Vari Active Seat Basic - Adjustable Ergonomic Standing Desk Chair - Compact Wobble Perch Stool - Dynamic Range of Movement - No Assembly Required

It took me a while to make a decision on this chair coz I honestly didn't know how this would work. I have a Varidesk at home and at work and since I like their products so far of all the similar chairs I thought I would give this one a try. It takes a little getting used to if you aren't used to sitting on a stools this one rotates at 360 degrees so you can spin around , rock side to side as well as backwards and forwards. If you are the fidgety type this chair is for you. It adjust from standard sitting to standing desk position with ease (helps if you sit on it while adjusting) the bar on the lower right up or down. I've been using it for almost a month now and I'm already used to it. The best thing is that I did not have to assemble anything you take it out of the box, take all the shipping stuff off and plop it before your standing/ sitting desk of choice. The seat is comfortable and has a bouncy feel to it. If it's starts to get uncomfortable you need to get off your bum and stand up.

Have you ever seen someone using (or have you ever used) a large exercise ball as a chair? When used in the lower (sitting) position, this chair provides a similar experience - you can rock back and forth, side to side, swivel, and unless you go to the absolute lowest position, the chair will even provide a little bit of bounce. If you like to sort of dance while sitting and working — very core-intensive dancing — you might really enjoy this chair. Keep some nice music playing, of course. It’s true that the seat is ultra-firm, but I just got one of those kitchen chair cushions (with straps on the back) and tied it to the “handle” on the back of the seat. Much more comfortable, still looks great, and doesn’t interfere at all with my sit-dancing. :-)

I have a Varidesk desk and other accessories. I thought this would be a perfect addition to my home office. I usually just stand all day but I thought I would give this a shot to give me a little help with my back. I think if they changed the seat to a much softer fabric with padding, it would be perfect! I had to return this back the next day as the seat was just too hard and not comfortable at all.

I have used many ergonomic chairs over many decades, active, leaning, etc. At the moment I am using two: the Muvman Aeris, and the Varidesk Variactive, currently listed as 450$ and 255$ respectively on Amazon. Both are described as active or leaning chairs.I purchased the Muvman first. They apparently pioneered this category. I have been happy with this Muvman chair for several years. Happy enough that I decided to purchase a second similar chair when I started working at a second site on a regular basis. but I decided to try to save money, and purchase the the Varidesk Vari Active chair, Which I have been using for six months.Overall, I am not that unhappy with the Vari Active chair. it fulfills my needs. But if money had been no object I would have preferred to purchase another Muvman.The Vari Active chair is comfortable enough for a few hours of use, but uncomfortable for a full day of work. However, this can be considered a feature, since I use these chairs at treadmill/standing desks, supposedly only to give myself an occasional break from standing or walking, and/or for tasks that are simply harder to do while standing or walking.The VariActive seat is larger and has more padding than other active chairs such as the Muvman, but is nevertheless less comfortable.The VariActive chair is adjustable, but makes a quite loud whooshing sound when adjusting height. I find that it is necessary to adjust height if using for any prolonged period of time. I worry that the loud whooshing sound reflects a a lower quality pneumatic cylinder that will have a shorter lifetime. It is also reflected by the lower weight limit of 250 lbs rather than 300 in other chairs.The VariActive chair twists fine, but the range of active movement front/back, side/side, and "bouncing" up and down is more limited than in the Muvman. such movements are why you are purchasing an active chair.The VariActive chair has a good range of height adjustment, but its lean and seat tilt is not really sufficient to make it comfortable as a leaning chair or stool.As mentioned above, I use these chairs with my height adjustable treadmill/standing desk. I move the chairs onto and off of the treadmill deck/belt according to whether I want to sit vs stand/walk.The VariActive chair is much heavier than the Muvman: 52.5 lbs vs 13.62 lbs. This may prevent some people from using the chair as I do, frequently moving it in front of and away from the desk.The VariActive chair is much bigger, requiring more space when not actually sitting on the treadmill deck/belt. I neglected to account for this extra space requirement when purchasing.Many chairs have bases that are too big to fit on a treadmill belt. The VariActive chair base is 17" wide. This fits on my 20 inch wide treadmill belt, but with a less margin than my other chair.When you have a chair sitting on a treadmill belt you want the weight to be widely distributed as possible, not concentrated on a few points as might happen if you had casters (or else the belt might "weld" sticking to the deck.. The VariActive is fairly good in this regard: heavy, but the base distributes the weight pretty well, except for two screws that are hotspots.Nevertheless, with all of these shortcomings the Vari Active chair is "good enough" for my purposes, especially given the lower price.

You know that sensation of sitting in a chair that leans back when someone comes up behind you and pulls it backward really fast? If you like that feeling of nearly falling over and want it the entire time you're "sitting" then this "chair" is for you. I don't know how people enjoy this thing. While it is well-constructed and more stable than I expected at the base, the overall feel of it is awful. The cushion is hard and uncomfortable and it's literally impossible to sit comfortably for more than 15-20 minutes. Maybe that's the point. If you're uncomfortable enough, you'll just go back to standing at one of their desks!Pros:-Well-constructed and has sturdy base-Easy to adjust the heightCons:-Hard cushion-Feels like you're leaning against a slanted, unstable wall...I would not call this an actual chair-Varidesk shipped it to me in THE worst packaging I've ever seen done by a product this expensive. It had ZERO packaging material at all. It was just the chair in a box. That's it. I'm absolutely amazed it wasn't damaged. I don't normally include packing as part of my rating, but it shipped straight from Varidesk.-Expensive