Review: The Autonomous AI Standing Desk

I received the Autonomous AI SmartDesk 2 complementary to write this review. All opinions below are my own.

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I’m a big advocate of adjustable standing desks. In fact, I’ve been using one in my home office for almost four years and I love the option to sit when I feel like it, or even move it to a higher position and stand for a while. Sometimes I find myself sitting at my desk most of the workday, and it can become tedious to be in the same position for hours at a time. And an adjustable sit/stand desk (especially one that is electronic) makes it so easy to decide on a whim to change your position, which is beneficial to posture, overall health, and it means I don’t tire as easily while working.

When Autonomous AI reached out and offered a desk in exchange for this review, I was intrigued. I already have a standing desk that I use for my computer setup, but because of the work I do, I thought it might be helpful to have a second adjustable desk. I really like the ability to quickly change the height, which is important for computer work but also very helpful for many other tasks with a working table.

How I use this desk:

Because I already have a standing desk for my main computer setup, I decided to put this desk for different kinds of uses.

• Tabletop photography: I do a lot of tabletop photography, whether it is for a product I’m showcasing here on my blog, food photography or a variety of any other type of photography. Sometimes I am photographing at eye level, and sometimes I set things up to do a top-down photograph. The huge benefit of using an adjustable standing desk for photography is that I can easily adjust the desk to a position that works best for the camera angle I want to use. This means it can work in tandem with my tripod (when I am using one) to help get a good position. I also am using window light (I have a North-facing window just behind the desk that is a great light source for photography) and repositioning the desk makes it easy to move the desk to where the light hits my subject best.
• Camera-bag preparation: When packing up my camera gear, it’s nice to have a place to set everything so I can stay organized. The Autonomous AI adjustable standing desk has worked really well for those situations. It’s nice to position the desk really low so I can stand over all of my equipment and get everything packed up neatly.
• General work desk: One of the things I do with my business is creating textures and overlays, all hand-made. In the past, I would sit at my kitchen table or counter and get my art supplies out to work on my projects. Now that I have a second desk in my office, I am able to use it to set up and do my craft projects all in the comfort of my office.

Pros & Cons:

I really do love this desk. I love the color (pure white, it’s so nice and clean!) and the minimalistic design of it all. Here are the pros and cons that I have discovered with this desk after having used it for a few weeks:

Pros:

• Tabletop surface: The desktop surface is very sturdy. In fact, it reminds me of a kitchen countertop. It’s smooth and has a nice feel to it.
• Movement: The up/down movement works flawlessly and is set in inches so you know exactly how high off the ground the surface sits. It also has programmable buttons so you can set up to four
• Style: I really like the minimalistic design of the desk. The edges are rounded and it gives it a very professional look and feel in my office.
• Assembly: Assembling the desk was relatively simple (with only one exception, as listed below in the “cons” section). I put the desk together by myself, which was not too difficult, although the surface was quite heavy.
• Size: As I mentioned previously, this is the second standing desk I have in my office. And, my office is not very big! It makes a great standing desk for a small workspace,
• Affordable: While I did receive this desk in exchange to write this review, the desk I received costs only $399 (at the time of writing this review), making it a very affordable adjustable standing desk. And, if you’re interested, you can even use the discount code 26NICOLESY to save 10% on your purchase!

Con: 

• Assembly: While the assembly is quite straightforward (you can read the assembly instructions here) I did run into a few places where the holes in the tabletop did not match up with the frame. It didn’t’ seem to be a problem, and because of the way the desk sits on the frame, I wasn’t worried about it structurally and so far everything is working smoothly!

Accessories for using an adjustable standing desk:

• Use a cushioned mat. If you are in a room with hard flooring, I suggest getting something cushy to stand on. I’m not always wearing cushioned shoes at my desk and when I was in homes with hardwood flooring, it was helpful to have something soft to stand on. An anti-fatigue mat is a good option, or you can even try the Autonomous Flow Board if you like to have a little bit of movement while standing at your desk. There are a lot of other options online if you go searching.
• Arrange all of your plug-in items to be on the desk. If you have a desktop setup with a lot of electronics, you’ll want those items to go up-and-down with you as the desk moves. A hidden cable-tray is a good way to collect all of your cords, and an additional power-outlet for the desk is a good idea as well.

Overall I’m extremely happy with this product and do find that it is not only a fantastic small computer desk but also a great tabletop surface to do almost any type of work from. If you are interested, don’t forget to use the code 26NICOLESY to save 10% on your purchase.

