121–130 of 157 posts
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Another upvote from me. Purchased November 2016 for my home office and it's held up very well. I've found the (memory) motor controller a little cheap (it'll just stop and/or switch directions sometimes), but otherwise materials have held up well.
what kind of desk can't hold up for 2 years?
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The conflicting anecdotes of "wobble" vs "no wobble" of the BEKANT desk in this thread are fascinating. Last year, I played around with the BEKANT standing desk on display at the IKEA store and (in my perception) it wobbled. It's the same type of wobble that a youtuber demonstrated[0]. There are others in this thread that complain about wobble.[1] And yet some people say there's no wobble -- and I believe them . My a…
wait, so do you really believe that all the bekants, after assembly, are perfectly identical so that the only remaining variable is the observer's subjectivity?
They may not be identical but I think subjective detection/annoyance of a wobble is the most likely difference because of the physics of how the desk is assembled.
If you're not familiar with the BEKANT desk, this video[0] shows what the underside looks like. (Please note this is showing the BEKANT version that is motorized to adjust the standing positions.)
You'll see there's not enough support mass, nor enough surface area of metal cross bracing, etc to prevent it from wobbling -- especially at extended heights of 39+ inches. Also notice that the braces are attached to the table top using plastic push pins and not metal lag bolts.
To eliminate perceivable wobble would require increasing the 2 'T' posts to 4 corner posts -- or keeping 2 posts but make them more massive, etc.
But IKEA didn't have to do any of those more expensive engineering designs because a significant number of buyers already praise it as having "no wobble." This makes sense to me.
Some other possibilities for the conflicting observations:
(1) It's possible that some self-reports of "no wobble" are mainly using the desk at sitting height instead of standing height.
(2) Maybe some users have it extended at standing desk but put in a corner so there are 2 walls that stabilize it.
(3) They may be using the BEKANT version that's non-motorized and sitting-height only. (That one has a different underside bracing geometry and also more mass for more rigidity. I wouldn't expect this desk to wobble.)
This thread happens to be about "standing desks" and the comment people are replying to is also talking about "standing desks". Therefore, I discounted the 3rd possibility.
[0] deep link: https://youtu.be/lZ9VmpyXk6g?t=187
If you're going to have a standing desk at home I recommend building one that's fixed height. A fixed height desk will be much more stable and allows you to have storage underneath. If you want to sit use a drafting chair or stool. There are a number of designs that require minimal skill and tools. The first one I built used parts from Ikea and only required a drill and some hand tools. It looked great, had a ton of…
I got the IKEA Bekant sit/stand L desk and I’ve been really satisfied with it. I alternate between computer chair and standing and don’t think a stool would provide enough comfort for me.
The stool not providing enough comfort is a plus for me, as it naturally makes me to switch between standing and sitting throughout the day.
Additionally, the stool doesn't provide any back support, which has been great for me to force a better posture and get rid of back pain. (I probably still end up sitting 70% to 80% of my day, but that's good enough for me :)
I wonder if this could be built with an esp8266 or esp32 instead of an arduino.
Someone mentioned it on my repo a few months back. I think the space constraints would make it very challenging to make a drop-in replacement that fits in the original housing. Of course, with a new housing, the sky is the limit :) But that wasn't the main design goal.
Regardless, really cool project. Thanks for putting it on github!
I wonder if this could be built with an esp8266 or esp32 instead of an arduino.
Someone mentioned it on my repo a few months back. I think the space constraints would make it very challenging to make a drop-in replacement that fits in the original housing. Of course, with a new housing, the sky is the limit :) But that wasn't the main design goal.
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An esp32 would enable so much cool features. Like control by bluetooth/wifi, apple homekit integration, ...
I can't think of any reason to control my desk over the internet or via Bluetooth. If I'm not at my desk I don't care how high it is, if I'm at the desk and want to change it a button is much more convenient than using my phone.
- Let's say you work in a shared office environment with a hot desk policy. Storing the configurations on the board will become unwieldy once more than one person stores her configuration on the board.
- I personally would love to automate my desk to move to a specific position at preset intervals. This would be mostly to force me to change positions throughout the day. I tend to forget to do that.
I'm sure people would come with all kinds of different use cases you and I can't think of right now.
You can download a mobile app that can control the motor via Bluetooth, and it has three memory settings.
Well, on the one hand, it is great to have a replacement for the original controller. At a previous employer I had a Bekant with the stock controller, and those darn things are dreadfully unreliable. We had enough of those desks to get good reliability statistics... and the statistics are awful. So an open source replacement is great. That said: Who the heck needs a motorized desk????? When it came to spending my own…
A motorized desk is effortless and thoughtless so it's probably a lot less likely to break your flow versus having to spend 30 seconds turning a handle.
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Whatever happened to The Coral Cache? It seemed like such a great idea, but I have a 0% success rate with it. I suppose I've answered my own question, but did it ever work? Am I using it wrong? And if it's simply that it can't fetch overwhelmed sites any better than we can, then could we help it by pinging it automatically for any link submitted to HN, enabling it to populate its cache before the hordes arrive? http:…
Generally sticking a CDN automatically in front of any site posted isn't great because you're taking away all the potential ad revenue and flattening any dynamically generated elements to the site blindly.
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wait, so do you really believe that all the bekants, after assembly, are perfectly identical so that the only remaining variable is the observer's subjectivity?
>you really believe that all the bekants, after assembly, are perfectly identical so that the only remaining variable is the observer's subjectivity? They may not be identical but I think subjective detection/annoyance of a wobble is the most likely difference because of the physics of how the desk is assembled. If you're not familiar with the BEKANT desk, this video[0] shows what the underside looks like. (Please no…
you'd need to prove that all desks, when assembled by random people, have largely similar wobble characteristics (or the much harder proof that wobble varies with the perceptive tolerances of the observer). however, as you allude, the engineers were constrained by ikea's affordability (cheap), assembly (easy), and distribution (flat-pack) goals rather than precision around wobble.
as for the engineering, it's not support mass or surface area you need (read up on i-beams if this doesn't make immediate sense), but torsional rigidity at the joints, particularly tighter tolerances around the connectors when assembled by random people. torsional rigiditity in the spanning members is needed too, but that's less likely to be the issue since it's a steel frame.
this is a simpler explanation for the observed phenomena (apply occam's razor here). certainly more than one explanation might conjointly apply, but yours is the more complicated explanation and thus implores more observation and measurement.