelcase chairs are over $1,000 but Wallmart has the V2 for $400.

I wonder if this model is as good as the others, or if it isn't really the same thing.

You're likely seeing that from a third-party seller, similar to Amazon's marketplace or ebay. At the least, I wouldn't expect the chair to be brand new at that price.

I endorse the Leap 2 per my other comment in this thread.

In 2011, I went on a search for the "perfect" chair. Want to know what it is? :-) There is not one!

Of course I bought the Aeron because the internet told me to. In less than 8 hours I was really hurting and had to return it. Today, I use something from neutralposture.com. However, what is "best" for you depends on your body type. The most correct answer is "change your chair, sit and stand, move around" throughout the day, weeks, and years of your life. The desk is super important too. I use a very flat desk. I wished it could raise and lower on demand.

Today, I need to change my chair because I've had it for so long. I think you'll only find the perfect chair if you make it yourself. I really wanted a combo of the Aeron and the Neutral Posture 8500 for my body type and work habits.

I wish I had, but did not, explore all of these options. I wished I had tried the Humanscale. Please do and tell me how it works out for you. Options: Herman Miller, Nuertral Posture, Steelcase, Humanscale.

Recently went on the chair search, of course people said get the Aeron. One co-worker said he got one for 50 bucks off craiglist. I wasnt getting that lucky. Ended up just going to local staples/office depot and sitting in a bunch of chairs. Found one for two hundo that adjusts and is quite comfortable. It's a beautyrest chair (mattress company).

Others are right it's about the measurements and angles. I measured up my desk , keyboard level etc and made sure my chair fit those measurements. Also have an old varidesk from 2014 that still works. So i spent about an hour standing during morning & afternoon sessions. This really helps me , avoiding the sitting for 8+ hours which really sucks.

Depending on your situation, when i was in office i would take a 5-10 min walk in morning and afternoon to stretch, close browser tabs, and collect thoughts. Take breaks & walks if you can!

While browsing neutralposture.com's products, I noticed this bullet proof chair. http://neutralposture.com/_site/guardian.php

That's a criterion I hadn't considered.

Hah! That's great. In what kind of bulletproof-vest requiring situation is being strapped to a chair an advantage?!

You aren't stuck to the chair, the bullet proof vest comes off the chair and so you can take it with you.

Perfect for teachers in a school shooting situation where they can use the chair to block the door and protect the whole class, or put on the vest as they escort their class outside.

That is both hilarious and incredibly sad.

ANY CHAIR is a bullet proof chair if you store your bullet proof vest on it.

> I think you'll only find the perfect chair if you make it yourself.

Has anybody done this? It's a difficult thing to search for because so many companies let you "build" your own chair when really they mean choose the color and add arm rests.

I've been using the same Aeron chair for 17 years. It is robust, comfortable, and fine for long sessions in front of the computer. The value proposition remains quite positive.

The complete question is how to achieve the ideal seated posture and/or maintain it. I like the idea of height adjustable desks for the simple reason that it can be lowered/raised to the exact height that's correct for your build. For ideal posture, your thighs should be parallel to the ground, your back should be straight, and your arms slightly lower than parallel to the ground when you're typing. Ideally your monitor should be at eye level to avoid getting "tech neck" which all suggest having height adjustable monitors and desks, and your chair able to adjust height and offer optimal back support.

It's a really long way of saying that even if there is an ideal, perfect chair for you there's no way that can be a universal recommendation.

Ikea sells desk legs that can be adjusted to the right height when you install them, but don't have all the machinery needed to adjust it's height while using it. If all you want is a desk that suits you body, grab a set of Olov legs from Ikea for $15 each and take what you saved and put it towards other ergonomic equipment.

I belive chairs are like shoes, everyone fits them differently.

There are great Aeron chairs out there I like. I work from home a lot and I've got a $100 ikea chair that I find plenty comfortable.

Keep an eye out for places that resell used office furniture if you're buying, you can save good money that way.

