For those of us who spend hours glued to our seats in front of a computer, getting a comfortable chair can seem a never-ending battle.
But one chair designer claims to have created the ultimate design that can make users feel like they are weightless – the only catch is it will set them back £20,000 ($26,000).
The designers claim the Elysium uses a combination of electronic joints and bearings that work together to help to create the sensation of floating in zero-gravity as they decline.
Made from a carbon fibre skeleton and milled aluminium, the chair can also be controlled using hand gestures.
The chair was created by David Hugh Ltd, a Cambridge-based design firm which claims it is the most luxurious and technologically advanced chair ever created.
Dr David Wicket, a bioengineer who founded the company and invented the pricey piece of furniture, said the technology that controls the movement of the Elysium chair is based on a mathematical model.
Users can manipulate it into the ideal position by shifting their weight in the same manner a motorcycle rider might do to change direction.
A system of roller bearings provides an almost frictionless movement as it changes position.
Dr Wicket claims the movement of the chair can help to improve posture by aligning the joints in the pelvis and spine. He said: ‘The zero gravity sensation is the result of a variety of things.
The body is suspended at a point of frictionless balance giving a sense of perpetual motion’. A lot of the technology is invisible. The skeleton involves ergonomically engineered carbon fibre and aluminium parts bonded together using advanced aerospace adhesives.
‘The user is connected to the outer frame via only six custom roller bearings that follow a specific path defined by my mathematical model. This is what effectively creates the weightlessness.’
The real question, however, is whether all this is worth the hefty price tag.
