Ask HN: Best office chair for home office work?

I really agree with factoring weight (and size) into the choice, which can ruin an otherwise great chair.

While I like Herman Miller (especially Embody), I am really opinionated about chairs. After trying zillions, I think those chairs that are quite firm and promote active seating and position variety are the best ones.

There is a quite famous Norwegian designer, Peter Opsvik, who has designed a few great chairs for Håg and Varier: Capisco, Gravity, Actulum, etc. All his ideas are well explained in a book [1]. Basic models are relatively affordable.

Aside from the Scandinavian chairs from Opsvik, Aeris produces some nice active seating chairs and stools. Other alternatives are mentioned in this mega review [2].

Very recently, Ikea has released a stool that follows the same active seating principles [3]. Quality and price are superb.

[1] https://www.aeris.de/en/

[2] https://www.nerdgranny.com/review-ergonomic-chairs/

[3] https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/trollberget-active-sit-stand-su...

Autonomous has a bunch of ergonomic office chairs that don't cost an arm and leg: https://www.autonomous.ai/office-chairs

I got the Ergochair 2 from their original kickstarter campaign for around $200 and it's still going strong. It's not perfect (the armrest doesn't lock in place, headrest isn't as adjustible as I'd like, and the cushion had a weird smell for a while that has mostly gone away now, but not entirely), but the small imperfections to me weren't a big enough annoyance to justify upgrading to some of the alternatives that were generally $500+.

In the time since I got their original Ergochair 2 it looks like they've introduced a few more, including the Myochair for <$150 that also includes a legrest. I'd definitely give that a try if I were shopping for a new chair. As far as I'm concerned these are probably the best deals in office chairs, and you have very little to lose since they offer a 30-day trial.

When I started studying lifehacker.com was still a good blog. Their roundups mentioned Herman Miller Aeron and Steelcase Leap. I had a normal 0815 office chair from my work at home. A PHD student I knew had the leap at home because of back problems. When he decided to move away from Germany, he sold his office Leap to his boss and asked around who wanted his home one. I paid 300€ ($336.8 currently) after trying it. Sitting on it just for a few minutes convinced me and I've never sat on a comparable chair anywhere else since then (still using it after over 5 years)

I got a few Aeron chairs in the dot bomb from friends who helped clear out offices of failed companies. This was in about 2002-2003. I've used one every day since and it is both perfectly comfortable for full day sitting and has held up beautifully.

I'll go against the conventional wisdom and stress on not trusting recommendations; instead, test chairs on your on as much as you can.

Bodies vary too wildly to work on the basis of other people's experience. Also, the price is not an indicator of quality at all.

I have experience with a "famous high-priced high-recommended" model mentioned here, and the experience was bad (sadly, the first 10 minutes of testing felt good). I don't say that it's bad or good; it just doesn't work with my body shape.

I had another experience with another "recommended last-posture-technology" chair, and it was exhausting to use.

Ended up on a 250$ chair that feels much better than the 1500$+ one.