One of those $10 gym balls from Walmart. It'll make you move around and get stronger. After a couple of weeks you'll be comfortable and a new chair only costs $10.

Took me a while to figure it out, but Varier balans by Peter Opsvik is the best for me. It is a bit pricey, at $400 or so, but well worth it in my mind. Already I have purchased three, one for home, one for the office, and one for my father who enjoys it a lot. I am in a chair in front of the computer for most of the day, too. As a dancer, body positioning is important to me, and the varier balans forces me to use good form, one simply cannot slouch in it.

I love the Wing balans version. https://varierchairs.com/product/wing-balans/

It's even more expensive, but worth every penny to me.

FWIW, I find these good for playing guitar, too. Downside in that case is you can't always tap your foot, but it lets you play with the instrument hanging from the strap which is good for when you play standing up.

Our team has been using Ideon's SitOnIt TR2 task chair for many years and it's a great chair. Before we moved to this chair, I'd been sitting on Herman Miller chairs and I had significant back pain. It's been much better since we moved to the TR2. The mid-back version is what we use. We get the multi-function add-on for it as well (seat back tilt, tension control, back height adjustment).

https://chairbuilder.sitonit.net//#Task/TR2/_/config

The prices listed on their website are much higher than you'll pay if you buy through a store that offers workplace design services. Finding a place that sells them was way harder to figure out then it needed to be, but we finally figured out that the best way to do it was to contact the sales rep for our region. You can find the rep for your region on this page and they'll point you to a retailer.

https://www.sitonit.net/contact/replocate.html

Whatever costs 100 dollars less than an Aeron, allocating what you saved on a gym membership for a year. That's the best use of your money.

The best use of his money is spending $100 on a gym membership where he's only going to go once anyway (like almost everybody does)?

I'm a self admitted chair-o-holic.

I have personally owned an Aaron, Embody, Steelcase Leather Leap.

In a nutshell, I found the Aeron the most uncomfortable chair of just about every office chair I've had the pleasure of sitting in personally and at work. It was the right size and it was fully loaded with every top option. I gladly and quickly sold it.

The Steelcase (Leather) Leap is probably my favorite. The Embody is a close though. The Leap I have is leather, so it's very easy to keep clean. The best part about the leap though is not only is the build quality top notch and feels like a tank (and weighs it), is how configurable it is. The sweetest part though is that instead of rocking back like probably most chairs, it actually reclines keeping your rear end in the same place. It's excessively comfortable.

All my friends ended up getting a Leap after trying mine. I got the embody out of curiosity, again I topped it out with every option to make sure it was the best model. It's far superior to the Aeron for me and close to the Leap in terms of comfort, but I do think the Leap wins, especially for longer days or when you just have one-of-those-days.

At work, I had a Mirra, it was pretty nice also, which looking at it, surprised me. Much better than the Aeron in my opinion for just pure comfort. I've had a number of there chairs, from the $50 Staples specials to other big brands. The Leap and Embody are still by far my two favorites.

I kept the Embody and Leap because I couldn't part with either. I let my dad swap back and forth with me since he is now retired and does a lot of Ham Radio contests now sitting at his desk.

Anytime any asks about office chairs and the mention of Aeron comes up though (what would be an office chair discussion without the Aeron mentioned?), I always think of this: https://dack.com/misc/aeron.html

I created a thread 10 days ago for this question. Some great responses.

Ask HN: Best office chair for home office work? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20371095

Did you buy a new chair based on the recommendations? If you have a new chair what are your thoughts?

I have not yet. I'm monitoring craigslist, local yard sales and the facebook marketplace.

An exercise ball! Maybe it's called a "yoga ball" too?

I say this as a person that has used a ~$400 chair with mesh on the seat and back.

I've had several bouts of sciatica over the last few years, even with a moderately soft chair.

A registered massage therapist recommended an "exercise ball" and I got a Trideer brand from Amazon.

It makes for more small movement, and less/no soreness at the end of the day.

This is a highly personal preference, but since you asked...

