iMovR Jaxson DIY Standing Desk Base Frame Review

Electric Standing Desk Invented in 1998 – Finally the First Significant New Motor Technology Since

In the office ergonomics industry we can always count on iMovR to push the envelope as the leading technology innovator, so it’s no surprise that they would be the first manufacturer to introduce this next-generation “brushless” DC motor technology in a standing desk base frame.

Brushless motors have been around for years in industrial applications, but the sophisticated controllers used to govern the motors were generally thought to be too expensive to use in a cost-sensitive product like a standing desk. But like all things electronic, it was only a matter of time before this problem was licked. And now iMovR has once again moved broken past the limits on standing desk price/performance.

While the Jaxson isn’t going to threaten the very top tier of standing desk base frames (such as iMovR’s own Lander and Lander Lite DIY bases), which even with their brushed motors are still among the quietest, most stable, and most reliable lifting desks around, it is poised to massively disrupt the middle of the market where the best known brands of standing desks live.

To adequately review this product we had to dive deep into the weeds on what this new technology brings to the table, which you’ll want to read up on too, if you’re considering buying an electric standing desk lifting legs kit. See our separate primer on brushless motor technology for standing desks. We imagine that over the coming years, given the price/performance advantages of the technology, more and more manufacturers will switch over from conventional brushed technology. 

Why this New Technology is a Game Changer

Where the Jaxson standing desk base kit is upsetting the world order is in how it compares to the most popular Chinese-made electric lifting bases out there, which is 99% of what you’re going to find on Amazon. We’re not talking about the really cheap, supremely unreliable junk sold by Chinese factories that don’t even have a US presence, but rather the predominant US brands like Fully, Uplift, Autonomous and others that make their standing desk lift mechanisms (as well as their desktops) in China, and at least answer the phone in the US. We’d never recommend the sub-$300 bases for a DIY project just given their poor reliability, durability, manufacturing quality, and all-too-short warranties.

For an apples-to-apples comparison between comparable base sizes/versions we calculated roughly a 10% – 20% premium over the competition in this tier… a stretch well worth making for most DIY standing desk builders. iMovR’s own marketing copy openly declares their strategic intent with the Jaxson desk was to “give American consumers and businesses a way to ditch their dependency on cheap goods from Asia (99% of standing desks sold online are built in China, with the cheapest possible components), yet without breaking the bank.”

The Broad Strokes on Jaxson’s Competitive Advantages

iMovR already makes more standing desk models, and certainly more technologically advanced models, than any other player in the office ergonomics industry (see our round-up of all our iMovR reviews for a sampling), and they unquestionably offer more standalone lifting frame kits than any other brand. The Jaxson is basically replacing their Freedom desk line (the Energize and Cascade desk models, their corner standing desk variants, and the Freedom DIY base frame)—which for seven years was their most inexpensive, premium-grade standing desk line—as iMovR’s new flagship line for the mainstream customer. It will surely become their highest-volume desk, popular with both the WFH market and the enterprise market. The standalone Jaxson base will most likely become their top seller in units, although the Lander base is going to remain extremely popular with desk builders who need that 360 lbs of lift capacity (versus 220 lbs for the Jaxson). 

On the technology score

The Jaxson has redefined the state-of-the-art in the mainstream standing desk market. Besides the brushless motors, the future-oriented handset has integrated Bluetooth, and of course a health coaching smartphone app to take advantage of it. iMovR was the first to introduce Bluetooth to the standing desk market with its Lander desks in 2018. Combined with the Lander Lite, ZipDesk and now the Jaxson, the company has four lines of desks with smartphone interfaces while its main competitors still have zero (with the notable exception that UpliftDesk and ApexDesk both had Bluetooth for a while but their apps were so dysfunctional that they’ve since removed the feature).

In the case of the Jaxson there are two other new features we’ve never before seen on a standing desk controller. The built-in infrared presence sensor can detect when you’re standing at your desk and when you’ve walked away. This is vital for the health coaching app to work optimally, as it’s easy to leave your phone at your desk and leave the area—even leave the building—and leave your desk thinking you’re still present. So it’s a little more foolproof, and eliminates the chance that your health coach is measuring the health of your desk instead of your own.

Intriguingly, the Jaxson’s controller also has a built-in NFC reader. In the future, iMovR intends to develop this into a badge reader for shared workstation areas on the corporate campus (a.k.a. “hot desks” or “hoteling desks”). Imagine walking into a workstation touchdown desk area as is becoming so common now in the post-pandemic, hybrid/remote era, picking any available desk for yourself, and placing either your ID badge or your NFC-equipped smartphone over the Jaxson’s handset to “log into” it automatically. To identify which desks are available and which are logged into by other users, the LED lights on the handset would be lit either green (available) or red (occupied).

