Review: Sumo Omni bean bag chair

A while back I got an email from Andrew at Sumo, asking me if I would review their bean bag chair for the blog.

I struggled with the question for a while. On the one hand I was afraid to sell out. Could I maintain my integrity in the face of free stuff? On the other hand: “Yaaay, free stuff!”

I accepted and my Sumo Omni arrived two weeks ago.

I’ve been thoroughly testing it and the verdict is in: It’s an insanely comfortable piece of furniture. My favorite position is to lean it against a wall and sit there with my a laptop, as I’m sitting right now writing this. It works even better if you can out your feet up on something.

The material is cool to the touch even when you’ve been sitting in it for a while and the bag strikes just the right balance between firm and squishy. Also: The thing is huge! Further testing found that it is fine for two people watching a DVD together. Or, say, an episode or two of Dexter.

If anything, the damn thing is too comfortable – I don’t really want to get up out of it.

When they ship the Omni overseas, they do it without filling, so I had to order 400 liters of those little plastic pellets on line. This is what such a package looks like:

And let me tell ya: They do look at your strangely at the post office when you pick up those kinds of parcels.

My dream: Make a meeting room where all the walls are whiteboards and the only furniture is bean bag chairs in various sizes. The Omni and it’s smaller cousin The Otto would be perfect for this.

Comments

12 responses to “Review: Sumo Omni bean bag chair”

January 16, 2007

John Wesley

I like your vision of the ideal meeting room. Those bean bag people have done a great job using blogs to market their product. This is probably the third review I’ve seen. Now if only my site was big enough to get me free stuff.
January 16, 2007

shel

Oooo… looks comfy!!
January 16, 2007

Stressedmanager

Looks comfy! http://www.sumolounge.com/events/bud.shtml
January 16, 2007

MyNameIsMatt

What a coincidence, a friend of mine just bought the Sumo and Otto (no free stuff here), and I get to test them out regularly, and they’re great. The Otto is a nice complement to the Sumo because it acts as an ottoman (surprise, surprise).

I really like your vision of a meeting room filled with these or similar, and the Sumo isn’t all sloppy like regular bean bags, so they’d actually work really well. I might have to make this come true where I work…hmmm.
January 17, 2007

Jonas Haurum

We’re soon to design our new office, we’re thinking about making a kinda crazy playground… we will consider involving theese sumo bean bags… it would be nice with more thoughts on how to design the optimum office for happiness at work.
January 18, 2007

Daniel R. Sweet

Sure…it *looks* comfortable, but I think it would be less so in Texas. Houston humidity and all…

Of course, I could be forced to test it if someone wanted to send me one. (hint–hint)

Dan
January 18, 2007

Alexander

John: Yeah, they do some good viral marketing. AND they have a good product. That’s a nice combination.

shel: It IS!

Stressedmanager: That looks REAL comfy :o)

Matt: Cool! For a meeting room, I’d go with a lotta Ottos. For lounging, I’d go Sumo. The Sumo is too comfortable for meetings – people would relax waaaay too much :o)

Jonas: I’m working a post on how to pimp your office – stay tuned :o)

Daniel: Good point. But then you guys have airconditioning everywhere right?
January 18, 2007

Daniel R. Sweet

Yes, we have air conditioning everywhere. I’m pretty sure that there were about 5 people who lived in the Houston area before air conditioning. Now, we’re looking at around 4 million.

However, you can’t air condition away 95% humidity. You might get it down to a comfortable 40% – 50%, but it’s still there.

I’m pretty sure that they need to test in an environment like this. I mean, who knows how big the swamp market is?

Dan
January 19, 2007

Alexander

Ah – good point. We don’t have those kinds of problems here in Denmark, but with global warming, we may soon. God knows what Houston will be like then :o)
January 19, 2007

Daniel R. Sweet

The surface of the sun?

But we’ll still have the nicest residents of any city! (“Hey, hon! Could I get you some zinc oxide and a putty knife? You’ve got some skin showin’ there.”)

Dan
June 3, 2008

henry

They do look great and most people would love one. However, do not think getting one will be easy. Especially if you do not live in the US or Canada. I live in London and ordered some Omni
August 1, 2008

beanbags

hi henry, i too had problems with ordering from them so i contacted my credit card to stop the transaction and bought a better one from ambient lounge who are based in the uk