Autonomous ErgoChair 2 Review

This review is the second review for a company called Autonomous, my first review was for the Autonomous SmartDesk 2 Premium  if interested you can check out my review here

If you did miss that review I also did a short overview of the company, so just in case you did here it is again ‘Autonomous’, is a smart office furniture company based in New York and is selling worldwide. Their products such as standing desks and ergonomic chairs are developed on the concept of a smart and healthy working environment. To find out more about Autonomous head here for a more in-depth look at the company.

In this review, I shall be checking out the Autonomous ErgoChair 2, this is my first ever office chair review, as I normally check out eSport style gaming chairs, from the likes of AKRacing, eWin, Arozzi and many more. So why have I decided to check out an office chair? Because my back hurts is one good reason and I also need a chair that offers more support and better features.

Health is key to a good life don’t you think?

So why would you want a good quality office chair? Well, they can offer a range of features to best protect you and keep you as healthy as possible, they can be extremely comfy, offer support and can reduce pressure. But what are these health benefits I talk about? Well here is a list below of the pros and cons of good and bad chair designs.

So the pros are the following;

• Can encourage proper posture
• Offers increase comfort
• Helps reduce back, neck and hip pain
• Can reduce the risk of neck problems

A bad chair can offer some awful implications when in use

• Can impede blood circulation
• Can cause muscle fatigue
• Nasty cramping
• Can cause stiffness, numbness, aches and pains
• Can cause neck/back/hip pain

I have been using eSports Racing Style Chairs for some time now, and they do keep your back relatively straight when used properly and support the neck and lower back with neck and lumbar cushions. However, my back hurts, this might be because I sit down for around 10hrs every day of the week apart from weekends. I work from home for two weeks of every month to do marketing for the company I work for, along with writing articles for my local newspaper and a few gaming websites including IGC. Then I have a little one which is only 1 year old and needs to be picked up, hugged, cwtched and cuddled as and when he needs it.

Also depending on when you read this 07.03.2020 the worldwide pandemic ‘CORVID-19‘ known as the Coronavirus is pushing many workers to work from home to #savelives. With this in mind, a good quality chair that can support your back, neck, hips, help with blood circulation is something you really should be looking at getting.

So on that note, lets deep dive into this chair, its design, its features, the build, the sales and my final thoughts.

Packaging then Sales 

When it comes to packaging, Autonomous simply offer the basics when it comes to their sales information on the boxes, with just the brand,  name of the chair and a line etched drawing of the chair, nothing else. This was the same when it came to their Autonomous SmartDesk 2 Premium which is what you would expect from an online seller. If Autonomous was to move into a retail store, they would have to display the chair and might also have to work on their packaging to provide more information.

You will also be happy to know that everything is well packed inside the box and nothing will get damaged during delivery since it will have to come from overseas for a lot of us.

Since sales are all online, most of the information provided below can be viewed here.

So first off the size of each individual part, which is something you should always check before buying any chair, just to make sure you can fit comfortably on it, you really do not want to squeeze your rear end into one.

• Seat size 20” L x 20” W
• Seat height 18” – 20”
• Back dimensions (w/o headrest) 21” W x 22” H
• Back dimensions (with headrest) 21” W x 28” – 31” H
• Tilt range 20°

Autonomous has decided to use Polyester fabric with moulded foam interior and a durable nylon plastic frame and PU hand rest pads as the chair’s materials. Wondering what they mean by PU, well it a shortened version of PU Leather, what is PU Leather? Well, it is an artificial leather material made with split leather (that’s the fibrous part of the hide leftover from making genuine leather) which has been coated with polyurethane (hence the name “PU”), and then applied to the surface of the furniture.

When it comes to the choice of colours you get the following Cool Gray, Evergreen, All Black, Red Apple, Black & White and Baby Blue. The chair can hold up to a maximum weight of 350 lbs which is 25 stone, this should be more than enough for many office users around the globe if you weigh more then this chair is not for you.

Packaging and Sales all done, let us move to the build.

Right from the start, you can tell that these products are of a premium value, starting with the Starbase that is plastic with plenty of Strength thanks to its construction and even arches at a certain angle, an angle I am unsure of but I did take a picture below so you can guess. The wheels are plastic which is nothing new as the majority of chairs I have owned and still own use them. However, the best wheels I have owned was on a chair from Karnox which I reviewed here. They are rubber and grip and roll well on any surface and are great for hard surfaces. I find plastic wheels roll a little too much on hard surfaces, but that is not to say that is in any way bad.

There is only one issue, which I really wish they had added, a gas lift housing to hide the ugly gas lift itself, not sure what a gas lift housing is? See image below for details. It is simply three pieces of plastic that cover the black section of the gas left and just makes the aesthetics much better.

The next part to look at is the mechanism, it is the pièce de résistance, all bells and whistles, as I have never seen one like this with so many features, based on all the chairs I have owned, this does not include all the chairs in the world, as I have yet to see every single office chair so can not comment on them or give my opinion on them.

You can get the back to tilt, you can add tension to the back tilt so it’s not so fluid, get the seat to tilt forward, get the seat to move forwards and backwards and then you can raise and lower the chair. There is a lot of new features I have never seen on a chair before, like putting tension on the back tilt, being able to move the seat forward for a better seating position, but the oddest one has to be seat tilt, that just feels like something your partner would use to get you off your butt, as my partner used it on me and I jumped off the seat thinking there was something wrong.

