Established in 2005 in Portland, Oregon, Ergo Depot has grown into one of the industry's leading distributors of ergonomic home and office products. Specializing in adjustable-height desks, chairs that encourage you to move and other ergonomic tools, we at Ergo Depot pride ourselves on bringing you products that help you work and feel better.
This blog is designed to showcase new products and information, in addition to providing a space for us to connect with other people as passionate about ergonomics as we are.
For those of you who can't make it into our Portland showroom to check out the brandnew Capisco Puls, we've put together a quick video review of the new chair.
If you missed our post on our first-hand experience with the Puls, you can check it out here. If you'd like more specific product information (pricing, colors, etc) you can visit our Capisco Puls product page.
Are you as excited as we are about HAG's newest chair?
I walked back into our showroom from lunch, and the chair we’d been waiting nearly a year to get our hands on was casually waiting behind my desk.
The heir to the throne, Capisco Puls has been one of the most highly anticipated chairs since its announcement. Fans of Peter Opsvik’s original design looked forward to a sleeker, simpler version of the incredibly iconic chair, and he delivered. The lightweight molded polyurethane seat and back add a refreshed feel to the design.
The Puls’ ability to make one of the most innovative and modern chairs on the market look somewhat dated was one of the first areas where it impressed. After spending a month with the chair in our office, we are confident that fans of the original Capisco, plus new admirers, will be thrilled with the newest addition to the Capisco family.
Having enjoyed the original Capisco daily for the last year and a half, Puls had some big shoes to fill. All of us spent a significant amount of time in the Puls before forming our opinions on the chair.
We love it.
That’s not to say I’d immediately toss out my original Capisco in favor of the Puls, but we will definitely give it a look when it comes time to replace our chairs. And we certainly have no reservations recommending it to any of our active sitting clients.
The key difference is in the materials. Few people would choose to sit on plastic in favor of foam during their work day – me included. HAG understands this, which is why instead of making the entire seat polyurethane, they included foam padding where you need it most. The strip of foam on the seat makes a difference when you’re sitting in the chair for more than an hour at a time.
That brings us to what we feel is the most appropriate way to use the Capisco Puls. We advocate active sitting, and Puls is great for active sitters. We all use quick-adjusting height adjustable desks, and the ability to sit and stand for an hour at a time is perfect for the Puls. If you do significantly more sitting than standing, the extra cushion on the original Capisco might be better suited to your work habits.
All of the same benefits you find in other saddle seats are standard features on the Puls, including cutouts in the seat pan for your legs to hang down, allowing you to more evenly distribute your weight. The cutouts of course also facilitate proper pelvic position (tilted slightly forward) which allow your back to form a natural S-shape curve. If you’d like more specific information on saddle seats, try this.
Another difference is the base and color options. The Puls is available in five sleek shell colors, and a new nylon base option. Featuring the same style and shape as the standard Capisco, the nylon options are exclusive to the Puls.
Other than the optional nylon base, the Puls and the original are identical from the seat down. The patented balanced movement mechanism delivers all of the features that has made the Capisco one of the most versatile chairs on the market for decades. Puls is of course available with three different pneumatic lifts, the same lifts as used on the original Capisco. The tall, 265mm pneumatic lift is ideal for working at a sit-stand desk.
As you can tell, we're definitely excited about the Puls. If you have any questions, please drop us an email or leave a comment below.
One of the world’s most popular and innovative saddle seats just got a make over.
The HAG Capisco Puls boasts a slick new look while honoring the components that have made the original Capisco one of the world’s most popular task chairs since its debut in 1984: comfortable saddle seat, out of the way elbow/arm rests, a passion for both design and ergonomics, and a commitment to the environment in its design and manufacturing.
It’s almost as though Peter Opsvik—the designer of the original Capisco along with numerous other iconic chairs—looked at the Capisco and simply hit “refresh.”
The main feature that has made the original Capisco one of Ergo Depot’s best-selling products for several years running—the ability to encourage movement—remains at the core of the updated Capisco Puls.
The standard saddle seat supports users perching towards the front of their chair when the pneumatic lift is in a higher, half-standing position, achieving an open hip angle. By sitting with an open hip angle (rather than a traditional knee tilt position, legs parallel to the ground), the spine naturally creates the S-shape curve it was designed for. The open hip angle means your legs are able to take some of the pressure off of your lower back and hips by helping support your body, in addition to allowing better blood circulation throughout your body, of course leading to more energy.
Opsvik himself said: “I believe that the spine is happiest whenit can adopt the natural curvature that it has when we stand upright.” Who wouldn’t want to work like that?
The Puls’ back is of course cut from the same figurative mold as its older sibling, the original Capisco. The major differences between the two aren’t in the iconic style of the Capisco back, but in the materials. While the original Capisco is fully padded around the seat back, in keeping with its minimalist aesthetic the Puls back is made primarily of plastic with a strip of foam padding to support your spine. The Puls, like the original, uses recycled household plastic in its parts and recycled car bumpers in its foam padding—surprisingly comfortable. The seat for the Puls is available in plastic with a strip of padding where you need it most, or with an extra cushion option.
Like all HAG products, comfort, durability and sustainability are all standard on the Capisco Puls. Also standard are some of our favorite features of the original Capisco: exceptionally comfortable saddle seat, foot plates to rest your feet where you're inclined to anyway and the manual adjustments that make this chair the perfect fit for nearly all body types. And of course, a Capisco wouldn’t be a Capisco without the three pneumatic lift height options, allowing users flexibility in their work surface height, encouraging variation and movement throughout the day.
The Capisco Puls has already received two prestigious design awards in over the past few months, including the 2011 iF Product Design Award in the Office Furnuture category along with the 2011 Red Dot Design award in the Best Product Design category. Not too shabby.
As you can probably tell, we're excited about this new chair offering from HAG. Please let us know in the comments below whether you think this new addition to the Capisco line will be the big hit we think it will.
Can't wait to get yours? We don't blame you. Just look how much fun this guy is having!
The Capisco Puls is not yet availble in North America. Please check back and we'll be sure to update the blog as we receive more information from HAG.
Update on Monday, August 6, 2012 at 3:02PM by
Alexis Harper
The Puls is now shipping. Click here to place your order.
Monday, June 4, 2012 at 10:41AM 
