Finished build of a Linak DF1 with Buldesk's UberDesk Pro Memory

I recently needed to replace my DYI standing desk, and this time I didn't want to have to do any soldering to connect it to Home Assistant (more on that later). I knew that IKEA's IDÅSEN can connect via Bluetooth out-of-the-box, and that's because it uses Linak components. Linak, I learned, is a Danish company with a long history of building standing desks and other equipment that use lifts, such as hospital beds. So I narrowed it down to brands building their desks around Linak's Desk Frame 1, which is much better than the IDÅSEN (capable of higher loads at higher speeds, and at the same time much more modular).

After a lot of searching for a supplier here in Switzerland, Reddit ended up pointing me to Buldesk, a company in Bulgaria that offered the top-of-the-line Linak DF1 build, for less than what the IKEA desk costs around here. It seemed too good to be true, but after a few emails to Buldesk's CEO, I was confident enough to put the order, and I'm so glad I did!

End result, with a Walking Pad underneath the desk

The desk is 160x80cm with a walnut worktop, and cost me 560€ (around 600CHF when taking into account the import to Switzerland), which is a great price considering IKEA's desk sells for 750CHF! The model I got has DF6 Plus High Speed columns, which lift the desk at 80mm/s instead of the lower-specced DF6 Plus, which travels at 60mm/s, or IKEA's <40mm/s. This was a great surprise I wasn't expecting, since the site wasn't yet updated to reflect the new equipment.

The reason I wanted to connect the desk to Home Assistant is because I have some automations built on it. For example, if I press a Power Off key on the Elgato Stream Deck XL, it'll turn off all the equipment in the office, and will lower the desk. I can also press fn+PgUp/fn+PgDn to raise or lower the desk without taking my hands off the keyboard 😎

Video: https://youtu.be/j_qcWWHRvDs

The integration with Home Assistant was super easy. Basically, Home Assistant recognized the desk as soon as I plugged it in, and asked me to adopt it into Home Assistant. Doesn't get any easier than that.

I have been using the desk for a couple of weeks, and I'm super happy with it! I'm so glad I came across the few posts online about Buldesk, given the unbeatable price/quality relationship, and the fact that you can see that these guys really care about what they build. So I decided to write a small post to help other people like me, as I didn't find as much info as I'd like about Buldesk when doing my research.