How To Set Autonomous Desk Height
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[Editor's notation: Democratic has inverse the name of this desk to the SmartDesk Core and changed the options slightly. Read our review on the SmartDesk Core.]
Detailed Review
When we originally reviewed the Autonomous Continuing Desk a couple years ago nosotros had to give the SmartDesk our lowest-possible rating—a i/2-star— that we'd given to any electric standing desk. This was due to the massive quality issues they experienced with their Jeicang-sourced componentry, plus a preponderance of negative customer reviews on Reddit, Autonomous'due south Facebook page, and other public forums (we frankly stopped counting after the showtime few hundred ranting reviews we read), equally well equally comments left here on our site past frustrated democratic customers.
Having never seen any visitor emerge in this industry with such an incredibly bad consumer reputation we felt we had to place a cherry-red caution flag on the Smart Desk, and on Autonomous equally a company. Over 100,000 customers (according to the company) have since taken the allurement on the massive advertising campaigns this Chinese company runs for it'southward $348 desk (originally $249) and their anti-institution social media messaging.
When a visitor of millennials sells mostly to an audience of millennials they can really rock a social media campaign. To drown out all the negative reviews, Autonomous literally ran a greenbacks-for-reviews social media campaign, with specific rules disallowing any negative feedback. While in our book that sort of thing steps over the ethics line, it generated an exhaustively long roll of happy customer photos on their website, and gave Autonomous a fighting chance to stick around long enough to detect new component vendors in China and relaunch the production line. Their main offering is now known as the SmartDesk Core.
Nosotros've written aplenty about how Jiecang standing desk bases have had a checkered past when information technology comes to product quality, and the very nadir of that story was the dirt-cheap componentry they produced for Democratic' first standing desk. Ironically, Jiecang continues to supply components (albeit improve ones) to Autonomous' chief rivals, including the Jarvis Desk (Fully), the UpLift Desk (HumanSolution) and the StandDesk Pro, among others, but they've lost the Autonomous account for skilful.
Autonomous standing desk user reviews run the gamut from hating/returning the product to existence absolutely delighted with information technology. Many complained and so, and all the same mutter now of serious product quality issues — especially if purchased with a tabletop (run across contemporaneous user comments posted beneath by many of our readers). Even on Amazon, which is known for its exaggerated ratings on role fitness products, virtually Autonomous desk reviews are in the 3-to-iv-star range, with plenty of ane-star reviews describing full product failure (anything less than a four-i/2 star rating in this category on Amazon is a flag to check the i-star reviews earlier buying). This is particularly true, even today, with its Home Edition desk.
While the Jiecang episode is behind them now, some things accept non inverse at Autonomous. The visitor's business plan is still to produce the very cheapest possible office furniture products in Prc and sell direct to less-discriminating millennial customers who may put low price ahead of decent product quality, warranty or service, much less buying American.
One thing that has remained problematic after the switch to a new Chinese manufacturing plant is that in order to go along product costs lower than anyone else'due south, Autonomous pushes an insane amount of assembly labor onto the consumer. Maybe spending an entire afternoon assembling a really cheap desk with 48 bolts and screws and lousy documentation is your idea of fun, merely near buyers of the SmartDesk products are flabbergasted past having been duped into believing the website'south promises of easy associates. Many give up one-half fashion through assembly and endeavour to render the product for a refund, simply to be stifled by awful customer service.
If after reading this and other reviews of the SmartDesk yous make up one's mind you merely can't refuse such a good price for a Democratic standing desk, then do yourself a favor and at least hire out assembly to some poor chap on TaskRabbit and transfer the misery to them. Or spend that extra dough on a better desk — the selection is yours. For our money, we'd rather not reward the kind of marketing chicanery Autonomous excels at.
Note that this desk is included in our Superlative Stand up Desks Nether $400 roundup if you'd like to quickly compare it to other desks in its price range.
With an Democratic Standing Desk, You Get What Y'all Pay For
If at that place'due south a theme to the post-obit review, it's that you get what y'all pay for—and our favorite corollary—yous pay for what you get.
