Varier Move Ergonomic Stool Review 2023

Has your current office chair been underwhelming you? Not really delivering the kind of seating experience you were hoping for?

Do you find yourself frustrated by conventional office furniture as a result? If you answered yes to any of those questions, you’re going to be intrigued by our Varier Move review.

We’ll be quick to say that this type of office seating isn’t for everyone; it is unconventional, after all! For the right person, though, the Varier Move stool could be exactly what you’ve been looking for.

In the sections that follow, we’ll tell you all about the Varier Move chair and what it can do for you. We won’t pull any punches though, and will also let you know about its limitations, so you’ll have all the information you need, right at your fingertips, to decide if it’s a good fit for you, the kind of work you’re doing, and how you plan to use it. If that sounds good to you, let’s dive right in and see what the Move has to offer!

An Overview of the Varier Move Tilting Saddle Stool

At first glance, this looks like a stool with a bicycle seat on it, and as such, you might be surprised to learn that it’s a type of office furniture at all. First impressions, however, can be deceiving. The Move stool is actually a powerful form of alternative seating, designed and developed by Per Oie in 1985. To this day, it still sets the standard in the world of ergonomic office stools.

Chair Specifications

In terms of basic stats, here’s what the Move looks like:

As you can see, based on these stats, it’s a versatile piece of furniture, but it’s clearly not for everyone. With a maximum weight limit of 250 pounds, the Varier Move ergonomic stool isn’t suitable for big and tall users, despite having a maximum height that could theoretically accommodate them. If you meet the stool’s weight limit though, you’ll find a lot to like about it as we dig more deeply into its capabilities.

We’ll have more to say about the stool’s ergonomic capabilities in the next section, but keeping with high-level observations for the moment, let’s focus on aesthetics.

Aesthetics

Once you get past the idea of sitting on a stool instead of a conventional office chair, you’ll find that it’s reasonably attractive and very well put together, using high-quality materials.

The base is beechwood, harvested in Europe and lacquered, and the stool itself is well padded and comfortable, upholstered in a variety of fabric and color options, and available with leather upholstery if you prefer.

Upholstery Options

Here’s a quick overview of the upholstery options you can select from:

Adjustability

There’s surprisingly little to talk about here. While the stool is incredibly adjustable, the only thing a person sitting in it has to do is to flip the gas lift lever to adjust the seat height or simply move. Simply shifting your weight as you’re sitting on the stool allows it to pivot and move with you, providing exceptional ergonomic support at every step. 

In that regard, it’s the most versatile type of office seating you’ll ever own. It essentially becomes an extension of you, providing exactly the support you need, exactly when you need it. 

It’s difficult to express how valuable this is. It’s one of those things that has to be experienced firsthand to be fully appreciated. But if you have an active job that sees you up and down all day, and even when you’re sitting, you’re stretching and moving regularly, one day in the Move stool and you’ll wonder how you ever got along without one.

Accessories

As with other products offered by Varier, this one has a small number of accessories available, although since this is, at the root, a stool, your options are more limited. You can choose from soft tape and glow rings. The soft tape will be of particular interest to anyone planning to use the stool on a hardwood floor, linoleum, or tile surface while the glow rings will only be of interest to those who want to give their new favorite office seat a bit of a high-tech look.

Assembly Is Required

The vast majority of office furniture sold today doesn’t come assembled, and the move is no exception. The good news here though is that there’s not much to the process of assembling a stool. It will likely take you longer to get the pieces out of the box than it will to get it put together.

Combine that with the fact that the production quality is extremely high and the instructions are clear, and the table is set for a smooth assembly process. You won’t even need an extra pair of hands. In fact, this is one of those rare cases where having a second person assisting might actually slow the process down a bit.

Pros and Cons of the Varier Move Stool

Like all other unconventional forms of office seating, the Varier Move Standing desk chair is almost entirely self-selecting. You either want one, or you don’t. If you don’t, nothing in this Varier Move review is likely to change your mind. It’s just not going to be a good fit for you.

If you are interested in exploring other options and moving away from the standard office chair, the Move stool has a lot to offer. Specifically, the ideal user will be someone who:

The more of those bullet points that apply to you, the more you’ll love the Move.

The only other thing to talk about is the price. A lot of people are going to balk at the idea of shelling out hundreds of dollars on a stool. Yes, it’s an amazing piece of office furniture. Yes, it’s worth every penny. Even so, its price is simply going to put some people off, or put it out of reach entirely.

Varier Move Review – Final Thoughts

We like the Varier Move stool. It’s very good at what it does, but the simple truth is that you either want one or you don’t. If you’re interested in unconventional office seating in general and are looking for an ergonomic stool in particular, the Move is unquestionably the one you want. Nothing else even comes close. 

In this segment of the market, there’s Varier, and then there’s everyone else. No other company we’ve found in this part of the market has the design chops or the post-sales support track record to compare.

For those people, we recommend the Move without reservation. For everyone else, while you might find it interesting, and while it would probably serve you well if you’re not 100% sure, you’re better off continuing your search.

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Official Manufacturer Support

REFERENCES & RESOURCES

• Varier Move Product Fact Sheet.
• Varier Furniture, Official Brand Website.
• Saddle Seating: Supporting Healthy Postures, RDH Mag.
• The Benefits of Ergonomic Office Furniture, atWork Office Furniture.
• Is Sitting-While-At-Work Associated with Low Back Pain? A Systematic, Critic​​al Literature Review, NCBI.