User Experience

The declared weight capacity of the chair is 136 kilograms, and there's no manufacturer-specified recommended user height. However, I believe future owners should ideally not be taller than two meters, considering the backrest of the Embody isn't particularly tall.

The user experience will heavily depend on the weight and height of the person using the chair, as well as the chairs they've used previously. I'm describing it from the perspective of someone who is relatively close to the Embody's upper weight—and especially height—limits, and who was a long-time user of the quite decent Steelcase office chair, the Please.


Although I've been more or less overweight for most of my life, I've never had issues with my musculoskeletal system, so I wasn't looking for a new chair to relieve pain. Rather, I needed one because the Please, after some fifteen years of daily use, had become noticeably worn out. I should also mention that I went through the obligatory tour of local showrooms and tested the Steelcase Leap V2 and Gesture, as well as the Herman Miller Aeron. In that quick elimination round, the Embody immediately struck me as noticeably more comfortable and, at the same time, visually more appealing—which isn't crucial, but certainly doesn't hurt.

However, in order to fix you, the Embody first has to break you. During the first few days of owning this chair, I went through a whirlwind of emotions. The initial excitement started to fade by the end of the very first day, when I got up and felt lower back pain—something I had never experienced before. The second day started off great, but after just an hour or two, my legs began to go numb. On the third day, I felt like I had been beaten up, and by the fourth—and every following day for the next two weeks—my backside hurt so much that I had to stand up every hour and aimlessly walk around the house, waiting for the pain to subside. During all of that, I kept adjusting the recline resistance and the BackFit setting, chasing a seemingly nonexistent combination that would make everything fall into place.


This agonizing experience lasted for about three weeks, and then, in the middle of writing some review, I suddenly realized I wasn't in pain anymore. For the first time since sitting in it, the Embody struck me as a truly comfortable chair, one that actually lives up to its stellar reputation and astronomical price. I do have to admit, however, that even after almost a full year of use, I still haven't experienced that "sitting on a cloud" sensation so many Embody owners rave about. I suspect I never will, simply because I'm too heavy for that. The flexible plastic of the seat and backrest bends to its limits under my weight, so at times I can actually feel the "pixelated" mesh of the Embody's seat and back. Occasionally, I also feel the lower back support—an integral part of the backrest—but to me, that's the Embody telling me I've slouched too far. When I re-center myself in the seat, the entire backrest "melts" with my back.


I'll also mention the looming sense of fear—what if I accidentally change one of the settings and go back to that initial state of extreme discomfort? I'll admit I still haven't shaken that fear, so I make sure not to touch anything, and I keep visitors to my home office—most of whom can't resist the urge to try the Embody—away from the knobs and levers used for adjusting it.

In the end, after a full workday—which occasionally stretches to more than 10 hours of sitting—I get up from the chair without any pain, numbness, stiffness, or feelings of being physically wrecked. That's how I know Herman Miller pulled off something special with the Embody.

Unsupported Country Delivery Woes

Had I known what awaited me after ordering the Embody chair from Herman Miller's German webshop, I probably would've abandoned the purchase—despite the drastically reduced price I got it for, which was part of a holiday promotion. You see, Herman Miller entrusts delivery of the chair to the courier service Rhenus Home Delivery, which will forever shatter any illusions you might have about German efficiency.

The first issue—the option to deliver only within Germany and Austria—seemed easy to overcome, as I've long had a mailbox with the service Mailboxde.com, which I use to forward shipments from Germany. So I went that route again. A far bigger complication emerged a few days later when, by pure chance while browsing the r/Herman Miller subreddit, I learned that Rhenus Home Delivery unboxes the chair during delivery and takes the packaging with them. This, of course, was unacceptable, as the German address was merely a transit stop in my case.

Since I had to wait over a month for the chair to ship, I assumed I had plenty of time to explain to Rhenus that they must leave the chair in its box. What a mistake that was! After weeks of receiving no response to emails and messages sent via the official contact form, I tried resolving the issue by phone. That didn't work either—no one in Rhenus customer support speaks English.

On the day I received word that the package had been loaded on to a truck and was on its way to Mailboxde's warehouse, I begged our man W1zzard to call Rhenus on my behalf and explain that the chair must remain boxed. The Rhenus representative replied that he had added a note to the system, but couldn't guarantee the delivery personnel would see it in time—and there was no way to contact them directly, as he didn't have their phone numbers. What the actual f***? In the meantime, the delivery driver called me—also speaking zero English—and informed me he would be arriving soon. Using Google Translate and SMS, I asked him in German to keep the chair in its box, but I doubt that would've helped had it not been for the excellent customer service from Mailboxde. One of their staff members, thankfully fluent in English, understood my problem and promptly informed the entire warehouse shift about the incoming package and the importance of it staying boxed up.

In the end, the chair remained in its original packaging. The final hurdle was a notice from Mailboxde that the package was too large to forward to Croatia via standard courier services. Luckily, they recommended Cargo International and another oversized-parcel delivery company (whose name I can no longer recall), and agreed to hold the package in their warehouse until someone came to collect it. They charged only about ten euros in handling fees—more than fair. As Cargo International quoted €220 for delivery to Croatia, and the other company wanted a ludicrous €750, I ultimately chose Cargo International. A few days later, the chair finally arrived. Thanks—and never again.