Not all office chairs are alike. Some are designed for maximum adjustability. Others are designed for optimum comfort. The BeYou Chair, on the other hand, is designed to provide a ridiculous level of versatility, allowing you to customize it to support a wide variety of postures.
You know how higher-end office chairs offer adjustable heights, sitting angles, arm rest positions, and few other elements that can tailor it to support your desired sitting posture? Well, this one goes above and beyond that. Billed as a “transforming chair,” this thing can turn into a different chair entirely, allowing you to not just sit in a variety of ways, but even lie down on your back or stomach for a reasonably comfortable nap.
The BeYou Chair is an erstwhile odd-looking office chair, with a wide seat, a low backrest, and oversized arm rests with a full padded body. It’s odd enough that you’ll probably be curious about the design choices, but at the same time, it seems normal enough that you can easily use it much like any office chair. Turns out, there’s a reason for those somewhat odd choices. They used a low backrest because they allow you to tilt the darn thing until it’s completely horizontal, making it possible to use the backrest as a functional table for those times you don’t have a desk available (you sit facing the rear) or use it as an elbow pad when you want to sit forward in a focused posture. Heck, you can even use that horizontal back rest as a seat (it’s sturdy enough), so you can sit at a taller height for whatever reason.
It’s not just the backrest that can be tilted that way, as both arm rests can be angled similarly, so you have three options in makeshift work surfaces that you can conjure at will. The frames holding those arm rest paddings can even be pulled down to put the arm rests at the same height as the seat, allowing you to expand the chair’s seat to a mini-sofa profile. Seriously, it’s wide enough that you can lie down and take a nap if you feel like it. According to the outfit, the frames holding the arm rests can be individually set to five positions, so you can angle them a bit to make more room in the seat for those times you just had a big lunch or tilt one side all the way down to sit a colleague checking something on your computer.
The BeYou Chair uses quick-release hinges for all the adjustable elements, making it easy to transform it from one form to another in mere seconds, so you can go from conventional office to chair to a veritable sofa to a weird hybrid in a jiffy. Features include oak veneer panels, metal for the frame, a wide base to support your weirdest sitting postures, auto-locking wheels, high-density foam, and a maximum supported weight of 400 pounds. The whole thing, by the way, weighs 55 pounds, so it’s a bit heavier than your standard office chair.
A Kickstarter campaign is currently running for the BeYou Chair. You can reserve a unit for pledges starting at $349.