In a Nutshell:
The Herman Miller Mirra is a spectacular, well-rounded design. Recommended for anyone weighing up to 350 pounds, If you can afford it.
Value for the Money
Comfort
Brand Reliability*
Aesthetic Flexibility**
Overall Rating
4.5/5
Benefits
Drawbacks
Recommended For: Anyone weighing up to 350 pounds IF you can afford it.
Is your current office chair not living up to expectations? Is it getting a bit long in the tooth? Whether you’re underwhelmed by the performance of your current chair, or you don’t yet have one and are suddenly in the market, you’ll love what you read in this—our Herman Miller Mirra review.
In the world of office furniture, there are off-brands, respected industry players, and titans. Herman Miller is one of the industry’s titans. These companies set the standard. Think Steelcase, and yes, think Herman Miller.
They create chairs that everybody else strives to match, or at least come close to matching. That’s what the Mirra is.
This chair has been a part of the Herman Miller family of products for a long time. However, the design of the Herman Miller Mirra 1, while still quite solid, had begun to show its age, and the company decided to refresh the model by redesigning it from top to bottom. The Herman Miller Mirra 2 office chair is the fruit of that labor and is the model we’ll be focused on here.
By any reckoning, this is a superb model, and Herman Miller has a long history of incorporating custom ergonomic technology into their designs. In addition to being able to customize this chair in various ways, you’ll find a lot of that proprietary tech here, which means that there will be a lot to talk about.
If your interest is piqued, strap in, settle back in your chair, and take a closer look at everything the Mirra 2 chair offers.
An Overview Of The Herman Miller Mirra Office Chair
This is a delightfully strong segment of our Herman Miller Mirra review that really highlights the versatility of this design.
When you see the Mirra chair for the first time, the thing that will strike you is how great it looks.
We don’t even like mesh chairs, so we’re a little shocked to find ourselves saying that, but honestly, the Mirra is a great-looking piece of office furniture. It’s more or less conventionally designed, but the back has elegant sweeping lines, which not only help it structurally but also give it a refined look.
On top of that, it’s offered in a variety of different colors, so no matter what the prevailing color scheme is in your home or work office, you can get a chair that blends in with ease. That’s good stuff.
Before we do more than talk about aesthetics, though, it’s worth mentioning that the Mirra isn’t actually a single product but a pair of closely related products. Within the small Mirra family, you’ll find the Herman Miller Mirra 2 chair and the Herman Miller Mirra 2 stool.
If you decide you want one of these, you can order from one of a number of Amazon vendors who carry them, or you can order from Herman Miller directly.
Ordering from Herman Miller directly gives you a few more options because the Mirra task chair is an incredibly customizable piece of office furniture. While you can customize it to your heart’s content on the company’s website, you’re only offered static models on Amazon, with a pre-configured set of features.
If you find a Mirra chair with the perfect feature set for you on Amazon, great! Order it, and prepare to be thrilled. On the other hand, if you want maximum freedom and flexibility, go to the Herman Miller website and order either the chair or the stool, at your preference.
In the end, talking about aesthetics and model variants will only get us so far. To truly understand what makes the Mirra amazing, we’ve got to look at some raw numbers. Here’s a quick overview of both the chair and the stool, side by side:
| Feature/Model | Herman Miller Mirra v2 Chair | Herman Miller Mirra Stool |
| Overall Product Dimensions | 43.74” H x 30” W x 18.5” D | 52.5” H x 30” W x 18.5” D |
| Seat Width | 19.25” | 19.25” |
| Seat Depth | Either 16.25” or 16.25” – 18” | Either 16.25” or 16.25” – 18” |
| Seat Height Adjustment Range | Low: 14.75” – 19”Standard: 16” – 20.5”Ext: 16.75” – 22.25” | 23.5” – 33.5” |
| Product Weight | 35.05 pounds | 55 pounds |
| Maximum Supported Weight | 350 pounds | 350 pounds |
| Warranty | 12 Years | 12 Years |
As you can see, the chair and stool variants are highly similar, but there are some important differences.
The stool naturally has a much higher seat height adjustment range and is nominally heavier, while the chair is more customizable—particularly where the seat height adjustment range is concerned.
Of note, both the chair and the stool come with Herman Miller’s exceptional 12-year warranty, so while it’s true that these are expensive chairs, this is definitely a case of getting what you pay for.
And if you average the cost of this chair over twelve years and compare that to the price of the 5-6 low-end chairs you’d have to buy in that time frame, it comes out very much in Mirra’s favor.
