Every chair review you read is written by someone who has had the chair for two weeks. This one is different: it is a list of everything that has gone wrong for other people, published by the shop that sells it. We stock the LiberNovo Omni, we like it, and we would rather you buy the right one once than buy the wrong one and find out after you have assembled it; because once it is unpacked and built, we cannot take it back. So here is every complaint we can find in the published record, who raised it, who it actually affects, and what you can do about each one.
Nothing below is invented and nothing is softened. Where reviewers disagree, we say so. Where a problem has no fix, we say that too.
The short version
| Problem | Who it affects | Dealbreaker? |
|---|---|---|
| Seat depth fixed at purchase | Under ~170cm, and over ~185cm | Can be, and it is permanent |
| Loose armrests | Anyone who pushes off the arms to stand | No, but it will annoy you |
| Lumbar height not adjustable | Unusually high or low lumbar curves | Sometimes |
| Seat foam firm | Under about 70kg | No |
| Two-year electronics warranty | Anyone buying the Omni or Omni Pro | Depends on your risk appetite |
| Breathability | People who run warm | Disputed by reviewers |
| Backrest spine juts out ~20cm | Small rooms, tight nooks | Measure first |
| Headrest drift | Heavy head-leaners | No |
| Email-only factory support | Anyone buying direct from overseas | Solved by buying locally |
Problem 1. The seat depth is fixed forever at checkout.
This is the one that causes buyer's remorse, so it goes first.
You choose 45cm or 48cm when you order. There is no slider, no lever, no adjustment. You cannot change it later. Most chairs at this price let you slide the seat pan 50–60mm; the Omni does not.
Sleek Setups made the sharper observation: the 48cm option extends the foam without extending the frame beneath it, and some owners report a sensation of sliding forward on it. Notebookcheck's reviewer, at around 170cm, reported six to eight centimetres of thigh overhang even on the 48cm version.
Who it affects: shorter users who take the 48cm by default and end up perched, and taller users who take the 45cm and lose thigh support. Also anyone sharing a chair between two people of very different heights.
What to do: measure before you order. Sit on a hard chair, feet flat, and measure from the back of your bottom to the back of your knee. Subtract 3–5cm for clearance. That number is your seat depth. If it lands near 45, order 45. If it lands near 48 or above, order 48. If you are between the two and unsure, come and sit in both at our Pyrmont showroom by appointment; this is exactly the decision worth a trip across town for, because our returns window is 30 days on unused, unopened stock only, and nothing is returnable once it is unpacked.
Problem 2. The armrests shift under light contact.
This is the single most consistent complaint about the chair, and it has been raised independently by Notebookcheck, Android Authority, Stuff, Sleek Setups and TechRadar. Five reviewers, same finding.
The mechanism is the cause. Armrest width is friction-based rather than detented, so when you push yourself up out of the chair using the arms, you tend to shove them out to maximum width. Then you sit back down and they are in the wrong place. Tom's Hardware also reported accidentally pressing the armrest buttons with an elbow.
LiberNovo has effectively conceded the point. The 2026 SE and Pro increased armrest travel from 80mm to 96mm and dropped the minimum armrest height by 20mm; a redesign, not a coincidence. Owners have also circulated 3D-printed tension fixes for the width mechanism.
Who it affects: anyone who levers themselves out of a chair using the arms, which is most people. Less of an issue if you stand up from the seat rather than the arms.
What to do: the honest answer is that there is no official fix, and we are not going to invent one. Change how you stand up and the problem largely disappears. If your armrests are moving so freely that they will not hold position at all; as opposed to being merely easy to shift; that is a fault, not a design trait, and you should contact us rather than trying to tighten anything yourself.
Problem 3. Lumbar support adjusts for depth, not height.
You get 50mm of forward and back travel on the lumbar. You get no height adjustment at all. Raised by Tom's Hardware, Tom's Guide and Sleek Setups.
If your lumbar curve sits where the chair expects it, 50mm of depth is plenty and the powered version is genuinely good. If your curve sits unusually high or low; short torso, long torso, an old injury that changed things; no amount of depth travel puts the support where you need it. Pushing harder into the wrong spot does not help.
Who it affects: a minority, but a minority for whom it is total. There is no workaround and no accessory that fixes it.
What to do: if you have ever bought a chair and found the lumbar bump landing in the wrong place, sit in this one before you buy it. That is a showroom decision, not a website decision.
Problem 4. The seat is firm, and lighter users feel it.
The cushion is multi-density foam roughly two inches thick. Notebookcheck's reviewer at 65kg found both the seat and the backrest foam too firm. Tom's Hardware's reviewer, at 5'7" and 135lb, could feel the base through it.
Foam is compressed by body weight. Lighter users do not compress it enough to reach the comfortable part of the curve, so they sit on top of it rather than in it. This is not a defect; it is a design tuned for average and heavier bodies.
Who it affects: people under roughly 70kg. Heavier users are not reporting this.
