Schiavello Krossi

Unreliable, poor design, no thought given to functional use, no instructions, very fragile – Our office fitout had a large number of these Sschiavello Krossi height adjustable (Sit / Stand) desks. For all the individuals who were using the height adjustment on this desk regularly, approximately once per day, the height adjusting mechanism was broken or had major issues within 3 months. Clearly this desk was tested properly for reliability… Read more

and robustness. The large number of problems means this isn't a once off issue, but inherent in design, manufacture, etc. As we are talking about a simple mechanism, not a piece of complex machinery with thousands of complex moving parts, there shouldn't be mechanical or electrical problems at this frequency.

1. The orientation of the power cable to the mechanism is close to where your knee is, which means that the power cable is easily dislodged while adjusting the height of the desk, which means the controller needs to be restarted. The controller doesn't restart reliably, which then leads to an expensive call out.

2. When going to the maximum or minimum height of the desk, the controller gives an error, which means the desk can no longer be height adjusted. This also results in an expensive call out. The desk should be designed so it stops before it goes to error.

3. There is no mechanism to reset the height mechanism or safeguards to make the mechanism reliable. A modern office is going to be littered with paper, cables, and all sorts of things. If the fundamental function of the desk is to adjust height, there must be safeguards to make sure the height adjustment doesn't cause problems.

4. No instruction manual was provided with this desk, as such many of the pitfalls of using this desk like watching for obstructions wasn't explained.

5. The placement of the controller is right where an armrest of an office chair sits. This means that every time you move your chair in and out, the controller is easily dislodged or broken.

6. Location and attachment of the signal cable makes the cable easily caught when the desk is going up or down.

7. Very expensive in price. There were plenty of sit/stand desks that were cheaper when the decision was made to go with this desk. Don't let the high price make you think this is a good product. There are also a lot of similar products from retail outlets less than half the price that have longer warranties.

The asthetic design of the desk may be modern, but the functionality, reliability, design is very poor. I asked our building manager what he thought of all of the problems and would he buy any Schiavello furniture if he was to do another office fitout, answer was no way!