On the design score

With its streamlined, modern aesthetic, the Jaxson looks just as elegant in a home office environment as on the corporate campus. Gone are all the hard 90-degree angles of a typical stand-up desk, replaced with smoothly chamfered square columns, ergo-contoured desktops, and an exceptionally discrete controller handset (the streamlined design of the controller handset is 95% concealed under the desktop, leaving buttons indicators and a set of LED lights visible to the user. Warmer colors on the metal frame and an extensive selection of sensational desktop colors and textures transform the Jaxson from mere office furniture into a beautiful decor element of any room. 

On the customer experience score

Overall the assembly process is actually quite fun in itself, thanks to all the care that was taken to make the process as easy and foolproof as possible. This is a degree of polish we just don’t see on any of the commodity-grade, Chinese-made desks, which can have an out-of-the-box failure rate as high as 8% with some brands.

So with that overview out of the way, let’s get into what it’s like to customize, order and install an iMovR Jaxson standing desk base frame kit…

Taking the Edge Off

In 24 years since the first electric standing desks were introduced into the world, the standard aesthetic can best be described as hard edged. Most lifting columns are still square or rectangular in shape, with 90-degree angles all around, including the typical HPL desktop. And that look is fine, perhaps, when everything else in the commercial office from cubicle walls to ceiling light fixtures are similarly hard-angled, but it isn’t the nicest look in a home office, or for that matter, a nicely appointed law firm. It just doesn’t blend in as well with other classically designed furniture.

With the Jaxson, iMovR went about reshaping the lifting columns with a unique chamfered square profile—a refinement we haven’t seen on any other standing desk. And while virtually all other standing desk bases come powder-coated in the traditional colors of black, white and silver, the Jaxson’s color selections are just a little warmer and friendlier. The Basalt Black has brown undertones, the Alabaster White has cream undertones, and the Starlight Silver shimmers with a starlight pattern at certain light angles. 

Futuristic Handset with Bluetooth and Health Coach App

The beautifully-contoured Jaxson handset isn’t just hanging off the front edge of the desktop like the switch panel on a piece of industrial equipment. With its up/down buttons recessed below, the handset only minimally protrudes into view from underneath the desktop. 

While the design is certainly sleek and “aerodynamic,” it’s even more impressive on the inside. No other standing desk controller has Bluetooth, NFC, and an infra-red presence sensor built-in. 

These electronics are designed to work with iMovR’s Jaxson Desk Control app (iOS and Android) to enable precise, yet non-disruptive, continuous measurement of your sitting versus standing time—the key inputs to the app’s built-in health coach. Rather than measuring “the health of the desk,” the infrared sensor ensures that only the user’s presence and position are being recorded. 

The app ubiquitously records your use of the workstation throughout the day and keeps track of your actual daily standing time versus your set goals. Gentle reminders are pushed to your phone when your personally-set maximum sitting time thresholds have been reached, to remind you to change position. This seemingly simple feature has been shown to lead to a 117% increase in standing time for average users.

Easy Assembly

As with all our standing desks, iMovR pays more attention to the user experience than other desk makers do, starting with the assembly process. Most components are already factory pre-assembled to make the job as easy as possible. For example, the legs are already attached to the crossbar frame. 

Watch the video to see just how easy it is for an average person to put together a standing desk using the Jaxson base in less than 15 minutes (not including whatever you need to do to prep your desktop and, as always recommended, pre-drill pilot holes before driving in screws). Or download the full-size, full-color installation guide that comes with the desk. 

Brushless motors are a game changer in standing desk reliability, especially for one in this price range. They permit iMovR to back the Jaxson with the same 15-year top-to-bottom warranty they offer on their pricier Lander and Lander Lite desk lines. 

As we delve into in our primer on How to Compare Standing Desk Warranties there’s a lot of fine print in some of the warranties being touted by standing desk manufacturers these days. iMovR has by far the best warranties in the industry, and it’s the same one on the Jaxson as you’ll find on their $5000+ standing desks. 

One indication of the quality of this standing desk is that it is one of the rare ones sold via e-commerce that carries the gold standard ANSI/BIFMA X5.5-2021 certification, independently tested by Intertek. Typically a feature of costly commercial-grade office furniture from companies like Steelcase or Herman Miller, iMovR is the only digitally-native brand that puts all their premium desks through the test (Lander, Lander Lite and ZipDesk are all similarly certified); the only other desk model sold direct-to-consumers that we’re aware of that used to claim this certification is the Uplift V2 Commercial, but now they just claim that it’s “built to ANSI/BIFMA standards” without actually having an independent test lab certify it.

Like all iMovR products, the Jaxson is sold with the company’s standard 100-Day Satisfaction Guarantee. 