Moving on to the seat, which is hard to discuss as there is nothing much to say, apart from is very comfortable thanks to its design and construction using Polyester fabric with moulded foam. I had to find out what Polyester fabric was, and I found out this ‘Polyester is a synthetic fabric that’s usually derived from petroleum. This fabric is one of the world’s most popular textiles, and it is used in thousands of different consumer and industrial applications’. So I have learnt something new today, and hopefully so have you.

The back is the main structure of the chair that you need to be good, just so it can support your back and this chair does an amazing job at this. With its built-in Lumbar support which also includes lumbar support tension, so when using lumbar tension, you will notice that the lumbar cushion is enforced when tilting and does not move when you choose to loosen the tension it does the opposite. Then you have the tilt feature that can be fluid (loose) or you can add some tension to make it not so loose, this gives you more freedom to relax, not like esport chairs that offer rocking which rocks the whole chair.

The construction and design of the back is a phenomenon, just look at how they have moulded the back seat to reflect and support our own backs (see image below).

It is moulded in a way that supports the lower back with lumbar, and curves back around in on itself to support the rest of the back, as truly what back is perfectly straight? Now these questions, why are eSports Style Racing Chairs always straight-backed with a neck and Lumbar support? I can tell you now I have only been using the Autonomous ErgoChair 2 for 1 week so far and I have already seen an improvement as my back does not hurt as much, yet my activity in what I do has not changed. So just by going by my own personal experience and circumstances, the way this chair is designed and features on offer provide amazing support compared to a high end eSports Style Racing Chair. Then you must also factor in my age 40ish, been sitting down at a desk for years, and I have been playing games sitting down much longer. Then I have to pick up my little one who is only a year old, a good number of times throughout the day, so my back might be a bit old and cranky.

The armrests seen below are 4D armrests, what this simply means, they can move left, right, up, down, forward, backward, angle left, angle right. The armrest is covered in PU Leather, which is an artificial leather material made with split leather. Now the Left, right, forward, backwards, angle left, angle right all move independently and requires no buttons to be pressed. You would think because of this they would be a little unstable, but actually they are not and have enough resistance to hold your preferred position in place. The only button (See IMG 2) is the button that allows the armrest to move up and down and that is it.

There is just one more section to this chair and that the neck support which tilts forwards, backwards up and down offering the best possible support for your neck.

So to give you a full round-up of all the features available for the Autonomous ErgoChair 2 I have cut down their video to that exact section where they tell you about all the core features which you can view below.

The Build was not to bad overall and did not take as long as it does to construct those eSport Style Gaming Chairs, the only issue I had was attaching the Armrests, everything else was slipping, click, screw done. As always I have done a sweet video, the music track used is what I like to use for all my videos CLAWZ – Candyland. This film also stars my son, as he was all around the room, trying to help daddy in the best way possible.

Now the Autonomous ErgoChair 2 is built what is it like?

After building this chair, using it for over a week now, I am pleased to announce that this chair, is… wait for it…possibly the best chair I have ever used and owned. I have said that phrase a number of times for a number of chairs in the past, and back then it was true for that chair, now all those chairs are surpassed by this chair.

My back is truly supported, with my back pain almost gone, and as I said above, nothing has really changed, I still sit down at my desk to game and work for long periods of time, up to and beyond 10hrs per day.

This chair is built, designed and ultimately the perfect office chair for users around the globe.

The choice of materials used are great even though when I first saw the back and its mesh design I said to myself “No way can that be comfortable” but there are many chairs out there that have to use this type of design. eSport chairs come with padding, everywhere and are designed to hug your body for comfort, this chair does not. So how is it so comfortable, it is because of the way it has been moulded. The lumbar that offer the perfect support in the right place, then you have a slight tilt, and finally, the neck support which can be moved and positioned into a position that truly best supports your every need.

Everything added to everything adds to an extremely comfortable experience.

There are a lot of paddles on the mechanism to get used to, and a lot of features to work with to get that perfect sitting position, but it does not take long and with a little time, you will be sitting very happily. There are only two recommendations and that is to offer a different wheel, rubber over plastic, as I have used them both and I find rubber act much better on harder surfaces and they are quieter. Oh yeah and one more thing please add a Gas Lift Housing to hide the gas lift, that would be highly appreciated.

I can 100% without question or doubt in my mind say that this chair is well worth picking up if you want to be healthy, support your back and be able to work from home or at the office in comfort. If you are a gaming, again this chair is well suited for you as well.

Now there might be better chairs out there that offer more, but I have yet to experience any of them, so right now this is the best office chair I have used. As this is an opinion and only based on what I have used so far and have yet to of had the privilege to use, I do not know of a chair that is better, offers more or cheaper. As with anything, if you are unsure always do your homework and google around, but if you like this chair I can say that it is a great chair to own.

We normally only check out eSport style chairs for gamers, and this is not in any way an esport style chair, but that does not mean you can not use this chair as a general gamer. As in the past, I have used a dining table chair, a sofa, the floor and my bed to game on and using this chair would have been much better in the past.

So that’s it, this is a good quality chairs, with only small insignificant flaws, which in no way should stop you from purchasing, so why not get your wallet/ purse out and get yourself the best office chair I have had the pleasure of reviewing and owning. Look out for more of my reviews soon, as I am sure I will find more chairs to check out, office and eSport.

You can purchase the Autonomous ErgoChair 2 from here for $349.99 this is a discounted price, original price $419

Review slightly update on 13/04/2020 after info provided that I felt was needed to be added.

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