You’ve been sitting quite a while there; why don’t you stretch your legs for a moment before reading this?
Imagine such a nudge coming not from a doctor or your mother or a life coach (or from us) but from the very desk and chair underneath you. It’s part of the more productive, more comfortable future envisioned—and already being brought to life, part by part—by one of the US’s biggest manufacturers of office furniture.
Herman Miller last year announced the development of a “smart” desk and “Live OS,” the digital platform with which it syncs; this year, it is launching Live Aeron, the world’s first connected office chair.
Quartz At Work recently stopped by the furniture-maker’s New York City showroom for a demonstration of Live OS, which proved a nicely integrated system of technology and office accoutrement. Discreet sensors on the desk are able to record space utilization data—e.g., how long a worker spends at the desk, and the optimal height for the person using it—while sensors on the chair can detect (and help correct) posture.
Design nerds feeling sentimental about the Aeron, and its unlikely journey to becoming the iconic seat of internet age, will be reassured to know that this iteration looks and feels just like a “dumb” Aeron, except for the inconspicuous boxy sensor beneath the seat. By coincidence, the chair’s original design already included conductive materials—a tiny filament woven into the material to reduce static.
Aside from their ergonomic advantages, the connected-desk-and-chair pair allows companies to gather information on their employees’ working habits, such as the times at which workers are most productive, and, if working in desk-flexible environments, where in the office they prefer to sit or the places they tend to avoid.
Chris Hoyt, Herman Miller’s “design exploration manager,” suggests there’s a number of problems that smart office furniture can help solve, aside from the obvious one of motivating employees to pay attention to their physical health. Say you’re an employer with a lot of part-time employees who share desks or come in at different hours. A Live OS-equipped desk and chair will immediately self-adjust to match an employee’s preset preferences once they’ve signed in; the setups can also automatically log employees’ hours—or helpfully tell colleagues whether someone is in that day (that minute, even) or not.
When paired, the desk and chair begin speaking to each other. Together they’re able to decide when their human guest has stood up but wants to keep working, in which case the desk will rise to the appropriate height, versus when said human is just going to the printer or the restroom and will likely sit down again upon returning. The trick is in the smart chair’s sensor, which measures the angle at which a seat is swiveled. (When people step away from a desk, they tend to spin their chairs outward.)