Autonomous Built A Standing Desk For $399; $599 With AI Helper

[Pedasc]

So... I actually have a standing desk at work.. No you can't build one for $100. It has motors to lift it up and bring it down via buttons. I'm pretty certain mine costs close to $1000 (my company spends A Lot on ergonomics).

And making it manual defeats the purpose- because you'd never change it. the point of a standing desk is to be able to sit down and stand and sit down and stand when you feel like it. I raise and lower my desk several times a day. sometimes it makes more sense to raise it when I'm working with someone so they don't need to hunch over my back.

And finally, I have a pedestal filing cabinet under my desk. It doesn't need to be integrated. and my desk has more than enough space. It kinda forces/teaches you not to be cluttered. when I had a cube, I had stuff all over the place. Now I have my 2 monitors (27, 24 in portrait), some scratch paper, a place for my laptop, and cup of pens. That's it. I don't feel the need for piles of paper or books or whatever (although I have a lot of space in my pedestal). I guess I also have a small desktop under my desk- it's perfectly fine sitting on the floor.

I actually much prefer my standing desk to my old cube.

My coworker's mechanical version actually only lifts up a small platform and monitors. It is counter-balanced really well and is easy to adjust. It doesn't give him too much work space and it is a bit too flimsy to feel comfortable writing on it, but for a keyboard and mouse it seems fine. If he had to lift the whole desk it might be a bit unwieldy but it shows me it is at least possible to do this well enough using mechanical means.

 

[kittle]

Nice try... but If i tried to put all the PC related stuff on my desk onto that thing.. it would probably collapse. 15" Laptop, 27" monitor, home theater speaker, router, kbd, mouse and misc papers.

And god forbid if the cat wants to come visit... that would give a new meaning to "my desktop crashed"

 

[SirGCal]

Nice try... but If i tried to put all the PC related stuff on my desk onto that thing.. it would probably collapse. 15" Laptop, 27" monitor, home theater speaker, router, kbd, mouse and misc papers.

And god forbid if the cat wants to come visit... that would give a new meaning to "my desktop crashed"

If that was the case, it indeed sucks. The one I'm using right now can easily hold my three 28" monitors, multiple keyboards, speakers, etc. Even my tower. And then even me and I'm far from a lightweight. (6'4" and over 260lbs). It doesn't even flinch. It's how they are made and how the lifters work. If this one is made anywhere close, it would be peachy. Mine is on loan however till I find one to purchase myself. I'm always looking. Next time go try one before posting. The good ones are of the highest quality and will hold multiple people. If you need huge, they come in insanely big sizes also, etc. Mine right now is a 72" x 28" desk and when they moved it in, two 250lb+ people were sitting on it without any issues. And it still went up and down without a problem. (they were showing off the product).

When I need to stand for a bit, I hit a button and keep working. Unfortunately I actually do need to work that much and can rarely pull away from the desk. This helps people not actually hurt themselves sitting too much as I have already done and am trying to undo.

 

[SirGCal]

My coworker's mechanical version actually only lifts up a small platform and monitors. It is counter-balanced really well and is easy to adjust. It doesn't give him too much work space and it is a bit too flimsy to feel comfortable writing on it, but for a keyboard and mouse it seems fine. If he had to lift the whole desk it might be a bit unwieldy but it shows me it is at least possible to do this well enough using mechanical means.

I'm always interested in learning about more and more different models...

 

[SirGCal]

Message duplicated? Odd. Sorry.

 

[TeamColeINC]

$399 is still way to much in my opinion, anything near $1000 and someone needs to get slapped. $50 bucks at Home Depot and 45 minutes in the garage and you could have something just as good. Use iPhone (Siri) or Windows Phone (Cortana) for smart version.

Please, show me where to get two smooth, fast, and weight bearing lifting motors from home depot within that budget... Didn't think so...

If you build it for yourself (assuming you know how tall you are) there is no need for a lift but I can think of several ways to do so and still not exceed $100 in materials. Please stop defending this over-priced garbage.

 

[psycher1]

I've got a cheap plastic foldout party desk sitting on some landscaping bricks. Less than $50, and totally ghetto, but works just as well in the end.

 

[bliq]

Nice try... but If i tried to put all the PC related stuff on my desk onto that thing.. it would probably collapse. 15" Laptop, 27" monitor, home theater speaker, router, kbd, mouse and misc papers.

And god forbid if the cat wants to come visit... that would give a new meaning to "my desktop crashed"

I could probably stand on mine without an issue- right now, it's carrying a thunderbolt monitor, a dell 2405, and my laptop and that's nothing. I'd bet I could sit on it and the motors could lift me up to its full height (about 5 feet). So the counterbalance thing only really works if the amount of weight you have on it matches the counterbalance weight. If the amount of stuff you put on it changes often, having the motor and what I believe is a screw type elevator thingie is much better.

 

[bliq]

$399 is still way to much in my opinion, anything near $1000 and someone needs to get slapped. $50 bucks at Home Depot and 45 minutes in the garage and you could have something just as good. Use iPhone (Siri) or Windows Phone (Cortana) for smart version.

Please, show me where to get two smooth, fast, and weight bearing lifting motors from home depot within that budget... Didn't think so...

If you build it for yourself (assuming you know how tall you are) there is no need for a lift but I can think of several ways to do so and still not exceed $100 in materials. Please stop defending this over-priced garbage.