I’ve been sitting on a yoga ball for about 5 years and it has relieved a lot of back pain I used to have from sitting long periods programming. I alternate to standing and using a portable laptop platform, it was about $25 on amazon. Not the most sturdy, but it’s fine and I don’t leave the laptop on it when walking away.

I have this:

https://www.profim.eu/products/category/task-chairs/veris/sw...

had the same model in the office for two years and was happy enough with it to purchase one for myself. €400 give or take.

I like having a standing desk with a tall stool. This way I can alternate between standing and sitting without any obstacles, and my stool forces me to have good posture while sitting. My stool isn't very comfortable (though not uncomfortable), so I actually end up standing.

It's not for everyone, but I like it.

I love my DXRacer King Zero. Supremely comfortable.

https://www.dxracer.com/au/en-au/product/1/gaming-chair/king...

https://www.neseda.com/en/

Chair re-invented by true IT&Health hackers (freaks) for themselves. Got one, has tooo many features for me to use :) but I love it.

https://www.neseda.com/en/story/

I have a Herman Miller Mirra 2 at home and don't regret the price I paid to get it. I bought it new so I could customize the colors to match my home office. It's a bit cheaper than an Aeron and actually better in my opinion.

Same here. I went to a high end office furniture store that seemed to have all of the popular expensive office chairs I've heard of and more. I talked to a salesman (who had a similar build to mine), walked into his office ... and saw a Mirra 2 behind his desk. So I bought it. That was about a year ago and I still love it.

My favorite feature is its ability to let me lean forward into the keyboard but the back follows along and gives full support. Worst problem: it has adjustable arm rests but the side-to-side motion won't lock in place.

I had worried that I'd regret spending so much money on a chair. But it lets me work far more comfortably and longer without losing focus. And since my back doesn't feel torqued when I go to bed I sleep better. It's one of my better investments.

Interesting, how is it better?

https://www.neseda.com/en/

Chair re-invented by true IT&Health hackers (freaks) for themselves.

Got one, has tooo many features for me to use :) but I love it.

btw, there was similar Ask HN discussion on home office chairs just 10 days ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20371095

Tbh check out some of the good gaming/racing chairs. They’re quite cost effective vs aerons or steelcase and tend to be fairly durable (as gamers tend to sit as much or more than programmers)

I use a Steelcase leap, it's great.

I wouldn't recommend buying any expensive office chair without testing them out and making sure it feels comfortable for you.

If you want cheap options the Alera Elusion is pretty great and I know a lot of developers who use those gaming chairs that look like car seats.

Herman Miller Aeron with a standing desk - I have both at home and at the office. Best chair I've ever owned, and extremely durable.

I've been using a kneeling chair for about 3 years now, and I find it great, even though it does take a while to get used to it.

Ikea markus works well for me.

Obligatory caveat -- everyone is different and different bodies work better with different chairs. With that said, I've had a Secretlab Titan for about a year now and I've really enjoyed it. It's a larger chair with good head/neck support, which was somewhat difficult for me to find as a decently sized person (6'2"). Good padding and very adjustable -- it reclines backwards which is especially nice because I tend to be a sloucher, but reclining a bit satisfies my slouching instinct while keeping my back in a better position. Just my $0.02 though -- you spend almost a third of your life in the chair, it's worth trying different options to see what works for you.

https://secretlab.co/collections/titan-series

Herman Miller Aeron

This is the right answer. I got mine for $250 on Craigslist. Some office was closing, so they were selling all of their office furniture. You can find good deals out there. I wouldn't buy new.

And thirded by me! I got mine for the home office second hand from an online store so it wasn't much more expensive than a new, lesser brand one.

Very comfortable, very robust and it looks like it's going to last for ever.

I second this. I use Herman Miller Aeron in both work & home. It is expensive (new ~$1k, I bought used on amazon for ~$400) but it's worth every penny imho.

Negate poor posture by improving core strength.

Try Kettlebells.

Lax-E-boy recliner with lift.

Herman Miller Aeron

Steelcase Leap V2.

An Iron Throne

VITRA

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