There are a peachy deal of inexpensive knock-off electric desk-bound bases coming out of southeast Asia these days. We've conducted many dozens of standing desk reviews equally well as DIY standing desk base of operations reviews over the years, and we take to country categorically that Autonomous SmartDesk products are the cheapest of the cheap, in every sense of the give-and-take. (Learn more than about how we review products in Beefcake of a Review.)
One of the hallmarks of an Autonomous standing desk is its relative shakiness as compared to most other standing desks. Before reading on, you might want to check out our detailed primer on Why Some Standing Desks Shake More than Than Others to learn almost all the design factors that impact a desk's stability. From lightweight anxiety to sloppy glides in the linear actuators, SmartDesk componentry is bottom-end in just most every component category and this manifests into a incomparably wobbly desk feel.
In fact, while near standing desks have a recommended top-terminate meridian for a stable feel, the SmartDesk 2 Dwelling Edition and IKEA Bekant are the only ones that draw concerns at even merely 6″ above sitting superlative. This is in no small office due to the lack of a steel crossbar connecting the two lifting columns, coupled with a thin desktop that provides little stiffness to the parallelogram.
Sorting out the Home Edition vs Business Edition
Democratic advertising gets you in the door with its $299 desk (plus $49 shipping, or $348 full), which sounds really great. But beware the ol' bait-and-switch. What you actually get for $348 is a weak as a kitten, single-motor, single-stage Autonomous standing desk-bound with a narrow height adjustment range of only 29″ to 47″. Right out of the gate this desk volition non go low enough for a lot of shorter people to be seated comfortably, and it isn't going to exist a stable experience for anyone who is of even boilerplate peak, much less on the tall side.
The Home edition comes in only Ane desktop size, 53″ x 30″. Color choices are blackness, white, walnut and low-cal oak, all a thinly-coated, lightweight 3/four″-thick MDF affair. Like the bases, these tops are made in China as cheaply as tin peradventure be made. The base comes in either blackness, grayness or white powder coat paint. There are no other size or decor choices, this is information technology for the home edition.
For $l more than yous tin can opt for a bamboo elevation, although if you're seriously considering it yous should really read our report on Bamboo Standing Desks – Separating Truth From Fiction in Environmental Claims. Bottom line is that bamboo desktops are an environmental scourge, which Autonomous (and their peers at Jarvis, UpLift and other bamboo standing desk makers) ever fail to honestly disclose. Do the planet a favor and don't pick the bamboo upgrade.
In an age when 99 percent of standing desks are dual motor it really tells you something when Democratic tries to slough off a single-motor desk as "reliable." As ane of the many things they tossed out to make this desk as cheap equally possible, the Home Edition doesn't have any overload protection. While the desk is rated for 220 pounds of lift, the first sign of trouble is its glacially-tedious transit speed of 0.8 inches per 2nd (twenty per centum slower than the published specification), which gets even slower, and noisier, equally you add more desktop loading. This is a key reason why people seem to be called-for out Home Edition desks pretty hands.
Be sure to check out our primer on Do Weight Ratings on Electric Desks Really Thing? to sympathize why this single-motor, single-phase pattern with no overload protection is simply begging for reliability issues. Side-loading stresses are always an issue with lifting columns that use such cheap "glides" to separate the telescoping tubes as are used in the SmartDesk products.
Factoring for side-load stresses on the simple, unmarried-phase legs, even Autonomous' own website recommends upgrading to the Business concern Edition if you're going to apply a triple-monitor setup. That tells you that even they know the 220-pound rating is for "platonic atmospheric condition," and doesn't factor in the weight of the summit itself. Single-stage lifting columns are inherently less stable than dual-stage as we explain in our primer on Continuing Desk Stability Factors.
The Home Edition comes with the shortest warranty of any standing desk-bound sold today, just one year. We'd be surprised if it lasted that long. In a nutshell, the SmartDesk 2 Home Edition, even with its improved componentry over the old Jiecang-produced version, is a "throwaway" desk-bound that we wouldn't recommend under whatsoever circumstance. At the very to the lowest degree, consider only the Business concern Edition, or meliorate yet the SmartDesk Kickoff Class, if you're really married to ownership a desk from Democratic.
