Steelcase Gesture Review: A Disappointing Upgrade

#opinions
The Steelcase Gesture in my office against a wall. The chair has green upholstry and a headrest. The arms are black. The base is silver-grey.

Although I have a standing desk, I still spend more than half of my day sitting. For four years, I used the secondhand office chair my brother-in-law gave me during the pandemic, but it was falling apart even before I got it. So I decided it was time to upgrade.

I tried multiple different chairs in person, and although my heart wanted an Aeron, my sit-test (for 10 minutes) told me I should get a Steelcase Gesture. Giving me confidence was the fact that The Wirecutter had rated it their best chair, saying “This is one of the most adjustable chairs available—anyone can make it comfortable, regardless of their height or size.” After eight months, I’ve decided they were wrong.

Overall, I am disappointed with the chair, which has an uncomfortable back, poor recline, and arms that just don’t get out of the way enough to get close to my desk. I have replaced it with an Aeron Remastered Size C.

My Chair

I bought a Steelcase Gesture with:

The retail price for this chair is $1679, but I got it through my work’s office supplier for $1079.

Headrest

I debated whether or not I wanted a headrest and finally decided to get one. You can mostly fold it out of the way if you don’t like it, so I figured I’d rather give it a shot. It’s fine. I use it when lounging but not when sitting normally. I would not get it again because it is superfluous.

Arms

One of the selling points of the Gesture is how flexible the arms are. They are very easy to move, easier than the Aeron’s, but I didn’t find this to be a great selling point. Generally, I set the arms once and leave them forever. I don’t adjust them for each new position or task as Steelcase assumes.

Additionally, the arms aren’t as nice as the Aeron’s. The Gesture’s arms don’t go as low, about 6 1/2 inches off the seat compared to 5 1/2 for the Aeron. This is extremely important to me because I have very long arms compared to my torso; the Gesture’s arms force my shoulders up. The Gesture’s arms also stick out further when pushed all the way back (10 inches from the back of the chair, compared to 8 for the Aeron). This makes it harder to pull the chair under a desk to get close to the keyboard. The pads are a little thinner on the Gesture, making it slightly less comfortable.

The Back

The Gesture has a very upright back. It forces me into a very straight position, even though I normally prefer a little bit of recline. The back moves in two ways: it tilts top to bottom to try to adjust to the curve of your spine, and it reclines.

The back is also very tall, extending about 24 inches above the seat (not including the headrest). Because it is very straight, it makes contact with my shoulder blades in a way I found uncomfortable. For the first week of use, I got upper back pain which I assumed was just my body adjusting to “sitting correctly”. Eight months later and I’m not so sure; the upper-back pain persists (although far less severe) and my doctor thinks my posture is most of the problem. I had no problem before using the Gesture.

Recline

The Gesture’s back can be locked into 4 different positions, and the spring tension can be adjusted from “you can’t push this back if you tried” to “absolutely no resistance”. Unfortunately, the recline just doesn’t feel very good on my chair. It is either too stiff or too loose. There is no middle ground that feels supportive. I think my spring is broken because the Gestures we have at my company’s office have better tension control and a more comfortable recline.

The back moves separate from the seat, which feels OK. On the Aeron, the seat slides a bit when you recline which feels more natural. Overall, the recline on the Aeron feels much better.

Lumbar

The lumbar support is TERRIBLE. It pokes me in the back and feels like it’s trying to push me out of the chair. The curve of the backrest is already aggressive, and the lumbar support makes it more so. There is an entire thread on Reddit1 about how the lumbar support ruins the chair. I followed Steelcase’s guide to removing the backrest pad to take out the lumbar support and it helped a lot (but I still didn’t find it comfortable). I would not buy the lumbar support again.

The Seat

The seat depth is adjustable. Because I’m tall (6 foot 1 inch), I have the seat all the way forward. This leaves a small gap between the back of the seat and the backrest. The height is also adjustable, and I can make it high enough to fit me.

Some people complain that the woven and padded seat retains heat and isn’t comfortable on hot days. I used the chair during the summer and didn’t notice heat problems, even when it was 110 °F outside and a little over 80 °F in my office.

Final Thoughts

I don’t like my Steelcase Gesture. For eight months, walking into my home office each morning came with a sinking feeling, knowing I’d have to sit in this chair. I replaced it with an Aeron, and the difference is night and day—I couldn’t be happier with the switch.

  1. So I got a new Steelcase Gesture and for about a week couldn’t understand why does this cost $1k+ and how someone can possibly prefer it to Aeron. I even started to get the back pain in the middle of the spine - something that has never happened to me in my seating life ever.

    Then I read here about Lumbar support being in the way of their flexible back. I could not really find the right position for the lubmar so I figured ok I will just remove it, if it doesn’t help I will sell the damn thing at loss asap.

    So without the Lumbar Support Gesture is amazing. The back flexes instead of cutting into your spine, you can lean on the chair and if you touch it behind the backrest you would notice that the design has the ribs that are supposed to have some give.

    The lumbar support itself is fairly rigid piece of plastic that, frankly, feels alien inside the chair. Once I took it out, I felt a bit like I did some life-savingv surgery on the poor thing.

    I have no idea who would prefer to have the lumbar support in it, especially compared to how good it is without it. I’d say with lumbar support it’s a 6.5 chair (and, considering the price for the new one, more like 5.5). Without it’s a solid 8.5-9. My only gripe now is that it’s on the hot side, I wish it had a mesh seat, but I think I can survive, the adjustable arms and the overall smoothness of the experience without the lumbar plate is worth it.

    I had a headrest version, and the removal procedure isn’t exactly trivial and takes some force, but took me about 30 minutes. If you have the wrapped back be prepared to take some risks, inserting the lever underneath it to pop it off.

    After that you screw off 4 screws (torx) and slide up the front seating pad. Then you’d need to carefully slide out the lumbar plate (I did not have to disconnect anything there, just the textile in a couple of places).

    That’s it.

    myreptilianbrain. “PSA: Remove lumbar support from your Steelcase Gesture.” Reddit, r/OfficeChairs, 2021-12-18. https://www.reddit.com/r/OfficeChairs/comments/rixars/psa_remove_lumbar_support_from_your_steelcase/ ↩