The Charcoal Desk Buying Guide
Hello everyone!
We’re thrilled to be a part of this fantastic subreddit. We're Charcoal, a brand for the workplace.
There are plenty of great standing desks out there, but here's our take; a product our team spent two years designing and bringing to life.
The purpose of this guide is to offer you a clear understanding of our desk.
The Charcoal Desk is two things.
One, it’s a standing desk that has won the most prestigious design award - the Red Dot Award. Two, it’s also a productivity device that helps you use your brain optimally.
Here’s a comprehensive overview of the product.
- Tabletop
- Motors and Columns
- Productivity Tech
- Stability
- Attention To Detail
- Pricing
- Specifications
- Learn More
The Tabletop
The desk’s top surface is Crystal-Acrylic, a premium material that’s made in Italy. After evaluating scores of materials, we found this to be the best material for a desk surface. Here’s why.
a. Soft texture: It has a unique satin matte texture and a velvety feel, quite similar to the Apple Magic Trackpad. Because it's so soft, you can comfortably keep your hands on it for hours at a time. Feel free to take the material sample that's offered on our website to see for yourself.
b. Durability: Although it has a soft texture, Crystal Acrylic is far tougher than laminate and wooden tabletops. Its shore hardness rating of D-94 is much higher than the D-56 rating of wooden surfaces. This means it easily resists scratches and chip-offs.
c. Maintenance Free: It’s immune to stains, sun exposure, moisture, and termites. It also does not fade with time.
d. Uniqueness: Crystal Acrylic is usually used in high-end home interiors and rarely used in furniture because of its high cost and the complex manufacturing processes involved. It must be sourced from Italy and should go through multiple machining processes, followed by elaborate hand-finishing.
Motors and Lifting Columns
The Charcoal Desk uses Linak's DL6 Plus columns. In our tests, we’ve found these dual-motor, three-stage columns to be better than ones from Jiecang, Bosch, Ketterer, and Logic Data. In terms of quietness, lifting capacity (300 lbs), and speed (60 mm/s), it is the best we could find.
Advanced Productivity Tech
https://reddit.com/link/116oe9f/video/9c96fri9w6ja1/player
The way we work isn't working. Our brains are biologically designed to exert in spurts of activity with periods of rest in between, not in marathons that end in burnout. But it’s difficult to recognize our state of mind when we're occupied, so we often don’t take breaks until we’re exhausted. But this causes a build-up of stress hormones that leads to micro-burnouts and makes recovery ineffective, ruining our productivity.
The Charcoal Desk corrects this. It helps us work with focus and energy all day by helping us use our brains optimally.
It accurately identifies moments in the day when our brain naturally slows down to rest and recharge and then gently reminds us to take a break. When we recover during these crucial healing windows, we allow the brain to replenish fuel and clear out metabolic wastes. It works like coffee, but without the crash.
How the Tech Works:
The Charcoal Desk finds our healing windows by creating a personal energy graph by factoring in circadian and ultradian energy rhythms, sleep data, age, etc, and then modifies it based on our work patterns which are captured by sensors underneath the desk.
When it’s time to recover, the desk lets us know in a gentle way - through a dot of light that changes color.
Stability
https://reddit.com/link/116oe9f/video/3efbdrdqw6ja1/player
To optimize for manufacturing and shipping, manufacturers break up the metal frame into smaller pieces. But this compromises stability. To address this issue, we have designed a frame that’s a single piece of metal spanning the entire length of the desk. This design offers several benefits:
- The single-piece metal frame has greater structural integrity, making it capable of supporting heavy loads and resisting deformation.
- Fewer fasteners are used, resulting in fewer points of weakness in the structure. An increased number of fasteners would cause instability by bending or flexing.
- There is a reduced chance of assembly errors, such as loose screws.
- Our standing desk uses six fasteners per lifting column, in contrast to the typical four. This enhances the stability of the lifting column, which prevents lateral movement and shaking of the desk, particularly when it is adjusted to higher heights. The additional fasteners also help to absorb and dampen vibrations.
Misc. Features
To make a truly delightful product, we have paid attention to a few things that are generally overlooked in this industry.
- Custom-made buttons - We found the cheap control panels on most standing desks to be the least premium part of the product. So we designed silicon-molded buttons specifically for the Charcoal Desk. We went through more than 100 iterations to arrive at the perfect feel and tactile feedback.
- Included wire management - The Charcoal Desk comes with a wire management system, eliminating the need for any additional equipment.
- Easy assembly - The desk takes only 15 minutes to assemble because the tabletop comes with the frame attached, and a custom tool is provided to make the entire process easy. No drilling or extra tools are necessary.
- Unique construction - The Charcoal Desk has a layered construction which allows the hardware to be slotted into a milled base, allowing for a thin profile like a laptop. The desk is more like an industrially designed product, than a furniture piece.
- Sustainable - More than 98% of the desk is composed of recyclable materials. The Crystal Acrylic is fully compliant with PEFC’s requirements for sustainable forestry. The E1 grade MDF and mild steel metal frame are both eco-friendly as well.
Pricing
The desk comes in two sizes,
Small 48” x 27”: $1,395.00 USD
Large 60” x 30”: $1,495.00 USD
We know this is an expensive product. We did try our best to bring the price down as much as possible, but this is the best we could do considering the components and processes involved. As a result, there will be fewer takers and we're content with that. The volume game is not where we want to be. We just want to make the best desk possible for those who'll love it.
We have also relaxed the return policy. Instead of the usual 30 days, we've increased it to 60. If you buy from us, we want you to be happy, and if for any reason you're not, we'll take it back, no questions asked.
Specifications
- Height range: 560mm (22") to 1210mm (47.5")
- Lifting capacity: 300 lbs
- Column travel speed: 60mm/s
- Companion app: The desk comes with a companion app that provides daily energy graphs, a library of break ideas, and more.
- Height presets
- Anti-collision piezo sensors.
Learn More
To learn more about the Charcoal Desk, visit our website by clicking here or watch the product video at https://youtu.be/glMH41qvp2o.
If you have any questions, email us at support@charcoal.inc or leave a comment below!
Posted Feb 19, 2023, 9:24 PM UTC · edited