Moving on to the Business Edition…
For an extra $100 ($399 plus $49 shipping, for a total of $448) you can go a dual-motor, dual-phase upgrade, and a crossbar. The Concern Edition will elevator up to 300 pounds, and be a lot more stable than the Home Edition. As compared to other Chinese-made standing desks that price just a shave more (eastward.g. StandDesk Pro, Jarvis, UpLift) the SmartDesk 2 Business Edition is still a markedly shakier desk. The shaking just starts a few inches higher than with the cheaper desk.
The desk's controller is upgraded with overload protection (a bare necessity) and provides juice to power the dual synchronized motors. The addition of an adjustable-width crossbar allows it to be sold with larger desktops. Disappointingly, though, Democratic merely offers one other size in addition to the 53″ summit, and that's their lxx″ x 30″ XL tiptop. Information technology comes in the same four colors plus bamboo upgrade pick every bit the smaller top.
The dual-stage lifting columns expand the top adjustment range to as low as 24″ or as loftier as 51″, but undue shakiness nonetheless ensues at around twoscore″. The motors are blazing fast at 2.1 inches-per-2nd, but noisy as a consequence. Most people would rather merchandise off a 2d or two of transit fourth dimension for a quieter transition.
Like the smaller unit, the Business Edition comes with a digital mitt controller with 4 programmable height presets. Like near of its Chinese competitors this controller can be programmed to permit "one-touch" height changes.
The upgraded components do add upward to a more reliable desk-bound, as reflected in the v-yr warranty on the Business organization Edition versus the one-twelvemonth warranty on the Home desk. Again, that's non saying much, and is nonetheless a shorter warranty than even their Chinese peers (StandDesk, Jarvis, UpLift, et al), much less the American-fabricated contest.
The Business Edition is clearly the large seller for Democratic. If you're seriously considering it we recommend comparison it to its closest direct competitor, the StandDesk Pro with x-yr warranty, or SmartDesk's own Get-go Class Desk ($50 more). The adjacent step upwards from there would be the Jarvis or UpLift. Across that you're going to be popping into the low-end range of the Made-in-America Continuing Desks, which are in an entirely different realm of stability, quality, warranty, and hundreds to thousands of size and decor options. For more data on warranties, exist sure to read our primer on How to Compare Warranties on Continuing Desks.
The Bottom Line
If you've read this far you tin can probably tell where nosotros're going with this. Little has inverse in Autonomous' charge to be the low-cost leader in the role article of furniture business by finding ways to make their products in China cheaper than anyone else tin can, including their Chinese competition.
Autonomous' innovation has been in toll-cut and leveraging social media and online marketing (with the help of outlandish marketing claims) to sell an extraordinary number of desks to the millennial market in the US. These are not leading-edge products every bit they'd take you believe, and they don't fifty-fifty manufacture any of the components themselves. With its new "market place" on the autonomous.ai website it appears that Duy Huynh has steered the send to new frontiers, exploiting his youthful customer base to sell them as many things as he tin possible float over the Pacific.
As with about adjustable-peak desks, there are enough of bloggers and Youtube stars out there who'll requite you their review without having whatsoever detail expertise in adaptable-height desk engineering, or having ever seen another desk side-by-side to compare against. That's why yous're reading this review.
Withal confused by the plethora of options in stand-upwards desks? Explore our well-nigh recommended StandDesk Alternatives.
Or check out all the desks we've put to the test in our Electric Pinnacle-Adjustable Desk Comparison Reviews.
To learn more about the differences between Chinese versus American-made continuing desks see our detailed Comparing Review of Made-in-USA Standing Desks.
To learn all about the different tabletop options available for continuing desks bank check out our Ultimate Guide to Desk Tops.
Yous can also bank check out our reviews of other Autonomous products, the SmartDesk First Form Desk, the AI-peppered SmartDesk 3 Standing Desk-bound, and the SmartDesk Mini Standing Desk Converter.
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Continuing Desks
Source: https://www.workwhilewalking.com/autonomous-smartdesk-2-standing-desk-workstation-reviews
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