Libernovo Omni review - gaming chairs just gained motors

Libernovo is a brand new name in the office and gaming chair market, with the company leaping into existence with a Kickstarter campaign for its first product, the Omni chair. The big selling point of the Libernovo Omni is its electrically-adjustable lumbar support, which the manufacturer says makes it the first "dynamic ergonomic" chair.

It's an addition that certainly makes adjusting this chair's support easier than any of the other dozens of chairs I've reviewed over the years, but that alone isn't enough to immediately earn this chair a spot on our best gaming chair guide. So, I've spent the last few weeks using this new Libernovo model as my main chair for eight hours of work during the day and a couple of hours of gaming and video watching in the evening to see how it holds up to sustained real-world use.

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Specs

Assembly, design, and build quality

Arriving in a heavy but reasonably compact box - when compared to the giant box in which the Herman Miller x Logitech Embody arrived - the Libernovo Omni is a chair that very much needs assembly. However, it's not meaningfully trickier to construct than most other chairs. A screwdriver is provided that does the job for attaching the total of four bolts required to fit everything together. It only took me around 20 minutes to unbox and assemble it all while photographing the process. If you order the matching footrest, it arrives separately in a small box, and it's just as easy to assemble.

Once assembled, like many more office-focused chairs we've reviewed - rather than ones that explicitly sell themselves as gaming chairs - the Libernovo Omni is a modest-looking chair with a simple gray color scheme (which the company describes as Midnight Black - the alternative Space Gray is a very light gray).

However, while mild in its design, it's far from simple. Spin this chair round and you're greeted by a super complex looking set of flexible back support levers, wires, and more. It all combines to provide the electrically-operated, flexible, adjustable back that we'll address in more detail in a moment. Crucially, while all this adds complication, the chair still manages to look sleek and smart.

However, one area where this chair doesn't immediately impress is with its build quality. It's far from the worst, wobbliest chair I've reviewed, and some aspects of it are very well built - the key structural plastic elements such as the wheels, legs, and lumbar support arms all feel very solid - but plenty of parts are a little loose or don't inspire confidence.

For instance, the headrest and armrests all wobble quite a lot. While it's not an entirely fair comparison to set this $1,000 chair against the $2,000 Herman Miller x Logitech Embody, the sheer solidity of that chair really does stand out when using one after the other. The fit here for these parts is more typical of chairs that can be bought for well under $500.

Another part that caught my eye is the tilt-adjust control that you have to slot into place when assembling the chair. It's locked into place by a round plastic piece that you rotate to engage a plastic locking pin (see above). It doesn't engage in a particularly positive and secure manner and feels like it could work loose over time.

Worst of all, though, is less a pure build quality/fit issue as seemingly a design choice, which is to have the armrest width and swivel adjustments not lock in place. Instead, any fairly light knock can move them around. Lean over a little or just push yourself up with your hands, and the armrests will splay outwards, while just pulling the chair in towards the desk or leaning against it will cause the tops to spin away from you. It's not enough to immediately ruin the experience of this chair, but it's definitely not the best system I've ever encountered. At least the armrest padding isn't quite as hard as on some chairs.

Features

Looking in more detail at the features this chair offers, the back and seat are padded and have a fabric covering, rather than using a mesh suspension system or having a leather/faux leather covering. The fabric is fire and splash-resistant, but you won't be able to brush spills off it as readily as with a mesh or leather cover.

You also get a headrest with adjustable height and depth with this chair, and it's finished in the same style of padding and fabric as the rest of the chair.

Meanwhile, the armrests are permanently fitted to either side of the chair (some chairs, such as the Sercretlab Titan Evo, have removable armrests), and they offer locking height adjustment along with the free-moving width and pivot adjustments. Then, on the inside edge of the left armrest are three buttons and an LED for controlling the back support.

These controls consist of a forward button that, when pressed, prompts the pneumatic cylinder at the back of the chair to push the series of arms, and thus the lumbar support, up and towards you. Pushing the back button will pull the piston back down again, while a further button makes the piston continually push out then back again, creating something of a lower back-stretching massage chair effect.

The other main controls set the tilt and height adjustment of the chair. These sit on the front right edge of the seat, with the former being a vertical silver bar that you tilt backwards to provide up to four different levels of maximum backwards tilt. Libernovo describes the four recline positions as Deep Focus (fully upright), Solo-Work, Soft Recline, and Spine Flow (fully reclined). In the latter position, you end up lying almost completely flat.

The seat's height adjustment system uses a standard gas lift. Pull on the lever while seated, and the chair will drop. Pull on it without your weight on the chair, and it will rise. The final point of adjustment is a rotating knob on the seat base that controls the resistance of the tilt system.

In order to power the motorized lumbar system, this chair also has a rechargeable (via USB-C) battery that is conveniently packaged in a plastic housing that simply slots in and pulls out from the side of the seat. Despite having onboard power, there isn't any RGB lighting on this chair.

Adjustability and comfort

Let's cut right to the chase. The electronic lumbar adjustment on this chair is a great feature. Being able to tweak the feel of the chair with just the touch of a button is so convenient. If you're finding you're getting a bit fidgety in a certain position, you can just tweak the support with no need to get off the chair to move parts of it around, or crank down on adjustment knobs and levers.

