Sitting down is killing us. Seriously—too much sitting, too little exercise is a recipe for obesity, diabetes, cancer and just generally death. One increasing popular solution is to use a standing desk, which sits at a great height to make you ditch the chair and burn a few extra calories. There are very basic models which sit on top of your normal desks, to custom-built monstrosities that raise and lower at the touch of a button. This week, a new desk called the Altwork Station was announced that takes it one step further, with a single workstation that’s suitable for sitting, standing and even lying down.
The Altwork Station’s design is fairly straight-forward, with a chair, desk and monitor / laptop stand all strapped to a wide base. Servos integrated into the unit allow the desk to be raised and lowered for standing or sitting, but things get really crazy when the chair leans back.
Your keyboard and mouse are magnetically attached to the desk and move with you as you change positions, so you can lean all the way back to a fully reclined position and still have your monitors and peripherals at the same orientation as before. In this way, you can swap between the three different modes depending on what’s comfortable or convenient at the time, which hopefully will improve your posture, save your back and stave off your inevitable demise.
Altwork is selling the desks for $5900 in the US, with early adopters paying $3900 for a standard edition or $4900 for a signature edition model. There are a range of colours available, with the signature series offering more choices, priority manufacturing and even an commemorative numbered plate. Deliveries begin in 2017, so you’ve got some time to find room for this titanic desk in your (or your HR department’s) budget.
Let’s just hope we’re not moving towards the future foretold by the greatest philosopher of our age, WALL-E…
