Can comfort improve your ability to think?
This image WAS NOT created by @Apple, @META, @Microsoft @Herman Miller, or @Red Bull.
It was created by PUSH Product Design at Hardware Park.
PUSH works with ergonomics every day to make products easier, safer and more ejoyable to use. Experimenting with the VisionPro over the past several weeks reminds us of how advanced technology is accelerating change and providing new opportunties in almost everything we do.
As you read this, you are balancing the weight of a bowling ball on a stack of vertebrae that form your cervical spine. Tendons and bones create a tensegrity structure that generally attempt to keep your head horizontal on something called the Frankfurt plane. If you have been reading reviews lately from sources ranging from Marques Brownlee to Wired, you know that placing additional structures on our heads, like headsets, can be fatiguing. Any additional weight affects our ability to balance our already heavy heads.
When you use a normal screen, the distance, relative position and angle are a function of the relationship between your head and the screen supported in front of you. Spatial computing changes all this. With headsets like Apple’s VisionPro, Microsoft’s HoloLens and Meta’s Quest, these devices remap the projected light rays. They create the depth cues needed for your eyes' focusing system to work naturally on the virtual imagery that now appear to be at different distances.
As the technology improves, increased use of VR headsets is accelerating our understanding of the importance of placing the body in the most optimal posture. As “virtual” screens, faster networks and AI tools evolve, the need to move our bodies to interact with data is reduced. For example, retinal tracking can now replace your mouse. So, ensuring our entire bodies are supported properly will continue to take on new levels of importance, as well as provide new design opportunities.
BASE is the result of our research and developmet. It is a patent-pending seating model created to support optimal posture for both normal screens and VR displays. The easiest way to explain is to consider how you, as an astronaut, would float in zero gravity (see NASA diagram above). Your hips are open and the legs are extended. This position creates minimal stress on your entire musculoskeletal system. It’s how you would naturally float in water. It’s what your body wants to do.
While no single position is optimal for extended periods of time, if you apply this posture to seating, you move into an open, reclined position. With conventional chairs, the problem is that, as you recline, your body naturally slides forward and "submarines" away from the seat back due to gravity. Your lumbar spine is now no longer supported.
In contrast, the first thing you notice with BASE is that you can “press” your lower back into the lumbar curve. You immediately feel complete back and shoulder support - simply by pressing gently with your legs. You are now leveraging the largest muscle group in your body to help support your back.
This position just might be the ideal place to start your day. You can now relax and fully focus because your body and spine are now perfectly centered and supported in a neutral spinal posture. When you want to move into an upright posture, your back and shoulders are perfectly rested and can easily assume this new posture with perfect form.
Ideally, you should move throughout your workday. BASE supports you in a range of positions to maximize comfort while dramatically altering position and loading conditions.
Back to VR headsets for a moment, your neck can also receive additional support by adjusting the position of the headrest to help offset additional weight. Imagine siting in the passenger seat of the latest luxury sedan with your head perfectly supported, just touching the headrest, and your feet firmly planted on the inclined floorpan. Now consider how relaxed and focused you could remain.
BASE supports your body, while helping you move throughout the day to work more effectively. Instead of relying exclusively on lower back strength to support yourself, you are now able to utilize the largest muscles in your body - your legs - to stabilize your spine. Your chest is more open, which improves respiration. Your body weight is distributed over a larger surface, which improves circution. But maybe, most importantly, it just might improve your ability to think.
There's only one way to find out. For more information on BASE and to learn about pre-ordering, get in touch with us at [email protected]