The point of a standing desk is that you can go up and down at will. Not many people want to stand all the time. If you just want to have a tall table and have a chair that has a high rise cartridge that raises it up say, 2 feet, then, yes you can do that for maybe $100 plus the cost of the cartridge(which isn't cheap). In fact we used to do that. but I prefer our new standing desks as they go up and down, giving me more choices for nice ergo chairs (as I said, I have a nice herman miller Aeron chair, others have some kind of chair that has a support in the middle that supposedly is better for your back. both are probably close to $1000 each). The chairs where you can put high rise cartridges are not common- you dont have a lot of choice. I work on mine in the low position most of the time, stand up when my fitness band says Ive been sedentary too long, and also raise it up when colleagues want to collaborate so they don't have to bend down to look over my shoulder. If this use case doesn't apply to you, then by all means, spend less. I happen to appreciate the equipment provided to me to be able to do this.

 

[LostAlone]

$399 is still way to much in my opinion, anything near $1000 and someone needs to get slapped. $50 bucks at Home Depot and 45 minutes in the garage and you could have something just as good. Use iPhone (Siri) or Windows Phone (Cortana) for smart version.

Please, show me where to get two smooth, fast, and weight bearing lifting motors from home depot within that budget... Didn't think so...

If you build it for yourself (assuming you know how tall you are) there is no need for a lift but I can think of several ways to do so and still not exceed $100 in materials. Please stop defending this over-priced garbage.

The point of a standing desk is that you can go up and down at will. Not many people want to stand all the time. If you just want to have a tall table and have a chair that has a high rise cartridge that raises it up say, 2 feet, then, yes you can do that for maybe $100 plus the cost of the cartridge(which isn't cheap). In fact we used to do that. but I prefer our new standing desks as they go up and down, giving me more choices for nice ergo chairs (as I said, I have a nice herman miller Aeron chair, others have some kind of chair that has a support in the middle that supposedly is better for your back. both are probably close to $1000 each). The chairs where you can put high rise cartridges are not common- you dont have a lot of choice. I work on mine in the low position most of the time, stand up when my fitness band says Ive been sedentary too long, and also raise it up when colleagues want to collaborate so they don't have to bend down to look over my shoulder. If this use case doesn't apply to you, then by all means, spend less. I happen to appreciate the equipment provided to me to be able to do this.

The fact that you need a fitness band to tell you that you've been sedentary too long is pretty much the problem here, and has nothing to do with desks or ergonomics. Did you need a standing desk manufacturer to tell you you needed to stand up more too?

You don't need any of this. Sure, you can waste your money however you like. But you don't need any of this. Millions of people manage to successfully live and work without all this crap in their lives. They just do what feels comfy and natural to them.

You don't need this crap. You can just live a normal life without them, and it doesn't matter how much you spend on it, it won't make you a better person.

 

[bliq]

$399 is still way to much in my opinion, anything near $1000 and someone needs to get slapped. $50 bucks at Home Depot and 45 minutes in the garage and you could have something just as good. Use iPhone (Siri) or Windows Phone (Cortana) for smart version.

Please, show me where to get two smooth, fast, and weight bearing lifting motors from home depot within that budget... Didn't think so...

If you build it for yourself (assuming you know how tall you are) there is no need for a lift but I can think of several ways to do so and still not exceed $100 in materials. Please stop defending this over-priced garbage.

The point of a standing desk is that you can go up and down at will. Not many people want to stand all the time. If you just want to have a tall table and have a chair that has a high rise cartridge that raises it up say, 2 feet, then, yes you can do that for maybe $100 plus the cost of the cartridge(which isn't cheap). In fact we used to do that. but I prefer our new standing desks as they go up and down, giving me more choices for nice ergo chairs (as I said, I have a nice herman miller Aeron chair, others have some kind of chair that has a support in the middle that supposedly is better for your back. both are probably close to $1000 each). The chairs where you can put high rise cartridges are not common- you dont have a lot of choice. I work on mine in the low position most of the http://m.newegg.com/Product/index?itemnumber=11-129-180time, stand up when my fitness band says Ive been sedentary too long, and also raise it up when colleagues want to collaborate so they don't have to bend down to look over my shoulder. If this use case doesn't apply to you, then by all means, spend less. I happen to appreciate the equipment provided to me to be able to do this.

The fact that you need a fitness band to tell you that you've been sedentary too long is pretty much the problem here, and has nothing to do with desks or ergonomics. Did you need a standing desk manufacturer to tell you you needed to stand up more too?

You don't need any of this. Sure, you can waste your money however you like. But you don't need any of this. Millions of people manage to successfully live and work without all this crap in their lives. They just do what feels comfy and natural to them.

You don't need this crap. You can just live a normal life without them, and it doesn't matter how much you spend on it, it won't make you a better person.

It's clearly not a need. However, at least for me, now that I've tried it, it's definitely a want. i work in an industry where people get so deep in concentration sometimes a reminder is nice to keep you from realizing you just burned 3 hours concentrating on a problem without barely moving. btw the fitness bands were also company provided, among many other perks that we get. Why not use take advantage of it all?

 

[uglyduckling81]

btw the fitness bands were also company provided, among many other perks that we get. Why not use take advantage of it all?

I don't see a fitness band as a perk. Did they also give you balance bands and feeling better bands?

 

[Liz Nguyen]

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