5 Years Later, I Still Love It

The Herman Miller x Logitech Embody is the chair that supported me via lockdown in 2020, and nearly six years later it nonetheless feels practically brand-new. That’s a rarity for the gaming chairs I’ve used previously, which have all proven seen indicators of wear and tear – and even real purposeful misfortune – after comparable timeframes. While the design has remained the identical ever after, Herman Miller and companions Logitech have produced new colorways through the years, together with an attention-grabbing navy/purple “Nova” combo plus the white/orange “Ignite” shade that lately arrived at my doorstep.

That makes it a good time to mull over precisely why the Embody has remained my go-to possibility, regardless of testing a half-dozen different nice gaming chairs in as a few years – lots of which include for much longer characteristic lists, larger adjustability and extra enticing value tags.

Design

The Embody Gaming Chair is a hanging chair to take a look at, particularly in among the wilder colorways obtainable. Each two-tone design highlights the virtually skeletal construction behind the chair, with segmented gentle and stretchy plastic supported by skinny plastic ribs that progressively hyperlink up into bigger assemblies and eventually be a part of onto the aluminum body. Underneath the seat, a denser mesh of comparable development helps your weight.

Meanwhile, arms curve up from the bottom of the chair, once more with a extra natural form in comparison with the default racing-style bucket seat utilized by most gaming chair producers. This construction provides the Embody extra flexibility than these different designs; as you modify place naturally, the chair stretches, helps and realigns.

The entrance of the chair, aka the bit that can doubtlessly seem in Zoom conferences, is way more nameless. Black or white polyester material covers the again relaxation and seat, with an especially delicate color-matched Logitech brand and some textural ridges being the one design components of observe past the general gently curving form. The high of the arm rests are made from squidgy foam, and the five-star base holds double-wheel casters of a modest (2.5-inch) measurement.

All instructed, the seat measures 29 inches huge, 41 to 52 inches excessive and 38 to 46 inches deep, whereas the full top of the chair is 42 to 45 inches. With these dimensions and a most weight capability of 300 kilos, the Embody Gaming Chair is robustly constructed and will swimsuit even the massive and/or tall, together with my 6’2″, 190 pound body.

Assembly and Adjustability

I normally need to spend a lot of time detailing the assembly process in chair reviews, but thankfully I don’t have to do that here. That’s because the Embody is shipped fully constructed, so you simply open one face of the massive cardboard cube that arrives, and the chair rolls out, ready to go. You’re left with a huge amount of cardboard to cut down into small enough pieces that it’ll fit into your recycling situation, or you can leave it in place if you want a king-sized box for your kids/cats/enemies to chill in. Still, versus other chairs that come packed in all manner of non-recyclable foam, polystyrene or other assorted guff, the Embody is mercifully easy to clean up after. Not having to spend an hour (or three) on assembly is also a massive plus.

Once you’ve lugged the chair into position, you’re free to set it up, which is again quite straightforward as the Embody’s feature list isn’t miles long. A pull control on the front right side controls the hydraulics, letting you raise or lower the chair, while a dial in the same spot controls the tension of reclining. On the back right, you can adjust the strength of the lumbar support, with the chair moving from being straight-backed to being more s-shaped. A paddle on the left locks or unlocks the recline mechanism, and handles on either side of the front of the seat let you extend the seat depth. Finally, the arm rests have small buttons hidden underneath; pushing them in allows the arms to be raised or lowered. You can also exert a little force to pull the arm rests out wide, or move them closer to your body.

It’s all very straightforward stuff, and yet there’s plenty here that is unique in its execution. The arms, for example, can drop so low that you can move fully underneath most desks; normally, I’d have to completely unbolt the arms and take them off to adopt my favored forearms-on-desk typing position. Likewise, moving the arms in makes me feel more cozy in cold weather, especially if I have a hoodie on, while pushing them wider gives me more room to wriggle in warmer weather. The backrest adjustments seem better suited than most in pushing me into an upright position that’s actually comfortable for hours on end, and being able to extend the seat depth is brilliant for when I’ve got my foot up on the desk’s cross-brace.

There’s also plenty that’s not here compared to most gaming chairs. The arm-rests aren’t “4D”, so they don’t move forward or backwards or rotate side to side. The back of the seat ends at my shoulders, and there’s no head rest. Similarly, there’s no ability to recline at nearly 180 degrees.

I miss absolutely none of these features. In fact, I’m actively glad that they haven’t been included, as their omission makes the Embody a shorter, more mobile chair that’s easier to push from one room to another, or fit under a standing desk in its upright position. The lack of a neck rest means that you actually need to sit upright rather than doing a full-body slouch, and no deep recline means that you must lie down on a bed or something, all of which feel like they’re much better for you. Indeed, I had fairly bad back pain off and on for years before getting the Embody, and it’s been much rarer since.

Still, some of this will come down to personal preference. I know some people that love to rest their arms on their chairs, and the Embody doesn’t offer much adjustability here. Likewise, if you are the sort of person that likes to tilt way back and stare at the ceiling while thinking, the Embody doesn’t allow for it. That doesn’t make it a bad chair by any means, but as with many peripherals, it’s as much a case of individual need as it is of objective measurement of quality.

Comfort and Performance

The Embody, like other adjustable gaming or office chairs, will take some time to get dialed in. While height and arm rest position is likely something you’ll set once and not touch too often again, adjusting the strength of the lumbar support and how the chair reclines may require some experimentation. There are no discrete notches to signify where in a given settings’ adjustment you are, and changing one setting can impact another, so you may have to keep tweaking things for a period of days or weeks before you’re truly happy.

Still, what you’re actually changing is at least easy to understand, and most people that have tried the Embody – including my wife and friends that have stayed with us for a few days or weeks – ended up being quite happy with overall comfort levels after spending a day or two making adjustments.

Herman Miller x Logitech Embody Gaming Chair – Original Photos