While standing desks have grown in scope and popularity, most all of them forgo the burden of managing a screen's vertical placement. But a new height-adjustable desk, which has launched on Kickstarter, is looking to raise the stakes with split levels and smart functions. The Gaze Desk features a two-tier design that helps to support proper posture, whether sitting or standing.
Some adjustable desks use internal motors to raise and lower the work surface, giving users the option to sit or stand. There are also desks that rest atop your normal desk in order to turn it into the standing kind. But unlike a motorized StandDesk or foldable Oristand, the Gaze Desk allows both keyboards/mice and monitors to remain at individually-comfortable heights. The Perch desk comes close, but it is limited by static shelving slots and manual movement.
Instead of a single set, the Gaze Desk features dual mechanical lifts that are designed to engage the front and back motors either separately or together. A dial and switch on the desk's underside present convenient control to elevate the surfaces between a minimum height of 2 ft (60 cm) and maximum of 4.25 ft (130 cm). Users can opt to adjust levels remotely via the companion app.
This kind of custom adjustment provides a useful advantage for those who spend ample time in front of a computer each day. Instead of having to tilt one's head up or down to look at a monitor, users simply raise the rear tier until the screen parallels the eyes. Maintaining natural neck posture can help reduce muscle stiffness, pain, or fatigue over time.
In addition to allowing hands and eyes to rest comfortably at optimal levels, the Gaze Desk offers custom pre-sets, routine reminders, statistics, IoT compatibility and more through its mobile app. A sensor attached to the underside is meant to keep track of how long someone has been sitting or standing at it. Once it's time to switch it up, the desk communicates via Bluetooth to send a push notification to the user's device.
The Gaze Desk mobile app encourages such types of sitting/standing patterns by keeping count of calories burned over the span of days, weeks, or months. Although we've seen this type of connectivity with products like the Autonomous Desk and Aspirius desktop workstation, the Gaze Desk takes it one step further by adding a social media element and awarding badges for meeting goals.
Gaze Lab has just launched a Kickstarter campaign for the Gaze Desk and is seeking to fund a goal of US$100,000, with 56 more days to go. Early-bird pledges for the smart, two-tiered model start at $899 ($499 for the standard single-tier) with choices of tabletop materials, shape, and colorways.
The company states that it has already created a couple of working prototypes. So if production and certification go according to schedule, backers can expect shipments to start as early as this November.
Check out the video below to see how Gaze Desk works.
Source: Gaze Lab