Gamer aesthetics are divisive, to put it lightly. Some people like gaming PCs covered in enough RGB LEDs to rival the light output of a supernova and there are tons of cases on the market that cater to those people. But some of us prefer more subtle and understated designs, because we’re grown adults with mortgages. And some people want to hide their PCs entirely. Nick Zetta, of the Basically Homeless YouTube channel, falls into that final category. So, he created the “Chair ATX” form factor — a office chair that doubles as a PC case.
If you’ve ever examined a desk chair, you probably noticed that it doesn’t exactly have a massive empty cavity large enough to fit an entire computer. And no, a single-board computer like a Raspberry Pi doesn’t count. Zetta wanted to put a legit PC, complete with GPU, in the chair.
The desk chair in question is a FlexiSpot C7 Max. If you aren’t familiar, FlexiSpot is a slightly premium furniture company that really likes to sponsor YouTubers. You’ve probably seen ad reads for their chairs and motorized standing desks. As you’d expect, they sponsored this video. But don’t leave yet! The project is still cool.
To get an entire computer into a sittable form, Zetta employed a two-pronged strategy. The first prong was to use as many small and low-profile components as possible. That included a mini-ITX motherboard, a low-profile graphics card, and even a slim power supply intended for server racks. The second prong was to create a space between the chair’s base and the bottom of its cushion.
That second prong is where Zetta focused most of his efforts. He installed aluminum spacers to create a gap where the bottom of the cushion connects to the base. That gave him room to install a 3D-printed enclosure for the PC components. He wanted that enclosure to be as innocuous as possible, so he spent a great deal of time learning how to use Autodesk Fusion 360 CAD software to do the design work. He then printed the parts on a Prusa XL 3D printer.
Zetta ran the PC’s power cable through the chair’s base to hide it, but he also wanted to keep the other cables (USB, video, and audio) from ruining the look. And he came up with a few solutions to achieve that. One was a wireless HDMI transmitter, which is sensible. But he also thought outside the box and tried VR glasses and a VR headset.
In all of those cases, we’d say that Zetta succeeded in his goal of creating the exact opposite of a rainbow-lit gamer PC.