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Hey Everyone, Simon Freedman here. The retailers told us we should pitch them at $2K! Eric is right, I'd love to bring the price down. If I can make them che

Hey Everyone, Simon Freedman here. The retailers told us we should pitch them at $2K! Eric is right, I'd love to bring the price down. If I can make them cheap enough for schools to buy that would be great, but we've got to go high(ish) to start. Also, we want to make a low -price wheelchair. I've been talking to the President of the International Paralymic Committee and am very excited about the possibilities! Pravda, please contact me about that bullshit detector. I'm applying for my PhD course at the University of Huddersfield. Do you think we've evolved to the point were we're meant to farm or sit? That's 10k years of agricultural life and 15-20 years of widespread computer use...I'd be really happy to talk more if anyone has questions. Getting late over here in London though. Back in the am...

cloudwalking 13y ago
Simon, can you post some more pictures of people sitting in the chair? Or even better, videos of people trying the chair out? It's hard to buy a chair without trying it first.
- ericmsimons 13y ago
  From the kickstarter page, they have a picture collage of people sitting in the chair (link to image: https://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/assets/001/213/229/3b559aca5e037f80597b9bb156905c92_large.jpg?1382227244 https://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/assets/001/213/229/3b559aca5e03...) I originally posted this to HN because I bumped into Simon's launch party while I was in London last week. After testing the chair myself, I was sold. It feels like you're using a standing desk (except with no foot fatigue/pain) as it forces you to have good posture.
pdknsk 13y ago
I had the opposite reaction. I briefly scanned the page for price first, and didn't immediately notice the rest of this sentence. > And at £319/$499 you'll be making a saving of over 50% of the eventual retail price. At "only" $499, I figured, it's probably of lesser quality. A quality chair, and I'm not claiming $999 automatically makes this chair so, is an investment for a decade, which puts price in perspective.
Mithaldu 13y ago
I'm not pravda, but my bullshit detector is going off too. I'm even willing to tell you why. Your kickstarter campaign contains 90% marketing fluff copy, with a small section on what your chair is supposed to do. However, it only claims to do things, instead of explaining in detail how the chair does things; it doesn't compare postures and such between "normal" office chairs and your chair; it doesn't cite any papers on effects; it doesn't cite any studies on effects of even similar products. You throw out a massive promise and ask a bunch of nerds to take you on faith. That's not going to work. Lastly, chairs and other sitting implements have been around for at the very least 6700 years, so please be precise in what you talk about: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CucuteniNeolithicChair.JPG http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CucuteniNeolithicChair.JPG Addendum: I want to believe you. I want to have a chair that actively makes me healthy, because i know my current sitting work makes me unhealthy. So please take this to mean that you need to do a much better job at explaining and proving how your product does this, not that i wish you to go away.
- vinceguidry 13y ago
  > That's not going to work. Obviously it did work, They're 80% of the way there after only a week.
  - Mithaldu 13y ago
    You're right. I was trying to express an idea that is not easily expressed and did so clumsily. In a more verbose manner, i was thinking that he can't post something like that and not expect some people to be highly sceptical of the validity of his claims.
mezzopiano 13y ago
Thanks for stopping by and taking time to discuss this! (since you appear to be new to HN, please take the abounding hypercriticality with a grain of salt) I personally think it's great that you are innovating in the field of workplace ergonomics, and, since I've been trying to improve my own posture and general health (and I think the design looks cool, too), I'm looking to back your project. I have three questions for you if you want to fully convince me of your invention: (1) How, from your scientific view, does the Freedman compare to a sitting ball or a standing desk? (2) From an engineering standpoint, the buttock pads (for lack of a better term) are going to take a lot of pressure over time. How did you keep them flexible (since they adjust flexibly to bodily asymmetries), while preventing them from wearing out? (3) Conceptually, you make the point that chairs are, quite literally, killing people (e.g. your argument above "were we meant to farm or sit?", or in the video "[what the press means by saying that sitting kills] is that in a normal sitting position, which is often slumped, you turn of an enzyme [...]. After an hour, you have 20% more bad cholesterol [...]. That leads to metabolic disorder."). How does your invention, itself a chair, though a completely rethought one, counteract this? The studies you cite (e.g. Edwardson et al., http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0034916 http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjourna... ; Zderic & Hamilton, http://jap.physiology.org/content/100/1/249.full http://jap.physiology.org/content/100/1/249.full ), show that any kind of prolonged inactivity (in humans and rats, respectively) will lead to the adverse consequences you list. What are your thoughts on this? Again, I entirely commend you for putting in the effort and expertise to develop this -- I think the result looks great, and you have my complete support. You certainly seem to have found a market eagerly searching for a solution to the lifestyle diseases of our times (which is a huge expectation, even you citations recommend a "multidimensional" approach, cf. Burton et al.). All the best!