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It’s probably an overstatement, and it’s become cliché, but there’s enough truth to it that it bears repeating: Sitting is the new smoking. And so when shopping for a desk, the smart money is on sit-stand.

There are, obviously, simple standing desks. I have two problems with these. One, standing can become as monotonous as sitting. Two, I’m a writer and work odd hours, which means I play odd hours – in my case, this can mean going for a run over lunch. After running 6-7 miles, I typically want to take a load off my legs. So whatever the solution, it would have to be a sit-stand desk.

Contact us to discuss your requirements of autonomous electric standing desk. Our experienced sales team can help you identify the options that best suit your needs.

The folks at Autonomous sent me the equivalent of a review copy of such a desk. In this case, it’s a 53-inch by 30-inch, walnut surfaced, grey-undercarriaged SmartDesk 2 Standing Desk Business Edition (the link defaults to the $299 Home Edition; the Business Edition retails for $399 and pops up when you scroll down a slight bit and click on the Business Edition option; shipping and handling is $49 for either one).

The Home and Business Editions look the same. The difference is under the hood, so to speak: the Home Edition has a single motor that moves the desktop up and down from 29 inches to 47 inches, with a 220 pound capacity and a one-year warranty. The Business Edition on which I now type sports dual motors and rises from 24 inches to 51 inches, with a 300-pound capacity and a five-year warranty. Another difference between the two, and perhaps decisive to the highly impatient, is that the Business Edition moves up and down 2.3 times faster than the Home Edition’s one inch per second.

Unless you’re using Olympic plates as monitor stand, I have a hard time imagining why one would need the extra 80 pounds of desktop weight capacity. Being able to go as low as about two feet could well benefit folks with small children, as that’s low enough for the tiniest of chairs. On the other end, I can tell you that 51 inches is up to roughly the armpits of a 5’10” adult male. For the record, someone my height will probably find the 40-42 inch range maximally comfortable – I’m at 42.1 inches as I stand right now. While writing the previous paragraph, I was at 29.1 inches.

As far as the speed of motion, 2.3 inches per second may or may not sound like a lot, but it’s about a foot every five seconds, which is pretty damn fast, as the below video shows.

While functionally similar, I will say that having electric motors do the work is much more satisfying than manually raising and lowering the Varidesk I use in another workspace. It also allows for leaning on the desk, which Varidesk users do at their peril while standing.

In addition to the manual up-down controls on a sleek black keypad anchored to the bottom of the desk, there are four preset options. You set these by raising or lowering the desk to the desired height, holding a button labeled “M” until the LED displaying this height starts to blink, and then pressing one of four buttons labeled 1 through 4. I’ve set two, at 42.1 inches and 29.1 inches. Press a button and, 10 seconds of quiet whirring later, the table arrives at the desired height like a dog much more obedient than mine. I imagine that, in an office environment, this feature might attract pranksters – who could, say, change my 29.1-inch preset 1 to the maximum 51 inches. I will not be teaching my daughters about the presets.

Otherwise, from a functional perspective, the SmartDesk 2 Business Edition is solidly built, looks sleek, has nice silvery caps in the far corners for plugs and other wires to descend through. Weighing in at probably 80-90 pounds, it doesn’t move at all with my typing despite being on carpet. In all, this is a very nice product to use. The question you might have, then, is how easy or hard it was to assemble. So let’s talk about that.

Probably the hardest thing about assembling the SmartDesk 2 will be getting in into your dwelling. That’s not all that difficult, either, really, thanks to the fact that it arrives in two boxes: The first, 38 pounds, holds the desktop; the second, 67 pounds, contains the legs, feet, motor(s), and control electronics. The desktop is unwieldy but not all that heavy; the legs etc. box is heavy but small enough to allow leverage. I moved them both around solo without a problem.

I will not drag you through the entire assembly process, which took just over an hour. My experience assembling various Ikea furniture was probably helpful, but this is straightforward, step-by-step stuff. The printed instructions sufficed; had they not, there are videos on the Autonomous website. I did take a few photos, which I’ll drop below. I will say that, unlike Ikea furniture, I assembled this with a sort of Christmas-morning anticipation, one which heightened right off the bat when I noted that the dual motors are called, technically, linear actuators. But you don’t rush these assembly experiences, I’ve learned from various Ikea fails (none cataclysmic). It all came together with impressive precision, and as with my Ikea constructions, I’m confident that the bolts are tight, having tightened them myself.

Bottom line: This is an attractive, robust piece of office furniture that looks great and is easy on both body and budget.

With that, I leave you with a few assembly-related images.

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