Herman Miller Fabric Comparison – Balance vs Rhythm

I recently received the opportunity to work from home for a couple of months. As a result, I’ve been spending a lot more time in my office chair at home, which was already in need of replacing (something I gauge by the amount of duct tape on the chair).

After being unable to find any chairs designed for a human being at the local “big box” office supply stores (i.e. Staples), I decided that maybe it was time to invest in a real office chair. So, I looked up some more professional, dedicated office furniture stores and tried out some higher-end chairs.

I was very impressed with how I was treated by every place I went, especially by Jason Mills at COI Smart Furniture on King Edward St. I went to COI Smart Furniture to check out their selection of Herman Miller chairs, the best of which, IMHO, ended up being the SAYL and the Embody chairs.

Herman Miller Embody chair

I had an Embody chair delivered to my house — for free — to try out for a week or so, to see if it suited my needs. After sitting in it for a few minutes at home (after having spent a few hours in my existing chair), I could literally feel the relief in my back. It was great. The Herman Miller Embody chair has improved my posture, and I have yet to feel any aches or pains after sitting in it for an extended period of time. Contrast that to my current office chair (a $200 generic chair from Staples) in which I am constantly adjusting my sitting position and feeling aches and pains here and there.

In doing some research on the chair before officially ordering one (I’ll not mention the exact price, but I will say it was in the four-digit range) I learned that there are two fabric options for the Herman Miller Embody chair. What little information I could find on the differences in fabrics, besides price, was either unclear or contradictory.

Thankfully, Jason Mills from COI Smart Furniture dropped off some fabric samples at my house while I was out doing some other business in the middle of the day. For the benefit of anyone else who might care, here are some comparative photos of the two fabric types: Balance and Rhythm:

A brief comparison:

Balance fabric

• two layers of very thin fabric with a thicker, cushiony fabric in between. Approximately three times thicker, in total, than the Rhythm Fabric
• the cushiony layer in between has holes through it to allow air to breath through the very thin top and bottom layers of fabric.
• softer of the two fabrics

Rhythm fabric

• single-layer of thicker fabric (but still much thinner than the combined layers of the Balance fabric)
• stronger of the two fabrics

There’s not really much of a different feel between the two fabrics, that is, one doesn’t provide noticeably more friction than the other. The only reasons, IMO, to go with the rhythm fabric would be a) to save $150, and b) cosmetic preference.

For me, it’s really the extra padding that comes with the Balance fabric that does it; because of the fantastic level of support the chair provides, there is less softness in the seat and back, and the extra padding that comes with the Balance fabric is nice.

So, there you have it: a proper comparison between the Balance and Rhythm fabrics for the Hermal Miller Embody chair.  Why HM can’t put a simple photo on their website showing the differences between the two I don’t understand.