LiberNovo Omni SE Dynamic Ergonomic Chair
design
I’m a bit of a dab hand at putting together chairs by now, I’ve built enough of them that I usually don’t bother with the instruction manual as they’re all pretty much the same. That’s not quite the case with the Omni SE, it’s a unique process, though it still came together in about ten minutes. For what looks from behind to be a pretty intricate construction, there’s actually just a handful of parts and the oversized instruction card walks you through the process easily enough. Once together, all those interlocking panels and sculpted wings land it looking somewhere between a Logitech Embody and a Herman Miller Vantum. Not bad company to be in.
Colour wise, it’s simple. There’s only one option and it’s plain black. Sizing on the other hand is a bit of a mess. LiberNovo lists two seat depth options on its site, 45cm and 48cm, and having disposed of the box I couldn’t tell you which one turned up at my door because my tape measure puts it at 54cm from the back of the cushion to the front edge. I’ve put the question to LiberNovo directly to find out what’s going on and I’m still waiting on an answer. The foam inside the cushion is at least easier to pin down, split into three firmness zones that run firmer at the back and softer towards the front, though sat in it normally, you’d struggle to tell where one zone ends and the next begins. It took a thoroughly unscientific bit of fist-pressing into different spots on the cushion before I could feel any real difference at all.
The fabric covering every soft surface is plush, soft and stretchy. It’s also highly textured which looks the part though also turns out to be a dust magnet and I found myself giving the seat a swipe of my hand almost every time I sat down. It also traps heat more than any other fabric chair I’ve used, something I noticed a lot more than I’d have liked during the UK’s recent heatwave. LiberNovo, of course, happens to sell a version with active cooling built in for another £500 or so. Funny how that works out.
performance
I’ll admit I was a little sceptical about the LiberNovo Omni SE at first. Nothing against a newcomer because I’m all for innovation, but I’m also battle-scarred by enough “innovations” (5D armrests, I’m looking at you) that made the experience worse purely in the name of being different. LiberNovo’s Bionic FlexFit backrest, a group of interlinked panels that flexes and reclines independently of the seat, dragging the armrests backwards with it as it goes, sounded exactly like that kind of gimmick on paper. It isn’t, thankfully, and it didn’t take long for the Omni SE to convert me to the dynamic life.
The backrest itself is heavily sculpted, wrapping around the sides of your torso rather than just sitting behind it, and I found myself needing to shift position far less often than I do in my usual daily chair, a Secretlab Titan Evo NanoGen. That’s no slouch for comfort either, but it’s a chair you sit on top of, whereas the Omni SE feels like it’s doing some of the work of holding you in place within it. It does run quite slim though, so anyone with a broader frame is better served looking at the Maxis instead.
Sit down and the cushion greets you with a lovely soft, almost squidgy feel, which is great for the first ten minutes of any session but noticeably less so after a few hours. The open-cell foam softens and compresses the longer you’re in it, with a definite bottom-out over a full working day, a different experience entirely to the firmer cold-cure foam in something like the standard Secretlab Titan Evo, which holds its shape all day. Recline is independent of the base cushion, which keeps your head in a nicely upright position, and there are five stages between 105 and 160 degrees. This is shared with the rest of the range, though it’s worth knowing these work more as stops the backrest rests against under tension rather than positions you can properly lock into.
I’m not generally one for particularly intrusive lumbar support systems, but the Omni SE is doing a great job of converting me. This might be the best lumbar support I’ve used on any chair. Adjustment is entirely manual, a dial behind the backrest rather than the motorised system on the pricier models, but it’s easy enough to reach, and you’ll likely set it once and never touch it again. What makes it stand out isn’t the mechanism, though, it’s the feel. Because the backrest is built from multiple panels rather than one solid piece, the support doesn’t dig in like a single bar the way most adjustable lumbar systems do. It feels more like a proper integration with the backrest, spreading support across your whole back rather than pressing into one spot.
For all that good innovation though, LiberNovo has fallen straight into a trap I’ve seen far too many established players stumble into: neither the armrests nor the headrest lock reliably into position. You can fix armrest height, but not their rotation or how far in or out they sit, and while they’re not quite as prone to drifting as the ones on the FlexiSpot C7 Morpher, still the worst I’ve encountered, they rarely stay where you put them either. The headrest is worse still, and it’s more annoying for it, because it’s soft and properly comfortable for the brief window it holds still, before it wilts back down to its lowest setting under the smallest amount of pressure. More than once, simply standing up out of the chair was enough to hear it slip down a couple of notches.
Build quality is the other place the SE shows its price point. Much like the Elgato Embrace, this is a chair built almost entirely from plastic, and it often sounds like it too. The star base is nylon rather than the reinforced aluminium alloy on the Pro, and the whole frame creaks, rubs, and settles audibly throughout the day. It’s not enough to worry about durability, but it’s certainly enough to undercut the premium feel LiberNovo is going for. My unit’s gas cylinder also sits low enough in the base that it scrapes against my plastic carpet protector mat every time I roll around, something I’ve never come across on any other chair and an awful noise to deal with all day.
summed up
Nothing else I’ve tested looks or moves quite like the Omni SE, and for my money, it’s better for it. The comfort on offer here, largely down to that dynamic backrest, puts it a clear step above anything resembling a traditional bucket racing chair, and I can see it being the start of a proper development war between brands. LiberNovo has stripped away the headline-grabbing extras from the pricier models to come in under four digits, but what’s left still gets the fundamentals right.
It isn’t perfect. The backrest’s narrow wings won’t suit bigger frames, and the mix of drifting armrests, a headrest that won’t stay up, and a chair that’s audibly working throughout the day chips away at what should feel like a properly premium product. None of that undoes how good the actual sitting experience is, though, and for the price, the Omni SE remains a seriously comfortable place to spend a working day.