cloudwalking 13y ago

Simon, can you post some more pictures of people sitting in the chair? Or even better, videos of people trying the chair out? It's hard to buy a chair without trying it first.

ericmsimons 13y ago
From the kickstarter page, they have a picture collage of people sitting in the chair (link to image: https://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/assets/001/213/229/3b559aca5e037f80597b9bb156905c92_large.jpg?1382227244 https://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/assets/001/213/229/3b559aca5e03...) I originally posted this to HN because I bumped into Simon's launch party while I was in London last week. After testing the chair myself, I was sold. It feels like you're using a standing desk (except with no foot fatigue/pain) as it forces you to have good posture.

pdknsk 13y ago

I had the opposite reaction. I briefly scanned the page for price first, and didn't immediately notice the rest of this sentence. > And at £319/$499 you'll be making a saving of over 50% of the eventual retail price. At "only" $499, I figured, it's probably of lesser quality. A quality chair, and I'm not claiming $999 automatically makes this chair so, is an investment for a decade, which puts price in perspective.

Mithaldu 13y ago

I'm not pravda, but my bullshit detector is going off too. I'm even willing to tell you why. Your kickstarter campaign contains 90% marketing fluff copy, with a small section on what your chair is supposed to do. However, it only claims to do things, instead of explaining in detail how the chair does things; it doesn't compare postures and such between "normal" office chairs and your chair; it doesn't cite any papers on effects; it doesn't cite any studies on effects of even similar products. You throw out a massive promise and ask a bunch of nerds to take you on faith. That's not going to work. Lastly, chairs and other sitting implements have been around for at the very least 6700 years, so please be precise in what you talk about: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CucuteniNeolithicChair.JPG http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CucuteniNeolithicChair.JPG Addendum: I want to believe you. I want to have a chair that actively makes me healthy, because i know my current sitting work makes me unhealthy. So please take this to mean that you need to do a much better job at explaining and proving how your product does this, not that i wish you to go away.

vinceguidry 13y ago
> That's not going to work. Obviously it did work, They're 80% of the way there after only a week.
- Mithaldu 13y ago
  You're right. I was trying to express an idea that is not easily expressed and did so clumsily. In a more verbose manner, i was thinking that he can't post something like that and not expect some people to be highly sceptical of the validity of his claims.

mezzopiano 13y ago

Thanks for stopping by and taking time to discuss this! (since you appear to be new to HN, please take the abounding hypercriticality with a grain of salt) I personally think it's great that you are innovating in the field of workplace ergonomics, and, since I've been trying to improve my own posture and general health (and I think the design looks cool, too), I'm looking to back your project. I have three questions for you if you want to fully convince me of your invention: (1) How, from your scientific view, does the Freedman compare to a sitting ball or a standing desk? (2) From an engineering standpoint, the buttock pads (for lack of a better term) are going to take a lot of pressure over time. How did you keep them flexible (since they adjust flexibly to bodily asymmetries), while preventing them from wearing out? (3) Conceptually, you make the point that chairs are, quite literally, killing people (e.g. your argument above "were we meant to farm or sit?", or in the video "[what the press means by saying that sitting kills] is that in a normal sitting position, which is often slumped, you turn of an enzyme [...]. After an hour, you have 20% more bad cholesterol [...]. That leads to metabolic disorder."). How does your invention, itself a chair, though a completely rethought one, counteract this? The studies you cite (e.g. Edwardson et al., http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0034916 http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjourna... ; Zderic & Hamilton, http://jap.physiology.org/content/100/1/249.full http://jap.physiology.org/content/100/1/249.full ), show that any kind of prolonged inactivity (in humans and rats, respectively) will lead to the adverse consequences you list. What are your thoughts on this? Again, I entirely commend you for putting in the effort and expertise to develop this -- I think the result looks great, and you have my complete support. You certainly seem to have found a market eagerly searching for a solution to the lifestyle diseases of our times (which is a huge expectation, even you citations recommend a "multidimensional" approach, cf. Burton et al.). All the best!