Herman Miller x Logitech Embody gaming chair review

Herman Miller is one of the most high-profile names in office furniture, with its Aeron chair being a favorite for fancy office fit-outs for generations. Given that pedigree, it was no surprise that a company such as Logitech would look to tap into the company's expertise to create some gaming gear. The Herman Miller x Logitech Embody is one part of that collaboration, combining the company's existing Embody chair with some Logitech styling to create a new gaming chair.

With Herman Miller's legendary build quality backed by a 12-year warranty, this Logitech-branded chair is certainly one that you can expect to stand the test of time. But, is it actually comfortable, easy to use, and worth its colossally high price? Those are all questions I'll answer in this review. I've spent the last month or so using it as my main desk chair, where it has been standing in for my two regular options, a Herman Miller Aeron and our top recommendation on our best gaming chair guide, the Secretlab Titan Evo, which you can read about in my Secretlab Titan Evo review.

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Specs

Design and build quality

One of the first things to note about this chair is that it arrives fully assembled in a huge box. Its footprint is 755 x 715mm (29.7 x 28.2 inches) while its height rises to 1035mm (40.7 inches), making this far and away the largest single box for a gaming chair that I've reviewed, and I've reviewed a lot. It's so large it only just fitted through the standard-sized door frames in my house with a few millimeters to spare - some door removal would have been required if I had been a little more concerned about not scratching any paintwork.

Manoeuvring this box is its downside, but its upside is that, once in place, you simply open the side of it and roll out the chair, complete and ready to go, other than removing a few bits of protective plastic film. You could, of course, also complete this stage before carrying the chair to where you need it, saving the back-breaking task of moving the box.

Free of its box and plastic coverings, I was immediately struck by this chair's compactness and elegance, especially compared to both more racing seat-styled gaming chairs, such as the Razer Iskur V2, and complicated-looking office chairs, such as the Hbada E3 Pro and Sihoo C300.

In particular, the seat base of this chair is quite slim, and its back is both quite slim and narrow, with this chair having no integrated head or neck support, leaving the entire area where your shoulders sit and arms hang devoid of support too. Instead, the back concentrates its efforts solely on supporting the middle of your back. You can buy aftermarket headrests, though.

Depending on your chair checklist, this could immediately eliminate the Embody from your shortlist, as it can't support your head, neck, or indeed legs when reclining (some alternatives include integrated leg rests), and it means you don't have quite the freedom of lounging positions that some chairs provide. It does have a very capable recline system, and the back is designed to flex with you to provide support as you move around, but primarily this is a chair meant for sitting straight at a desk all day, not for kicking back and taking a nap, or curling up on it to play a cozy game, at least not without buying an extra $150 headrest.

Also immediately obvious - and borne out over weeks of testing - is that the build quality of this chair is exceptional. Plenty of premium gaming chairs have a sturdy build, but they also tend to be massive, heavy, and on many of them, you can see the girder-like steel box section frame that supports them when you look under the chair.

The Embody, though, is streamlined and svelte, yet every single aspect of it feels sturdy, precise, and finished to the highest degree. There's not a wobble or rattle to be found, though some users do report that the "pixelated" plastic back support sections can creak a bit over time. My Aeron is over 20 years old and still going strong, and I'd expect an Embody like this to last just as long

The standard Embody is available in all black, while the Logitech versions include either black or white plastic frames and bases. In addition, you can choose from black and cyan or black and white (tested) fabric/detail options for the black bases, or white and amethyst and white and green for the white-base versions. Meanwhile, the Logitech input/branding amounts to a G logo in the center of the seat back and a tag on the back of the chair, plus there's apparently a little extra padding on the seat and back, although this padding is still very thin.

Adjustability and ease of use

For adjustments, you get both more and less than you might expect for such a premium chair that emphasises comfort. You, of course, get height adjustment, triggered by pulling to the side (in any direction) the white knob protruding from the handle on the underside of the chair. Around this knob is a larger handle that you can twist to adjust the tilt tension of the chair.