The big thing that jumps out at us about these numbers is just how adjustable the chair is. Few office chairs and almost no stools come with a seat that can be adjusted for depth, but this one does. And it supports up to 350 pounds of user weight to boot, which is above the informal industry average of 300 pounds. These are just good numbers all around. We’re impressed.
The Herman Miller Mirra Ergonomic Office Chair In More Detail
Early on in this review, we mentioned that Herman Miller has developed a number of cutting-edge ergonomic technologies. In this section of our Herman Miller Mirra review, we’ll be taking a closer look at them. These are features that both the chair and the stool variants have in common, so everything that you read here will apply to both—with a caveat.
If you decide you want one of these and if you go to the company’s website to place your order, one of the first decisions you’ll be asked to make is whether you want your chair with the Butterfly Back or the TriFlex Back.
However you answer that question, it will determine what some of the additional features of your chair/stool are. We’ll actually walk you through ordering both the chair and the stool a bit later on, and you’ll see what we mean. For now, just be aware that these are features in common to both variants, but you won’t always have free access to them.
It depends on what you order. That said, let’s take a closer look.
The Two Back Types
You can order either your Herman Miller Mirra series 2 executive chair or your Mirra 2 stool with either a Butterfly Back or a TriFlex back. Both types of backs are incredibly breathable and move with you as you shift position in the chair, providing dynamic support, though in this latter case, the Butterfly does slightly outperform the Triflex.
Most people find the Butterfly back to be slightly more aesthetically pleasing because the veins and the added layer of polymer woven into the mesh give it an interesting dimensionality and a softer feel against the skin.
That said, the TriFlex is easier to keep clean, and given that we’ve all had a recent re-education regarding germs with the Covid-19 pandemic, that’s something that’s at least worthy of consideration. It’s also worth mentioning that the Triflex back is about eighty bucks cheaper.
On a chair this expensive, that’s not much, but every little bit helps, and if money is tight, it may be worth considering.
Also, note that no matter which back option you select, you can order your chair with either a fixed or adjustable seat depth. This is true for both the chair chassis and the stool chassis.
Loop Spine Technology
This is the Herman Miller proprietary tech that works with the back design that provides you with the dynamic support we talked about above. This is the specific technology that makes that magic happen.
The simple truth is that you move around in your chair over any given day. You bend and stretch to reach the printer or roll from one side of your workspace to the other to get something.
Each time you do that, you reorient your back and put pressure on different parts of your spine. The Mirra adapts to how you’re moving so that you’re always properly supported, and that’s awesome.
PostureFit Technology
Whichever back option you select, it will come with passive PostureFit sacral support built in. This technology helps keep your spine properly aligned as you sit in the chair.
In addition to that, the Mirra 2 boasts adjustable lumbar support that allows you to put the added support exactly where you need it. Herman Miller understands that everyone’s body is shaped slightly differently, so they provided the freedom and flexibility to optimize the placement of their exceptional lumbar support.
AireWeave Seat Suspension
Although the seats have no padding, which is common among mesh chairs, Herman Miller utilizes a proprietary seat suspension design that allows for more airflow and greater overall comfort. This is one of the few mesh chairs you can spend all day in and still be comfortable, and that’s really saying something!
In addition to that, whether you purchase the chair or the stool chassis, you’ll have access to Herman Miller Mirra 2’s phenomenally adjustable armrests, which can be adjusted for height (up/down), depth (back and forth), width, and angle—pivoting them in or out by as much as twenty degrees, depending on your preference. That’s an insane level of adjustability!
On top of that, if you purchase the stool chassis, know that it comes with a footrest that can be height adjusted to taste, too, within a band of 4.5”.
Finally, note that you can order your chair either with or without a tilt limiter, though if you want your chair chassis to come without this feature, you’ll need to call the company and let them know in person. For some reason, that option isn’t currently available on the company’s website, though you can find some models on Amazon that come with/without that feature.
The tilt limiter is pretty cool, allowing you to set it to either 92 degrees, 100 degrees, or 124 degrees at your preference, so you’ve got a hard stop to how much you can recline back. Even if you don’t opt for the limiter feature, you’ll still be able to set the tilt tension, which will determine how much pressure is required to cause the chair to recline back.
In tandem with this, note that you can also adjust the angle of your seat, choosing either a 90-degree plane or a five-degree forward tilt for those who prefer to lean forward while they work. That’s awesome!
