Affordable Standing Desk for Working from Home: Autonomous Desk Review

If you are looking for the best affordable standing desk, you’ll love this Autonomous SmartDesk 2 review! I compare it to my more expensive adjustable standing desk and share which is the best small computer desk! This post is sponsored by Autonomous.ai but all opinions are my own.

Unsurprising to anyone, my husband was asked to work from home once COVID-19 hit New York and everything shut down. He was asked to teach remotely, from home, for the rest of the semester.

Now that it is the fall semester, students have returned to campus, but some classes are still being taught remotely, including my husband’s math courses. He’s been planning and prepping for them all summer though, so thankfully, they are running well (enough) so far.

One thing that wasn’t great though was his desk situation. He was literally using a small, not all that stable, folding table in the corner of our master bedroom as his desk. While he thankfully picked up his office chair from campus over the summer, the desk wasn’t cutting it, especially long-term.

With him home for at least this semester still, teaching live classes, we knew he needed an upgrade, and for him to move his desk out of our bedroom. With newborn twins and homeschooling this fall, he needed to get out of the bedroom, and into the quieter office space.

Thankfully and fortuitously, Autonomous.ai reached out to me via email about reviewing their affordable standing desk, something my husband has long desired, as we both know long-periods of sitting are not great for your back, posture, or overall health and well-being.

I purchased a standing desk for myself about two years ago and have really enjoyed having it! We selected a desk from Autonomous that would look almost the same as mine and anxiously awaited for it to come so we could rearrange our office in time for classes to start.

Autonomous.ai

In case you aren’t familiar with Autonomous (I wasn’t until they contacted me), they are a company focused on providing smart office solutions that are innovative, modern, and stylish but also the most affordable. They specialize in high-quality adjustable standing desks, ergonomic office chairs like the ErgoChair 2, and more.

They want to help you #WorkSmarter in the work place by helping you be more productive and energized. The right office furniture can certainly help you be both!

Autonomous SmartDesk 2 Review

Autonomous sent us their SmartDesk 2 – Home Office. It is a fully adjustable standing desk with 4 programmable height settings.

We customized ours to have a walnut top and gray frame. It measures 53″ x 29″ and is made with a heavy-duty steel frame and robust lifting dual-motor that is capable of smoothly and silently lifting up to 300 lbs at the press of a button.

This desk is only $379 with free shipping and they even offer a 30-day trial and 5-year warranty for the frame and 1 year for the top. Plus, you can use promo code FAGANS to get 8% off your order!

For comparison, we paid more than $460 for my adjustable standing desk (plus addition for add-ons which didn’t always work well with the desk anyway). That desk is now over $600.

Shipping & Assembly of SmartDesk 2 – Home Office

My husband and I were both very impressed with how well packaged the SmartDesk 2 was. There were reinforced shock cardboard pieces on all the corners, and everything inside was well packaged and insulated.

This was a big deal to us because my office standing desk had to be replaced because upon arrival at our house, we saw that the desktop was split right in the middle. And while the company was awesome about replacing it, it would have been better to not have had to do that at all, right?

In fact, this other company had written notes on and in the box to inspect the product within the first few days in case it was broken. Autonomous didn’t have any of that on it or in it…. which in many ways says to me it just isn’t a big enough problem (or a problem at all) for them to need to do such a thing. Big win there!

Assembling the SmartDesk 2 was pretty simple and easy too. My husband put it together and he didn’t have to fiddle with any motors as they are encapsulated within the frame itself.

We actually had a motor go bad on our other standing desk (which they replaced) so we do worry a little about having to replace a motor, as there are two motors… so what happens when one motor malfunctions but not the other one?

All of the holes on the table were pre-drilled exactly where they should be, making for easy assembly.

However, the middle crossbeam underneath is adjustable (clearly designed for longer desks they sell as well), so the only difficulty was knowing exactly how wide to make the frame when assembling, especially as you don’t screw it down to the table itself until the end, but are adding things to the frame the whole time you’re assembling. But when it came time to it, it all lined up correctly.

The nice thing about the frame is that the stress of the table runs through the cross beam, supported with nice rubber grommet things, rather than through the table itself and/or a back brace.

The frame base is very heavy with very nice big legs. The wiring cables and extras are all run along it very easily

The whole desk feels very stable and secure and seems less likely to break because of these things.

Standing desk for small workspace

Despite having a fairly small workspace, this standing desk for small workspace works perfectly in it but still offers a wide and deep desktop, perfect for all the monitors and laptops, microphones, and cameras my husband puts out on his computer desktop workspace.

The controls are super great as it gives you programmable height options and the digital displays shows you exactly how high it is should you want to go back and forth between heights.

The rounded corners are also a nice touch, as well as the build-in cord holes, and smooth top desk surface.

Conclusion

My husband hasn’t stood much at his new desk (yet) but he is really, really pleased with his new adjustable standing desk.

It is slightly shorter in length than my desk, but a little deeper, and he loves a ton of the innovative features on his desk. His Autonomous SmartDesk 2 – Home Office is going to serve him very well for years to come! And he loves the price point!

If you are looking for the best affordable standing desk, we both think Autonomous SmartDesk 2 is it!! It’s much more affordable than the adjustable standing desk I have(and many comparable other desks on the market) and in many ways much better in terms of both the assembly and the design.

Don’t forget to use code FAGANS for 8% off your purchase at Automonous.ai.

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