Six Herman Miller work chairs stand on the floor of our Experience Center in Kolkata: Aeron, Embody, Mirra 2, Sayl, Setu and Cosm. Almost every visitor asks the same question within a minute of walking in. Which one is the best?
There isn't a single answer, and a showroom that gives you one is guessing. Each of these chairs was designed for a different kind of working day. The right choice depends on who will sit in it, for how long, and whether they are the only person who ever will.
This guide compares the six the way we compare them with clients: by the job each chair does best. If you want the general principles of choosing a chair by working style first, start with our earlier guide, How to Choose the Right Ergonomic Office Chair for Different Working Styles.
The short answer
| Chair | Best suited to | What sets it apart | Effort to set up |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aeron | Assigned desks, long days, teams of very different builds | Made in three sizes; open mesh seat and back | Medium |
| Embody | Eight-plus hours a day at a screen | A back shaped like a spine that follows small movements | Medium to high |
| Mirra 2 | People who switch between solo and group work | Light and flexible, with an easy-clean back option | Medium |
| Sayl | Large floors that want one look everywhere | A whole family: work chairs, side chairs and stools | Low to medium |
| Setu | Meeting rooms, training rooms, touchdown desks | Height is its only adjustment | Very low |
| Cosm | Shared and hot desks | Its tilt adjusts itself to whoever sits down | Very low |
Read across the last column first. A chair that needs setting up is a good chair only if someone actually sets it up, and on a shared desk nobody does.
Aeron: the reference point
Aeron was designed by Bill Stumpf and Don Chadwick, and for many people it is simply what an office chair looks like. The seat and back are open mesh, which matters in Kolkata: mesh lets air through, where a foam seat holds heat through a long, humid afternoon.
What makes Aeron different from the others in this guide is that it comes in three sizes. That is its strength and the most common way it is specified badly. A floor of one size fits the average person in the room and nobody else. Taller and broader people end up perched; smaller people sit with the front edge pressing behind their knees.
Best for: assigned desks where people sit for most of the day, and teams with a wide range of heights and builds, provided the order is split across the sizes.
Watch for: ordering one size for everyone. Have a few people of different heights try each size, then order in proportion.
Embody: for long, screen-heavy days
Embody was designed by Bill Stumpf and Jeff Weber, and Herman Miller says more than 20 physicians and PhDs in biomechanics, vision, physical therapy and ergonomics contributed to its development. Its back is built like a human one, with a central spine and flexible ribs, and the seat and back surfaces shift with small movements so that weight is spread rather than concentrated.
The practical result is a chair that keeps supporting you as you lean in to the screen and sit back again, which is most of what a long day at a desk actually is. It covers a wide range of people: Herman Miller publishes a population range of the 2nd to 98th percentile and a maximum user weight of 136 kg.
Best for: developers, analysts, designers, editors, traders: anyone who spends eight hours or more a day in front of a screen at their own desk.
Watch for: skipping the fitting. Embody has more to set up than the others here, and it repays ten minutes of adjustment with each person. It is a chair for one person, not a chair for whoever arrives first.
Mirra 2: light, responsive, and easy to keep clean
Mirra 2 comes from Studio 7.5, the Berlin designers behind Setu and Cosm, and is named for the way it mirrors the body's movements. Its spine flexes sideways as well as backwards, so stretching across a desk or turning to a colleague doesn't fight the chair. It is also noticeably light: Herman Miller says it is 30 per cent lighter than the original Mirra.
It comes with two backs. One combines fabric and polymer with zones of firmer and softer support. The other is polymer only, and because it has no fabric it meets more rigorous cleaning protocols, which makes it a sensible choice for clinics, labs and other spaces that are wiped down every day. Its adjustable seat runs 413-457 mm deep, and its published user range is 41 to 159 kg.
Best for: people who move between focused work and collaboration through the day, and healthcare or laboratory settings that need a chair to survive cleaning.
Watch for: choosing the back by colour alone. Decide first whether the space needs the easy-clean back.
Sayl: one design for the whole floor
Sayl was designed by Yves Béhar, who took the idea from suspension bridges: structures that do the most with the least material. The result is an unframed back that lets you stretch and move, in a chair Herman Miller designed to be attainable for more people.