What to do: if you are light and you prefer a soft seat, sit in it first. Firm foam also breaks in somewhat with use, but do not buy on the assumption that it will transform.
Problem 5. The electronics carry two years. The frame carries five.
On a chair whose headline feature is a motorised lumbar, the electronics warranty is two years against five on the frame. Reviewers noticed. Tom's Hardware called the motor "gimmicky at best and a liability at worst" and noted "a lot of things that could fail". Tom's Guide put it plainly: "we really don't know how well these electronic components will hold up over time."
Now the part most articles leave out, and we want to be very clear about it: there are no documented widespread motor failures. None. This is a risk flag raised by reviewers about warranty terms, not a report of chairs breaking in the field. Anyone telling you Omni motors are dying is making it up.
Who it affects: anyone buying the Omni or Omni Pro, and specifically anyone who plans to keep a chair for a decade.
What to do: three options.
- Buy the Omni SE at $1,299. It has no electronics at all; the dynamic backrest is mechanical. Nothing to fail, nothing to charge, footrest included. For risk-averse buyers this is the answer.
- Buy the powered version and accept the terms knowingly.
- Know your statutory position. Under Australian Consumer Law, the guarantees of acceptable quality and reasonable durability apply on top of any manufacturer's warranty. They cannot be excluded, restricted or shortened by it, and they run against the supplier who sold you the goods. A two-year manufacturer's warranty does not cap your rights at two years; what counts is what is reasonable for a chair at this price. This is general information and not legal advice, but it is the single strongest reason to buy from an Australian stockist rather than shipping one in yourself.
Problem 6. Fabric over foam, not mesh; and reviewers genuinely disagree.
TechRadar wrote that it is "not very breathable; if you run warm, it may be too warm." Stuff reported staying "comfortable and sweat-free" through a hot full workday. Both are published reviews by people who sat in the chair. We are not going to pretend one of them is wrong.
What we can tell you as fact: the Omni uses a tensioned micro-linen fabric over foam, not a mesh suspension, and heat behaves differently on those two constructions. LiberNovo also effectively conceded the point by adding the Active Airflow seat fan to the Omni Pro; you do not build a seat fan into a chair nobody is warm in.
One more thing worth knowing before you buy: the covers are not removable for washing.
Who it affects: people who run warm, and anyone in a Sydney or Brisbane room without air conditioning in February.
What to do: if heat is your known problem, the Pro at $1,999 has the fan. If it isn't, the standard fabric is fine and you can save the money.
Problem 7. The spine sticks out about 20cm behind the chair.
The external backrest structure; the visible spine that makes the Omni look like the Omni; extends roughly 20cm past the backrest. Tom's Hardware measured it at "about 8 inches".
In an open room, irrelevant. In a small study, a hallway nook or a bedroom corner desk, you will knock things with it, and you will need more clearance behind the chair than the seat dimensions suggest.
Who it affects: anyone in a tight space. This is a tape measure problem, not a comfort problem.
What to do: measure your clearance behind the desk before ordering. Add 20cm to whatever depth you assumed the chair needs at full recline.
Problem 8. The headrest drifts.
TechRadar's sharpest criticism of the whole chair: the headrest drops too easily under load and moves side to side more than expected.
Who it affects: people who rest their head against it with real weight, particularly when reclined. If you use the headrest lightly or not at all, you will never notice.
What to do: there is no adjustment that fixes drift and we are not going to invent one. If yours moves so freely it will not hold any position, that is a fault; talk to us.
Problem 9. Factory support is email-only.
LiberNovo direct support runs through email only, and responses can be slow.
Who it affects: anyone who buys direct from overseas. If your chair develops a fault two years in, you are typing into an inbox and waiting.
What to do: this is, openly, our commercial argument, so treat it accordingly; warranty claims on chairs bought from us are handled by Chair Dinkum in Sydney, on the phone, on 02 9640 0642. We have been doing this since 2014 out of Pyrmont. You are paying for that when you buy locally, and you should decide whether it is worth it to you.
Problem 10. It is mostly plastic.
Notebookcheck was blunt about the material quality and scored the chair 4 out of 10 overall; by a distance the harshest published verdict on the Omni. Much of the structure is plastic rather than metal.
Who it affects: anyone who judges a chair by how it feels to knock on. Note that the Omni Pro upgrades to a die-cast aluminium base.
What to do: if the build feel matters to you, spend the extra on the Pro or come and handle one first.
Problem 11. Nobody knows how it ages.
The Omni has been at retail since October 2025. The longest published ownership test we are aware of is about a year, from Mark Ellis Reviews. That is it.
We will not pretend otherwise: nobody, including us, knows what this chair looks like in 2033. It is certified to BIFMA X5.1, which is 100,000+ cycles of standardised abuse, and that is meaningful; but a lab cycle test is not eight years in a real office.
