This office chair has a battery, and I have some questions

The LiberNovo Omni made a lot of noise in 2025 as one of the most funded office chairs on Kickstarter, with an advertised $10,000,000 funded by 11,600 backers. And I can see why.

There's massive demand for the best office chairs for lower back pain, and offering a tech-savvy public the opportunity to bring a 'bespoke lumbar support' to their office chair is a great sell. But after several months of using the LiberNovo Omni chair, I was left with some questions about LiberNovo's popular chair, its main point of difference, and its fundamental philosophy to chair making.

Strap in!

Design & aesthetics

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The LiberNovo Omni is certainly a well designed chair. Whether you think it looks good is entirely subjective, but in my home office I thought it looked fairly modern and aesthetically pleasing. There is something of the torture device about it, thanks to the movable back plate, and the whopping big piston at the base of the back. But overall I think there are enough round edges and clever material choices to soften this potentially industrial design into something that looks at home in a personal setting.

This is a well designed chair. Clearly a lot of thought has gone into the making of the LiberNovo Omni - from the incredibly plush materials used for the foam and coverings of the seat and back, to the multi-plated back support, it's well put together.

A big negative for me when it comes to the design is that it's a bit Plastic Fantastic (though there are metal components). That's something I don't expect when spending $1,000 on a chair. Now, all $1,000 chairs – like many of the Herman Miller models – will use plastic. But it's the way that LiberNovo incorporates plastic into the back plates and the little puzzle pieces of the chair that makes it feel cheaper than it should. The back plate does feel a little rickety, and can be moved easily from side to side, too. I’d prefer it if it felt more stable.

Once I assembled the chair, I didn't have any issues with the build of the thing, but still, ask for $1,000 and I expect an abundance of quality materials, and you should too.

Ergonomics & comfort

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The Omni does a lot right when it comes to comfort and ergonomics.

Its arm rests are great. They move forward and backwards, up and down and left and right - the latter movement comes from the base of each arm. This last point is pretty unique in chairs, and absolutely brilliant, as sometime I want to adjust this range to give myself some more room.

The material of the arms is fairly firm, and though I’ve felt a little bit of pressure on my elbows with similar arm rest material before, I didn’t feel any with this chair. It’s managed the balance of firm but not uncomfortable really well. One down side is that the arms start fairly high. I managed with the arms in the lowest point of adjustment… that’s good for taller sitters, but maybe a problem for shorter people, as you won’t be able to lower the arms.

The seat material is super plush and soft. It’s very comfortable and feels more luxury than the usual memory foam in chairs. For the seat they've actually used three types of foam: the rear is firmer, to stabilise the sit bones and spine; the middle part is more of a medium-density; and the front is the softest, to reduce pressure on the thighs. Overall, this is really comfy to sit on for multiple hours at a go.

The head adjusts up and down, but also forward and backwards, with a shallow button press on the right hand side. This is rare, but incredibly useful as you can prop your head up better when reclining further back – it's a simple yet really useful feature. It’s also something I’ve not seen in other reclining chairs – take note chair makers!

The buttons to alter the back support are well positioned, for your left hand thumb, and the 2200mAh battery really does seem to last nearly as long as they say – that's with me having one full 5-minute massage session (pretty much) every day for 30 days.

And now for the elephant in the room – Omni's battery-powered mechanics.

I was sceptical of the electrical skeletal lumbar support at first, as it seemed like a bit of a gimmick. However, the more I used it, the more it made practical sense. There are three buttons, one that moves the contact point of the lumbar support higher up your back, one that lowers it, and another that activates a five-minute motorised "spinal stretch" or massage mode.

The reason I didn’t trust it at first is that I wasn’t readjusting my sitting position each time I moved the support. You need to readjust where your back contacts the support to be fully supported. Once I did this, I could feel that the support was simply moving up and down, and it feels both supportive and secure. Also, it’s not a narrow point of contact like with some chairs. Your back feels contact and support the width of your back. What could have been a gimmick is a useful feature that does a good job.

But is it necessary, and does it justify the $1,000 asking price?

Ultimately, I don't think so. And to explain why, we need to look at the warranty of the chair in relation to its competitors.

The Omni comes with a two year warranty – quite a difference when looking at the 10- to 12-year warranty of similarly-priced chairs from Herman Miller and Steelcase. That's because of a fundamentally different philosophy that LiberNovo takes to chair making. Where they see innovation in the use of battery power components, the other chair makers see a point of failure. Yes, the Omni is a modular chair, and you will be able to replace the battery should it (when it) die(s) – free within the first two years, and $70 each time after that. But most other chair makers just don't include potential issues with their products. It's something you have to consider before buying this chair.

Price & verdict

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I really enjoyed using this chair for the extended time that I did. LiberNovo have made a smart-looking chair that is very comfortable, and has a cool feature that you won't find with other chairs. But those battery-powered features also come with potential/eventual failure and need for replacement purchases, which isn't the case with other $1,000 priced options.

This is not a chair I can recommend to the majority of people. It is incredibly comfortable, but it is also incredibly expensive. I like it's motorised lumbar support, but that's also the chair's biggest points of concern.

If you can afford it – plus the cost of new batteries when they die, for around $70 a pop – and you want cutting edge tech in your office chair, then there's not really a chair that can compete with the Omni.

If not, there are many mechanical, passive designs to choose from out there for a lot less money.