Where Sayl really earns its place is in its family. It comes as work chairs with a mesh-style or upholstered back, a high-back work chair, four-leg and sled-base side chairs, and stools. That means one design language can run from the workstations to the meeting rooms to the pantry counter, which is what gives an office a finished, consistent look. Work chairs support users up to 159 kg, lumbar support is optional, and the adjustable seat runs 406-457 mm deep.
Best for: large floors that want a consistent look across desks, meeting rooms and break-out areas, and projects that need good ergonomics across a lot of seats.
Watch for: forgetting the side chairs and stools. Specified together, the family is the point.
Setu: almost nothing to adjust
Setu is the chair you don't have to learn. Also by Studio 7.5, it has a flexible spine made of two kinds of polypropylene that bends as you recline and supports your weight without any tension to set. Its only adjustment is height. It is also very light, at 8 kg for the multipurpose chair, while supporting users up to 136 kg.
That simplicity is exactly why it suits the rooms where nobody sits in the same chair twice. In a meeting room, a training room or at a touchdown desk, people don't adjust their chairs; they sit down and start. A chair that is comfortable without being set up will be comfortable there, where a more adjustable chair left at someone else's settings will not.
Best for: meeting rooms, training rooms, collaboration areas, touchdown desks and home offices.
Watch for: using it as the main chair for someone who sits all day at their own desk and needs finer adjustment. That is a job for Aeron, Embody or Cosm.
Cosm: self-adjusting, for shared desks
Cosm is Studio 7.5's newest work chair in this group, and it was designed for the reality of hybrid offices: a different person in the same chair every day. Its tilt adjusts itself to each sitter's weight and posture, so there is no tension knob to find and set. Sit down and it is already right.
It comes in three back heights (low, mid and high) plus a stool, with arm options that include a cradle-shaped leaf arm. Herman Miller publishes a user range up to 159 kg and a seat height range of 376-531 mm for the work chairs.
Best for: hot-desking and hybrid floors, shared workstations, and executive offices in its high-back version.
Watch for: under-using the back heights. A high back for leadership offices and a mid back on the open floor keeps one family while signalling the difference.
Choosing for a whole floor, not one person
Most offices don't need one chair; they need the right chair in each place. The pattern we see work best:
- Assigned desks, long days: Aeron, sized properly, or Embody for the heaviest screen users.
- Shared and hot desks: Cosm, because it sets itself up for each person.
- Meeting and training rooms: Setu, or Sayl side chairs to match Sayl at the desks.
- Counters and high tables: Sayl, Mirra 2 or Cosm stools from the same family as the desks.
- Clinics and labs: Mirra 2 with the easy-clean back.
Two more things decide whether the chairs work after the photographs are taken. Fit: a chair only supports someone it fits, so check sizes and seat depth against the people who will actually use it, not an average. Use: a chair that needs adjusting will only be adjusted if someone shows people how, so build ten minutes of setup into handover for every assigned chair.
Before you order: a checklist
- Which seats are assigned to one person, and which are shared?
- Roughly how many hours a day does each group sit?
- Have people of different heights and builds tried the shortlisted chairs?
- If Aeron is on the list, which sizes and in what numbers?
- Arms, lumbar support and seat depth chosen by role, not left at the default
- Any spaces that need easy-clean finishes?
- Meeting rooms and break-out areas matched to the same family as the desks
- A setup session for assigned chairs included in the handover
- Delivery dates confirmed against your move-in date
The best chair on paper is the wrong chair in the wrong room. Matching each one to the job it was designed for is most of the decision.
Choosing chairs for a new office?
Tirupathi Balaji Traders - TBT Group supplies Herman Miller seating in Kolkata and eastern India, alongside workstations, partitions, flooring, ceilings and acoustic solutions. All six chairs in this guide are on the floor at our Experience Center in Sector V, where you can try them side by side before you choose. Browse the full office chair range.
Specifications are taken from Herman Miller's published product literature and can change. Confirm sizes, options and user ranges for the exact models being ordered.