What to do: factor it in, along with the Australian Consumer Law position above. If long-term certainty is your priority over features, the mechanical SE is the lower-variable option.
Problem 12. Assembly takes longer than the box says.
LiberNovo quotes 15–20 minutes. Most reviewers say longer, with more steps than a typical chair.
What to do: allow half an hour, do it on carpet or a rug, and get a second person for the backrest step. It is meaningfully easier with two.
Problem 13. The footrest feels lightweight.
Android Authority and others noted that the footrest does not feel like the rest of the chair. It works. It just feels like a different, cheaper product bolted on.
What to do: nothing; it is a build-feel complaint, not a function complaint. Worth knowing that the footrest is included with the SE at $1,299 and the Pro at $1,999, while the standard Omni is $1,359 chair-only or $1,459 with the footrest.
Problem 14. No USB-C cable in the box, and no battery indicator.
Tom's Hardware noted there is no charging cable included. Notebookcheck noted there is no battery level indicator, so you cannot see how much charge is left.
What to do: use any USB-C cable you already own; you have several. For the missing indicator, charge it on a schedule instead of on a reading. Given the battery life below, once or twice a year is realistic.
What is not a problem
Four things people worry about in the research phase that turn out fine.
Motor noise. LiberNovo rates the actuator at under 45dB at one metre; audible in a silent room, quieter than a conversation. No independent reviewer complained about it. Across our own 30-day test it never once intruded on a call.
Battery life. A removable 2,200mAh pack, rated at roughly 30 days if you use it one stretch per day, and about a year on occasional use. Android Authority charged theirs once in three months. We did not need to charge ours across 30 days of testing.
A flat battery does not disable the chair. This is the one that surprises people. Recline, tilt, seat height, armrests and the dynamic backrest are all mechanical and work normally with a dead battery. The only thing you lose is powered lumbar adjustment. Recharge takes about three and a half hours over USB-C.
Certification and recalls. BIFMA X5.1 (100,000+ cycles), UL962, FCC and RoHS, with UN38.3 on the battery. The Omni is rated to a maximum user weight of 136 kg under BIFMA X5.1. There are no recalls or safety notices for any LiberNovo chair.
If your chair develops a fault
Bought from us: ring 02 9640 0642 or use the contact page. Have your order number, tell us what it is doing, and send a short video if it is a movement or noise issue; that saves a fortnight of back-and-forth. Warranty claims are assessed and handled here in Sydney. Do not disassemble anything before you talk to us.
Bought elsewhere or direct: contact LiberNovo support and expect it to take a while.
Either way, remember the Australian Consumer Law position. If a chair fails earlier than a reasonable person would expect for the money, your remedy runs against whoever sold it to you, regardless of what the warranty card says.
The honest bottom line
Two problems on this list are permanent and unfixable: seat depth and lumbar height. Both are solved by sitting in the chair before you buy it. Everything else is either a liveable annoyance, a risk flag rather than a reported failure, or a spec you can design around by picking the right model.
We sell all three; see the range. Prices include GST as at 20 August 2026, we ship from our Sydney warehouse with 2–5 business day dispatch, shipping is not free, and there is no trial period. Returns are 30 days, unused and unopened only. Once it is out of the box and built, it is yours. That is precisely why we would rather you read this list first; and why our 30-day review is worth reading next.
Frequently asked questions
Are the loose armrests a warranty issue?
Not usually. The width adjustment is friction-based by design and shifts under light contact; five separate publications reported it. If yours will not hold any position at all, that is different, and you should contact us.
Did LiberNovo fix the armrests?
They changed them. The 2026 SE and Pro increased armrest travel from 80mm to 96mm and dropped the minimum height by 20mm. That is a response to the feedback, not a claim that the friction behaviour is gone.
Can I change the seat depth after I buy?
No. You choose 45cm or 48cm at purchase and it is fixed. There is no slider and no retrofit. Measure first.
Are LiberNovo Omni motors failing?
No documented widespread motor failures have been reported. What reviewers criticised is the two-year electronics warranty against five years on the frame, and the general risk of putting motors in a chair. That is a risk flag, not a defect report.
What happens if the battery goes flat?
Almost nothing. Recline, tilt, seat height, armrests and the dynamic backrest are mechanical and keep working. You lose powered lumbar adjustment until you recharge, which takes about three and a half hours over USB-C.
Which Omni should I buy if I don't want the electronics?
The Omni SE at $1,299, footrest included. It has no electronics at all. Nothing to charge, nothing to fail.
Is the Omni too hot for an Australian summer?
Reviewers disagree. TechRadar found it not very breathable; Stuff stayed sweat-free through a hot full workday. It is tensioned micro-linen fabric over foam, not mesh, and covers are not removable for washing. If you know you run warm, the Omni Pro adds the Active Airflow seat fan.
How much space do I need behind the chair?
More than you think. The external spine extends roughly 20cm past the backrest, so measure your clearance at full recline and add that.
