High decide
This mat’s diversified terrain encourages motion, making standing much less tedious and fewer achy. It’s additionally simple to maneuver the mat if you change between standing and sitting.
In our assessments, the novel floor of the Ergodriven Topo offered probably the most consolation for our toes and legs. This standing-desk mat’s diversified, raised terrain encourages the frequent motion that ergonomics specialists advocate. And this mat is straightforward to slip below a desk and convey again out with one foot (on each carpet and arduous flooring). It’s additionally simple to scrub and has held up over a number of years of testing. And since it isn’t as extensive and flat as commonplace anti-fatigue mats, it takes up much less house below your desk.
The bizarre, raised design is a recreation changer. Virtually everybody who examined the Topo mat was initially skeptical of its design. However the advantages turned evident inside a couple of minutes of standing, and so they had been confirmed after months of use.
The again edge and entrance corners of the Topo mat are larger than the edges, and the mat has a teardrop-shaped mound within the center that’s squishier than the remainder of the fabric—nice for massaging your toes. With out even desirous about it, you might find yourself standing on, urgent in opposition to, and heel-digging into all of these sections.
“I didn’t know I had nervous legs, however I’m glad this mat taught me that,” one coworker mentioned. “It’s good as a result of I can’t stand straight and regular to save lots of my life, however this made my normal slouching and foot fidgeting comfy,” mentioned one other.
The froth is thick and supportive. Even when our testers stood upright and flat-footed, the flat portion of the Topo mat offered a agency however supportive pushback that they preferred.
The floor feels good with footwear on and works superb with socks or naked toes, too. Urgent into the raised sections can put some strain in your toes and the edges of your toes, and this may get uncomfortable after some time. However the mixture of firmness and softness throughout the mat’s diversified terrain encourages you to shift away anyway, as is advisable. One Wirecutter staffer informed us he appreciates that transferring round on the Topo mat provides steps to his day by day rely, even when he’s staying in a single place.
It supplies loads of room to maneuver round. Our testers, who ranged in peak from 5-foot-2 to 6-foot-2, all discovered that the Topo mat offered appropriate house for standing-desk work. When most individuals are standing on this mat’s flat parts, their toes can be about shoulder-width aside.
The Topo mat is slightly deeper and narrower than the flat mats we advocate—about 29 inches at its widest and 26 inches deep. As a result of it’s not as extensive as typical ground mats, this mat can conceal in a nook below your desk if you wheel your chair in, and also you’ll nonetheless have room for under-desk objects, resembling a trash can or a tower PC.
It’s painlessly maneuverable. The Topo mat is the simplest mat to slip below your desk and again out once more, as a result of it has an indent you could hook along with your heel. Most flat mats, that are designed to remain stubbornly in a single spot, require that you simply bend down, seize the mat from the underside (exposing your hand to every kind of grit and dirt), and transfer it out of the best way.
The Topo mat produces solely the slightest friction when it’s being pushed or pulled, nevertheless it gained’t slip below your toes if you’re standing on it. The benefit of repositioning the mat is a small grace that makes it much less seemingly you’ll quit in your good intentions of switching between standing and sitting all day.
It’s easy to scrub. The Topo mat is made from polyurethane, and it’s lined with a pebbled pores and skin, which makes wiping up spills and crumbs easy. In our earlier assessments, this mat emerged puncture-free after we dropped a stapler, butt-end first, from standing peak. We observed no chemical smells whereas unpacking or first utilizing the Topo mat, both.
Ergodriven affords an extended, seven-year guarantee. That’s nice, however we don’t assume you’ll want it, given the mat’s extremely sturdy materials, in addition to the truth that a number of staffers (together with one of many information’s authors) have used Topo mats for a number of years and report that they present no important indicators of wear and tear and nonetheless really feel supportive. One coworker’s cat clawed a notable gouge into the Topo mat on the primary day they’d it, however the mark had vanished by the subsequent day.
It is available in a number of uncommon colours. It’s refreshing to see that, along with commonplace black, the Topo mat is available in a a lot brighter grey and two daring colours: denim blue and mulberry purple. The vast majority of standing mats come solely in black or a few drab, muted shades of brown and grey.
You may get a smaller model, when you like. Ergodriven additionally affords a mini model of the Topo, which shaves off a few inches in width, depth, and peak. The corporate says the mini is a more sensible choice when you’re below 5-foot-4 and don’t want the extra legroom that the usual model affords. (That mentioned, our under-5-foot-4 testers discovered the usual Topo mat’s dimension to be good for them.)
Flaws however not dealbreakers
- If you wish to tempo or work at totally different ends of your desk with out raised surfaces getting in your means—otherwise you need to use a mat for high-movement duties, like cooking—keep on with a flat mat, such because the ComfiLife Anti Fatigue Ground Mat we advocate.
- Ergodriven’s FAQ part suggests the Topo mat is good for individuals who weigh below 240 kilos. However each its FAQ part and an Ergodriven consultant clarified that the Topo should relieve strain for individuals who weigh greater than that. Even so, we’d recommend that anybody considerably over that weight maintain the 30-day return coverage in thoughts.
- A number of testers thought the Topo mat’s central “button” was too squishy. It appears to be meant extra as an occasional foot cease or a spot to press and stretch foot muscle mass, nevertheless it does have a special really feel from the contoured, firmer edges.
- When you’ve got a desk that’s lower than 30 inches deep, you would possibly desire a smaller mat (just like the Topo Mini) for extra desk-chair clearance when your mat is below the desk.
