The Birdi Perching Stool: Height, Base and Weight Limit
Discontinued, and better documented than anything on this site you can actually buy.
The numbers
- Seat height: 25 to 35 in, on a gas cylinder
- Weight capacity: 275 lb
- Base: 13 in across, fixed rubber, no casters
- Seat: 13.3 in wide over 4.5 in of foam
- The stool itself weighs 25.6 lb
- Warranty: 15 years on most components, 5 on foam and cylinder, 3 on fabric
- Certification: ANSI/BIFMA
- Availability: discontinued
The short answer
The Birdi Perching Stool isn’t a pick, and only because you can’t buy one. It’s a shame, because it had ANSI/BIFMA certification, a warranty running out to 15 years and a strong score from a reviewer who actually sat on it.
Who made it
iMovR, not ESI. If you arrived from one of the Fellowes pages, none of that story applies here.
What a perching stool is for
You do not sit on it the way you sit on a chair. You lean, with the seat taking maybe half your weight and your feet taking the rest, which is why the seat is small and the base is heavy. It is meant for a standing desk, for the hours where standing has stopped being pleasant but sitting properly would put you too low for the surface.
The Birdi did that with a 25 to 35 in seat height on a gas cylinder, a 13.3 in seat over 4.5 in of foam, and 275 lb of capacity. Twenty-five and a half pounds of stool, most of it in the base.
The ceiling, and why it matters here
Thirty-five inches is where the seat stops, and that number is worth holding against the desks on this site.
The Bonita ET runs to 47 in and the Enmo reached 44.8 in at the base. Both go a foot higher than this stool’s top setting. That is not automatically a problem, because perching means leaning down onto a surface rather than sitting square at it, so a gap between seat and worktop is the point. But it does mean that if you run your desk near the top of its range, you will be perching from further below than the stool was designed for, and at some height you are just standing with something touching the back of your legs.
Measure the surface height you actually work at standing, subtract about a foot, and see whether the answer lands inside 25 to 35 in. If it lands above 35, this stool was never going to be your answer even when you could buy one.
The base is the part I would want back
Thirteen inches across, rubber, no casters. The reviewer described the tread as contoured like an off-road tire, and it is non-marking so it does not chew up a hardwood floor.
For a corner that combination is close to ideal, and it is the opposite of what a task chair gives you. A chair on a five-star caster base needs room to roll and drifts when you stand up. It finds the baseboard on its own. A 13 in fixed rubber foot goes into the corner and stays where you put it, taking less floor than most waste bins. If you are working in an actual nook rather than an office, the footprint matters more than almost any other number on this page.
Better paperwork than anything I’ve reviewed that you can still buy
The Birdi published a three-tier warranty, 15 years on most components, 5 on the foam and the gas cylinder, 3 on the fabric. It carried ANSI/BIFMA certification. An independent reviewer sat on it and published a score.
Compare that to what is currently for sale. The Kata monitor arm is in stock and no two sources agree on its warranty. The Bonita ET publishes no electrical safety listing. The Elea chair‘s warranty says nothing about the frame. All three are buyable today. The one product that answered every question is the one that got discontinued.
I do not have a tidy explanation for that and I am not going to invent one. It is just what the evidence looks like across five products.
What is wrong with it
Drawbacks
You cannot buy one. Source: availability. The manufacturer no longer sells it and no successor has been named.
The seat stops at 35 in. Source: manufacturer documentation. Desks reviewed on this site reach 44.8 and 47 in, so at the top of a standing desk’s range the stool cannot follow.
No casters, and that cuts both ways. Source: manufacturer documentation. The fixed rubber base is what makes it good in a corner, and it also means you lift the stool to move it rather than rolling it.
The assembly instructions had a bad step. Source: the published review. The reviewer found one step unclear enough to flag, and iMovR was reportedly revising the sheet. If you buy a used one, expect the older version in the box.
Who it fits
Worth hunting for used if you stand at a desk under about 45 in, you have a corner to park it in, and you want something that will not roll away. The footprint and the capacity are both good, and 15 years on most components means a second-hand one may still be covered depending on how iMovR handles it.
Skip it if you work at the top of a tall standing desk, or you want to move your seat around the room. A rolling stool with a taller cylinder is the better shape of tool.
Questions people ask
Can you still buy the Birdi perching stool?
No. It is discontinued and the manufacturer has not named a replacement.
How high does the seat go?
25 to 35 in, on a gas cylinder.
How much weight does it hold?
275 lb.
Does it have wheels?
No. It sits on a fixed 13 in rubber base, non-marking and safe on hardwood.
Was it made by ESI or Fellowes?
No. The Birdi is an iMovR product and has nothing to do with the ESI to Fellowes transition.
What was the warranty?
15 years on most components, 5 years on the foam and the gas cylinder, and 3 years on the fabric.