Ordering A Mirra 2 Herman Miller Chair
This brief walkthrough assumes that you have gone to the company’s website and are placing an order so you can maximize the number of customization options you have available.
If that’s the case, then the first decision you’ll have to make is what type of back do you want: Butterfly or TriFlex.
From there, it’s on to color options, and whichever back you select, you’ve got the following choices where colors are concerned:
After that, you pick your frame colors from either graphite or studio white, then the base, either standard or polished aluminum.
Each time you make a selection as you make your way through the process, you’ll see the price of your customized chair update dynamically. If you reach a point where it goes over your budget, you can always back up and change options if you need to.
If you prefer the stool chassis over the chair, you’ve got a different slate of options, and we’ll walk you through those next.
Ordering The Mirra Stool
As with the chair, the first decision you’ll need to make is what type of back you want. You’ve got the same two options here: Butterfly or TriFlex.
After that, you select your base/frame color; here, you’ve got an additional choice. You can choose graphite, fog with studio white, or silver alloy with studio white.
That done, you select your color, but unfortunately, your color selection is somewhat more limited here than it is where the stool is concerned. You get three colors to pick from: alpine, dark turquoise, or graphite.
Then, you can select to have your stool outfitted with static or adjustable lumbar support and with a tilt limiter only or a tilt limiter plus seat angle adjustment.
You’ll also be able to select whether you want fixed armrests or adjustable armrests, whether you want the seat depth to be fixed or if a FlexFront adjustable seat depth is more to your liking. And finally, you’ll be able to choose either hardwood or carpet casters to round out your stool.
Lots of options, but we love it. You can have your chair your way, and that’s just superb.
Pros and Cons of Herman Miller Mirra Office Chair
From a technical standpoint, there’s really not much to complain about here. Our one quibble with the design is that if you get the fixed seat depth, it’s not the best match with the weight limit. It’s a little on the narrow side, which may make using it for extended periods of time a bit uncomfortable.
The only other complaint we have is the fact that, yeah, this is an expensive chair.
That’s totally true but consider this. If you buy this chair, you’ll have it for at least twelve years—that’s the length of the warranty. If you divide the price of the chair by 12, you wind up with something like $125—the exact amount will depend on which options you choose when you order the chair.
Over those twelve years, assuming you buy low-end chairs, you’ll spend at least that much buying budget-priced chairs and have to take the time to put each new chair together. Not fun.
And that’s one of the hidden benefits of buying the Mirra, by the way—it comes assembled!
That’s rare in the office furniture world. Almost every chair on the market today arrives at your door in a big box and in pieces. You’ve got to sort the pieces and then spend time putting them together before you can roll them into position and put it to use.
That’s not the case here. Whether you order the stool or the chair chassis, it will hit your door ready to work!
Herman Miller Mirra Review Conclusion
We love these chairs. They’re versatile, they’re insanely customizable, and you can get yours exactly the way you want it. Once it arrives at your door, you’ll be able to tweak and customize the settings so that it fits you like a glove, and you won’t have to worry about it wearing out on you in just a handful of years.
These are pricey chairs but worth every penny. We recommend the Mirra without reservation.
Other Options To Consider
If you’ve reached the end of this Herman Miller Mirra review and you’re not completely sold on the Mirra, here are a couple of other options you may want to consider:
Recommended For: Anyone, especially for people who suffer from chronic back pain.
Steelcase is another of just a handful of companies that really shape and define the office furniture industry, and the Leap is the office chair of office chairs.
It’s expensive, just as the model we just talked about is, but it’s also worth every penny, insanely customizable and bristling with high-impact ergonomic technology. It’s probably as close to the perfect office chair as you’ll ever find.
Recommended For: Anyone. A solid, venerable ergonomic chair.
Herman Miller’s original design, this is a true classic. It’s been a part of the Herman Miller family of products for decades, and each time they revise the model, it just keeps getting better. Although we don’t rate it quite as highly as the Steelcase Leap, it’s in the upper echelons with a select few chairs that could rightly be considered the best of all time. It’s fantastic.
References & Resources:
- Herman Miller, Official Brand Website.
- Herman Miller Mirra 2 Care and Maintenance.
- Sitting and Chair Design, Cornell University Ergonomics Web.
- Ergonomics for Prolonged Sitting, UCLA Health.
- Identifying Relations Between Posture and Pain in Lower Back Pain Patients: A Narrative Review, Springer Open.