Speaking of tilt, this chair combines a tilt and recline function into one. Unlock the tilt mechanism via a handle on the rear left of the chair, and the chair back will tilt back with the seat also tipping back slightly. There's no way to only tilt or only recline, though you can lock the tilt in one of three positions - the chair will tilt freely when you lean back until it hits the set limit. It's a really effortless and smooth system, though it doesn't fold anywhere near flat, and again, the lack of an included headrest (or official option for one) means it's far from a true chill-out time chair.

One of the most welcome additions to this chair is the ability to adjust the seat length to suit your leg length. Two handles at the front of the chair let you pull forward or push back the seat to lengthen or shorten it. The fabric cover of the seat actually folds over the front of the chair, so the extension system effectively rolls or unrolls the fabric as you push or pull on it.

You can also adjust the arm height by pressing down a button on the underside of the arm (seen in white in the above picture). The arms follow a curved path so that raising them narrows the gap between them. This seems a bit odd at first, but you can also widen or narrow the gap between the arms just by pushing or pulling on them, and the resultant system feels natural to use and versatile.

Finally, there's the highly complex-looking back support system of this chair. Both it and the seat base use a series of flexible plastic support structures to cushion you, with just a relatively thin padded fabric cover over them. This is in contrast to most chairs, which use either a thin mesh for both the support and sitting surface, or very thick padding with a fabric or leather covering.

This support system on the chair back is also adjustable via a large knob on the right rear of the chair that you can twist. It uses a clever system of larger support arms to tweak the resistance of the back support. Tighten it, and the back stays more taut and stiff; loosen it, and the top of the back can tilt backwards more easily. It's an interesting system as it doesn't explicitly adjust the height and depth of the lumbar support of the chair, for instance, but instead adjusts several aspects of the feel of the back at once. I'll come to how well it works in the next section.

Crucially, what I did find with all these chair adjustments is that they weren't very intuitive. I've never had to download the manual or watch an instructional video before to learn how to adjust the height on a gaming chair, but there's a first time for everything. The only feature that immediately made sense was the tilt lock. Every other feature required some research. Once learned, you're all set, but the complexity was a surprise.

Comfort

I had very high hopes for the comfort levels of the Herman Miller x Logitech Embody, both in terms of thinking it would immediately impress me with its supportive feel and adjustability, and how that would prove to be great for long-term, fidget-reducing comfort. However, while it's still a top 20% chair for overall comfort, it hasn't quite lived up to those expectations.

On the positive side, the plastic support system with its grid of many flexible support arms really does do a great job of evenly supporting you and adjusting to your movements. Lean back a bit more, or tilt to the side, and the chair back will flex with you, ensuring you're still supported.

The arms are also excellent. They are very easy to adjust and, while they lack the ability to twist or slide around, they're designed and positioned in such a way that I didn't feel like I missed these features at all. The padding is reasonably soft, while still being tough and wipe-clean (unlike the plush fabric armrests of the Secretlab Titan Evo NanoGen Edition, for instance), and the height-adjust system is granular enough to be able to dial in just the right level.

What's more, the impressively rigid armrests are slim enough that I was able to set them to my preferred height for supporting my arms, yet I was still able to pull in the chair so the armrests didn't crash into my desk. Occasionally, leaning too far over to the side or bumping into the chair can cause the arms to get knocked sideways, adjusting their width, but it's not so frequent as to be a constant annoyance.

Back to my slight grumbles, though, there were two issues with this chair that didn't impress me. Firstly, the seat base wasn't quite as able to reduce pressure points on the underside of my legs as I expected. One of the most impressive aspects of the Aeron is that your legs stay remarkably well supported on its mesh seat, leading to no sense of the blood being cut off in your legs.

