{"id":2422,"date":"2003-04-21T12:37:21","date_gmt":"2003-04-21T15:37:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/bb\/viewtopic.php?p=235"},"modified":"2010-05-09T00:08:11","modified_gmt":"2010-05-09T03:08:11","slug":"my-freedom-chair-is-up-and-running","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/2003\/04\/21\/my-freedom-chair-is-up-and-running\/","title":{"rendered":"My Freedom chair is up and running…"},"content":{"rendered":"

I finally yielded to temptation and bought a Freedom Chair<\/a> from HumanScale<\/a> as a Christmas present to myself. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

…it’s the model without a headrest – although the headrest looks extremely cool, the additional cost is significant and I’d rather get up periodically instead of leaning back, anyway.<\/p>\n

The “upscale chair meme” infected me when I saw the “Hot Seat”<\/a> article in Wired<\/a> 8.07 some time ago. The article (by Bruce Sterling) compares the Freedom with the market pioneer, Herman Miller<\/a>‘s Aeron<\/a>, and with the up-and-coming Leap Chair<\/a> from Steelcase<\/a>. There’s also a recent fourth contestant – Allsteel<\/a>‘s #19 Chair<\/a>, which seems to combine several desirable features from the other models, but I was unable to find a reseller for it in Brazil.<\/p>\n

After over a year of incubation, I did get a chance to compare the three contestants. On a visit to Canada last June I had occasion to sit (briefly) in the Aeron and Leap chairs, while a few months later I found a local store that had both the Aeron and the Freedom in stock. The store kindly borrowed me the Aeron for a week, but I finally decided for the Freedom.<\/p>\n

While the Aeron’s mesh back would be ideal for this tropical climate, I found it somewhat unyielding. Since I usually work without a shirt, my back was soon imprinted with a hexagonal pattern. Also, the Aeron’s back and seat are at a fixed angle – the whole upper structure leans back as a unit, cutting off circulation unless I used a footrest. I suppose I’d need a somewhat lowered table to avoid this… also, the Aeron’s armrests are hard to adjust, although I liked the way they swivel horizontally.<\/p>\n

I only had about 10 minutes to check out the Leap chair. The multitude of adjustments is somewhat daunting. In terms of comfort I saw no great difference from the Aeron, although it’s hard to tell in such a short time. Unfortunately, although they do have a reseller in Brazil, there are none in my city, and I was unable to locate another place to do a longer test. Coincidentally, Illiad’s User Friendly<\/a> very recently did a long sequence (from here<\/a> to here<\/a>), spoofing the Leap chair’s extreme configurability.<\/p>\n

What finally decided me to buy a Freedom, despite also having little time to test it, was the automatic back adjustment and the way both armrests moved together. I’ve been sitting in it for a few days now and both features are a definite win over the Aeron. While the gel padding feels warmer than the Aeron’s mesh, it’s more comfortable. The only part that still feels uncomfortable is that the seat feels a little too horizontal, so that I keep sliding down, and there’s no adjustment for the seat angle. I’m studying the mechanism to see if something can be hacked there.<\/p>\n

While some friends are gasping at the price I paid (and there’s a 100% customs charge over the US price!), I feel that, since I’ll spend most of the day in that thing, I’d rather pay a little more now than have to deal with medical complications later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I finally yielded to temptation and bought a Freedom Chair from HumanScale as a Christmas present to myself. \ud83d\ude09 …it’s the model without a headrest – although the headrest looks extremely cool, the additional cost is significant and I’d rather get up periodically instead of leaning back, anyway. The “upscale chair meme” infected me when […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hardware","category-meta"],"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Rainer Brockerhoff","author_link":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/author\/rbrockerhoff\/"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1q3Zc-D4","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2422\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brockerhoff.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}