Can't find your answer ? LEEDing the WayGreening Buildings with LEED CertificationRead MoreMy job has increasingly become almost completely coding focused which means I’m sitting, a lot. I need to get up and move. Knowing my personality I decided the right way to do this is with a sit/stand desk using a treadmill. But I also need to be able to sit and I don’t have the room to move the treadmill around. So I’m buying the 72 inch iMovR Omega EVEREST desk which has enough room to put the treadmill and my chair next to each other. I’m picking the TR1200-DT3 treadmill. I’m adding an ERGOTRON LX HD Sit-Stand Desk Mount LCD Arm and it’s lighter non-HD sibling. I’ll also need to pick up two VESA mounts for my Apple hardware. Apparently being healthy requires breaking the bank. See below for the absurdly painful process by which I figured this all out. I rejected a bunch of options (see A↓) before deciding on just getting a 72 inch sit/stand desk. The desk is wide enough to fit a treadmill next to my office chair while still being small enough to fit in my office.
Figuring out that the desk, treadmill and chair would fit in my weirdly shaped office (with three doors!) was fun, see B↓ for notes on the open source software I used, Sweet Home 3D. You can see my complete list of sit/stand desk requirements at C↓ and see a bunch of desks I evaluated at D↓. But something funny happened that ended up changing which desk I wanted. There is a company called iMovR who owns a company called Work While Walking which has a show room in Bellevue, Washington near where I live. So I got to visit them and try out their desks. When I went there I was pretty sure I wanted to buy the ThermoDesk ELITE. But I ended up really wanting the Omega EVEREST. Or, perhaps it’s more accurate to say, I was sold it by, I believe, Ron Wiener, the CEO of iMovR who was in the office that day. But just because he is a good salesman doesn’t make him wrong. I have a list of treadmills I evaluated in the Appendix, see E↓. But unless I’m missing something the only serious contenders are all from LifeSpan, specifically the TR1200-DT3 and the TR5000-DT3.
I have two big monitors, one is a 27 inch Mid-2010 iMac and the other is a 27 inch Cinema Display. I like them to be directly in front of me in a slightly V shape. And I’ll want that set up both when I’m standing and sitting. After a little math I figured out that I need two monitor arms. The gory details are explained in F↓. In the end I decided to go with one ERGOTRON LX - HD Sit-Stand Desk Mount LCD Arm and its light non-HD variant. The HD is for my iMac and the non-HD is for my Cinema Display. As a side note, in the future I hope to get a 40 inch 4K (or higher) monitor like the Philiips BDM4065UC, I checked and it weights about 19 lbs. So even my non-HD arm will be able to handle it no problem. So hopefully I can re-use at least one of the two arms when I upgrade. One can now buy what are effectively floor mounted monitor poles (like this one) with attached keyboard trays. The idea is that the tray can be lifted to a standing position or lowered to a sitting position.
In theory I could place the pole in front of the treadmill and then rotate the monitor/keyboard tray 90 degrees to sit. Getting a pole that could handle both of my monitors was a challenge since most can’t handle the weight. Most of the poles have leg arrangements that I don’t think would work well with a treadmill. Most didn’t rotate at all but focused on just moving up (standing) or down (sitting). There are stools, like TreadStool, that are specifically designed to be used on treadmills. But the back support sucks and I have a really awesome Herman Miller Aeron that I love and want to sit in if possible. My office is really small. How could I be sure that the desk, the treadmill and my chair would all fit in without blocking any doors? Historically I would solve this problem using some graph paper and cut outs. But hey, it’s 2015, let’s use some of that computer stuff! So I downloaded Sweet Home 3D. This is open source software that that lets one easily model spaces.
It has tons of super powerful features and can do 3d renderings and lots of other stuff I never figured out and didn’t want to use. What I did need though was a model of a treadmill. I had to go to their Import Models page and download a few furniture libraries to find what I wanted. I actually first tried the Free 3D Models page but never successfully managed to import any of the models individually. Out of the block the desk that really got my attention was the NextDesk Terra Pro. The only problem is that NextDesk doesn’t have standard 72 inch widths. I submitted a request for a custom desk but never heard back. I found that they got a D from the BBB. Seriously, you have to knee cap your customers to get a D from the BBB. My main computer is a Mid-2010 27 inch iMac. According to Apple this version of the iMac weights 30.5 lbs but unlike some models the stand on its back can be removed and it can be mounted using a VESA 100 adapter that Apple sells. But this review on Amazon says that once you remove the stand the computer weighs around 27.5 lbs.
This turns out to matter because most monitor arms top out at 30 lbs. With the 19.7” pole the base can go up to 16.95” and then the arm itself can raise up another 13.4” to a maximum height of 30.35 inches. Far above the 19.25” we need. It’s maximum length at maximum height (which we don’t need) is 21.3 inches, which again is more than we need. It looks like it’s designed to be moved with a single hand. I only found ErgoDirect selling it with the 19.7” pole for a total cost with shipping of $180.94. I am concerned about the comment made here that the base may not be wide enough to fully extend the monitor. I’m also a bit concerned by how few reviews I can find in general. Their documentation doesn’t give exact measurements of the parts of the arm so it’s difficult to be completely sure if it meets my needs but it would appear so. It’s pretty inexpensive at around $100 but this review in particular really worried me. The lack of reviews in general is worrisome.