The massage mode is also a useful little extra. It's far from a replacement for a proper in-person massage, or even a half-decent one of those massage mats you can fit to normal chairs, but it again offers a welcome way to just slightly stretch and move your back without having to get up off your chair - you can even use it when fully reclined.

Obviously, for overall health, you are generally better off getting up regularly from your office or gaming chair and walking or having a stretch, but if you really need to just plow on through work - or are midway through a gaming session - it's a handy option. That said, as time went on, I found I used it less and less, and once I'd found my preferred setting, I was inclined to just set and forget it.

In terms of general comfort, my initial impressions weren't good. The seat felt too short, the lumbar support didn't sit quite as I'd expect - it never seemed to nestle right in the small of my back like I'm used to - and the headrest seemed to push my head forward too much. The recline positions also felt just a bit awkward.

However, for the most part, once I'd got the hang of how to actually adjust the headrest depth, learned which positions I liked for the back support, and come to terms with how regularly you need to change the back support and headrest positions for different recline positions, I found the chair far more agreeable.

For instance, the seat base depth isn't adjustable, so for my 6'2″ frame, it felt a bit short. However, the curvature of it, which drops off at the front edge, as well as the reasonably deep padding, meant that I actually didn't feel any pressure points, or that sense of the blood being cut off by the front edge of the seat, leading to less fidgeting than I'd expected.

Likewise, while the lumbar support never quite felt like it was sitting just how I like, it actually did a good job of offering steady support.

All that said, on balance, this chair does still feel just a touch too small for me. It's rated for sitters of between 5'2″ and 6'3″ (158-190cm) - and weighing up to 300lb (136kg) - so I'm technically within its range, but the headrest height never quite felt like it was ideal. On the other hand, my 5'2″ colleague found the chair an instant hit, despite her being right on the lower end of its size limit.

As for the footstool, it's a nice enough little extra that provides a raised platform for your feet while sitting and a cushioned top for resting your legs. However, its build is very plasticky, quite bulky, and feels like it would benefit from having castors or an easy means of moving it around. It's not a particularly significant value-add for the chair.

Price

Kickstarter backers of the Omni were able to pre-order a unit for as low as $650, but the full retail price is $1,099. The company is also doing an initial discount at launch, which gets you the chair for $850, but this only runs until October 2025.

All told, this makes this a particularly expensive office/gaming chair, with most premium options normally sitting in the $500-$800 range, and only a few outliers costing more. The extra electronics definitely add to the cost, so we'd expect to pay a premium for that, but some of the wobbly build quality is a let-down at this price.

Alternatives

Herman Miller x Logitech Embody

If we're talking about seriously premium office chairs with a subtle gray design and a clever, flexible back support, the Herman Miller x Logitech Embody is an obvious comparison. It's far better built than the Libernovo, with hardly a wobble to be felt, but it is nearly twice as expensive and doesn't come with a headrest or any electronics. Read our full Herman Miller x Logitech Embody review for more info.

Secretlab Titan Evo 2022

The Secretlab Titan Evo is our go-to gaming chair recommendation for most buyers as it nicely balances comfort, upgradability, and versatility, all while being available in a huge range of designs and sizes. Its lumbar support is nowhere near as clever, and it's a very large chair, but its starting price of $549 makes it far more affordable than the Omni.

Read our full Secretlab Titan Evo 2022 review for more detail.

Fractal Refine

A middle ground between the more compact office chair style of the Omni and the bulk of the Titan Evo, the Fractal Refine is a larger chair with an integrated headrest, but it has a slimmer cushion shape and far more streamlined, elegant design than the Titan Evo. Plus it's available in both fabric and mesh designs. It's half the price of the Omni while offering comparable comfort, but lacks the fully flat recline and motorized lumbar system.

Read our full Fractal Refine review for more information.

Verdict

The Libernovo Omni is a curate's egg of a chair: it's good in parts. Its innovative back support system is close to being a game-changer thanks to its ability to not only offer a really quick and easy way to adjust your back support, but also to provide a somewhat back-loosening massage mode. It's also a stylish chair, and while it takes a while to get comfortable in it, the Omni ultimately proves good for long-term sitting sessions, if not quite a revelation in comfort.

However, its lumbar support position isn't quite as adjustable as many more conventional systems, and it lacks seat length adjustment, plus its armrests and headrest are among the floppiest around, with the former leading to constant irritation, and there's a fair amount of wobble to the chair back. I've used gaming chairs that cost half as much money that have a far more secure overall feel.

It all adds up to a chair that we struggle to recommend spending $1,099 on. If you backed this chair's Kickstarter and got it for $650, it represents very good value (if you find you get on with its lumbar support), as despite its foibles and wobbles, you're getting a fully battery-operated, motorized back support system, which no other chairs of this price offer. However, at its full price, the wobbles that remind me of much cheaper chairs are seriously off-putting - the electronic bits don't feel that essential.

Have you tried the Libernovo Omni? If so, why not let us know how you got on with it on our community Discord server. Meanwhile, if you're looking for more ways to complete your gaming setup, our best gaming desk guide is packed full of top table recommendations.