With the Embody, I never quite felt as comfortable, and I more regularly wanted to get up to get the blood flowing or shift my position. That's despite the ability to lengthen the seat to support more of the underside of your legs. The front edge could perhaps do with having more of a drop to it, in a similar manner to that of the Aeron or Fractal Refine, to reduce the pressure of the front edge on the underside of your legs.

Lumbar support is another issue I identified. The whole back of the chair sits against and supports your back quite well, but I found the main convex curve that should nestle into your lumbar spine to support your lower back didn't quite align with my back. It felt like it was too low, pushing against my glutes rather than my spine. With no specific way to adjust the lumbar support height, I never quite felt as well supported as I'd expect. I'm fairly tall at 6'2″, but my 5'2″ colleague also felt the lumbar support was too low.

I want to reiterate that this chair is still far better than most when it comes to comfort, but when it costs nearly $2,000, I expect near perfection. Were this just a design-piece occasional chair, that would be a different matter, but for an office/gaming chair intended for sitting on for 8+ hours a day, expectations are high.

Another factor that was exposed during the hot summer I experienced while testing this chair is that it isn't as well ventilated as you might expect for its relatively thin fabric padding construction. While leather and faux leather chairs are obviously far worse for building up a sweat, my expectations that this chair would perform somewhat close to the breathability of a mesh chair weren't fulfilled. I had to stand up at several times throughout the working day to… ventilate.

Price

The Herman Miller x Logitech Embody price is a mind-boggling $1,995. That's actually slightly more than the legendary Aeron chair and more than twice the price of most competing premium gaming chairs. You get a 12-year warranty for that price, which is also more than double what you get on most alternatives, and build quality is exceptional, but there's no denying this is a luxury item.

Alternatives

Herman Miller Aeron

The original is in many ways still the best. This mesh office chair offers fantastic build quality, superb comfort, and great lumbar support, while its mesh seat and back provide great ventilation to keep you cool when needed. There's a wealth of retrofit headrests available for this chair as well, adding to its versatility. It's certainly not a cheap option, but on balance, it's a better buy than its equally pricey sibling.

Secretlab Titan Evo 2022

The Secretlab Titan Evo is quite a different style of chair to the Embody, with it being a big, bulky offering with an included headrest. However, what it lacks in compactness it makes up for in versatility - the included headrest cushion and armrests, plus optional leg rests, all really elevate this chair and make it a one-stop shop for many sitting and reclining styles. It's also available in a wide and wild array of color options, while its starting price of $549 makes it far more affordable than the Embody.

Fractal Refine

A middle ground between the more compact office chair style of the Embody 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 not as versatile as the Secretlab chair but it offers better upright sitting comfort and lumbar support.

Verdict

It's hard not to be a bit disappointed in the Herman Miller x Logitech Embody, and by extension, the standard Herman Miller Embody. For such an expensive chair, it slips up on a couple of key comfort areas such that, at this price, it's far from an easy recommendation.

The crucial factors for me were the leg and lower back comfort. Despite the highly sophisticated support systems for both, and the ability to adjust the seat length, the back felt a little lacking in lumbar support, while the seat didn't stave off leg-fidget for as long as I expected. It's still broadly a very comfortable chair that's well above most cheap options, but the Herman Miller Aeron is better, and several much cheaper options compete with it as well.

Perhaps the biggest "get what you pay for" factor here is the build quality, which is fantastic in every way. Combined with a 12-year warranty, it helps to balance out some of the cost of this chair. If you do find it comfortable and it lasts you 20+ years, its price becomes a relative bargain. So, if you get the opportunity to try one of these chairs for yourself before buying, and find that you do like the lumbar support in particular, you may be happy to splash the cash.

For most other buyers, though, there are simply too many other very capable and much more affordable options that we've found more immediately comfortable and would recommend first.

You can find those top picks in our best gaming chair guide, plus if you want to complete your gaming room setup, you can browse our best gaming desk guide, which includes a wide range of budget to premium gaming stations that we've tested and recommend.