Customizing Your Lifting Base

The Jaxson base comes in three different height ranges, whereas all the other (non-iMovR) desks in this price range come in only one or two ranges (i.e. “single stage” and perhaps also a “dual stage”). For medium-stature users, the single-stage base is like most standing desks in the market and is the lowest cost option. For very short or very tall users, or for compliance with ANSI/BIFMA G1-2013 Ergonomic Guidelines (especially for corporate and government buyers), the dual-stage base has a 26.1” total stroke to accommodate nearly every conceivable user.

iMovR also uniquely offers 6” leg extenders on all of their custom desks, recommended for users who have an under-desk treadmill, are extremely tall individuals, or for those who just seek the maximum desk stability at higher heights. High-quality, non-marring, and lockable caster wheels are also offered on the Jaxson (these also enhance the stability of the desk by raising the bottom tubes, and can be combined with the 6” height extenders).

Made in Europe, not China

Behind the scenes of any standing desk manufacturing company there is an OEM supplier of the actual base. In the case of the Jaxson, that supplier is Austria-based LogicData.

A significant distinction between the Jaxson and iMovR’s Lander lines is that while the complete Jaxson standing desk with desktop well meets the FTC definition of “made in America,” as is fully disclosed on iMovR’s site, it does have 40% European genealogy. And that 40% is constituted entirely by the base itself, which was designed in Austria, manufactured in LogicData’s Prague-based METMO factory using Swiss and Austrian steel, with a small portion of their electronics being produced in Hungary. All-in-all, a decidedly central European hardware product. The software elements were all developed between LogicData’s Austrian team and iMovR’s development team in Seattle.

We’ve recently had the privilege of touring the METMO manufacturing plant in Prague ourselves (we’ll post some video soon) and were very impressed with their investment in state-of-the-art robotics and lasers, in-house powder-coat line, robust QA testing robots—as well as the management team. LogicData, founded in 1994 and for many years the preeminent supplier of standing desk controller electronics to the major commercial office furniture companies, was acquired by China’s most predominant commodity-grade standing desk lifting base manufacturer, Jiecang, in 2021.

While the Chinese and Austrian companies remain entirely apart (they acquired LogicData to get a premium product line to complement their commodity-grade Chinese products), the capital infusion that LogicData received when they got acquired allowed them to turn around and acquire METMO, their primary manufacturing plant, outright. And so today, LogicData is an almost completely vertically integrated OEM producer of standing desk frames, and iMovR is their launch OEM customer for the new technology in the US e-commerce market.

In contrast to the Jaxson base, the Lander and Lander Lite have almost all their components robotically manufactured in Louisville, Kentucky at Denmark-based Linak’s USA factory. Linak is the OG of the standing desk lifting column industry, having literally launched the standing desk lifting column industry in Europe around 1998, and their linear actuator technology is now in its 3rd to 4th generation versus LogicData’s 1st to 2nd gen (the METMO factory was built in 2019). Overall Linak is about ten times larger than LogicData, but counting the latter’s new parent company they are roughly equal size players on the global stage (both companies have over 3,000 employees). That said, Linak doesn’t even have brushless motor technology on the drawing board, instead continuing to invest their enormous R&D budget on continuing to build the highest-performance brushed motor technology in the industry.

The Takeaway

In extensive lab testing of the Jaxson desk base, and even its iOS and Android app, we had a hard time finding any significant flaws. As one of the most experienced manufacturers of tech-forward standing desks, and clearly the leader in DIY standup desk lifting base kits, the refinement that iMovR and LogicData injected into the Jaxson’s lifting base design is the kind of thing we just don’t see with any other brand. From ease of assembly to reliability, the many technological features, the elegant design options and the overall price/performance ratio, one thing is clear: iMovR is really giving the major brand, Chinese-built competition a serious run for the money with the Jaxson. Very ironically, one of the biggest Chinese brands it is up against is Jiecang (used by Fully and UpliftDesk, e.g.), which now owns LogicData. Talk about globalism.

In terms of stability, sound signature, reliability, and all the other performance tests we put a standing desk through, the Jaxson performs well better than any of its Chinese-made peers. That said, it’s not of the same caliber as the American-manufactured Lander or even the Lander Lite bases, which are built on much pricier Linak chassis. Even though they are not made with brushless motors, their quality and 3rd-generation technology is such that they still outperform the Jaxson in every spec. But, they are commensurately priced to reflect this.

In terms of anti-collision detection, the Jaxson may be superior to any other desk we’ve ever tested simply because the brushless motors eliminate the “noise” from commutator brushes that can sometimes interfere with the performance of the detection circuitry (a serious problem with a lot of Chinese-made standing desks). That said, the performance of the two higher-end Lander models is as equivalently flawless as we’ve seen. The Lander desk also has a G-force (anti-tilt) detector that the Jaxson does not include, though this is an even less important feature for most consumers.

While the percentage mix of American-made components may be of interest to some, from our review staff’s perspective the key takeaway on the Jaxson is that it will do more to level the playing field with Chinese-made brands like Fully, Uplift, Flexispot, Vari, and Autonomous than any other standing desk that has come along to date. Tariffs and the rampant inflation in deep ocean freight from China have definitely helped, but it’s the new brushless motor technology that tipped the scales completely in favor of the Jaxson in this regard.