Home Office Ergonomics Calculator
Calculate ideal desk height, monitor distance, chair height, and keyboard position for your body measurements to prevent strain and improve comfort.
Office ergonomics is the business of fitting the workspace to the body rather than the other way around.
A bad setup shows up as:
- Neck and back pain: from monitors too high, too low, or too close
- Wrist and shoulder strain: from keyboards at the wrong height
- Eye strain and headaches: from incorrect monitor distance
- Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI): from sustained awkward postures
None of that arrives on day one, which is the problem. It builds over months, and by the time it hurts you have already trained the posture that caused it.
Key measurements, all proportional to your height:
- Chair height ≈ height × 0.25 (floor to seat pan)
- Desk height ≈ height × 0.39 (your seated elbow height, wrists level or slightly below)
- Seated eye level ≈ chair height + height × 0.45, which works out near height × 0.70
- Monitor top ≈ at or just below that eye level
- Monitor distance ≈ height × 0.35 to 0.42 (roughly arm’s length)
Eye level is the one worth building up from parts instead of guessing at a single ratio. It is the seat you are sitting on plus your sitting eye height above that seat, and for a 175 cm person it lands around 122 cm from the floor. Plenty of setup guides quote a number closer to 100 cm, which puts the top of the screen a hand’s width below where your eyes rest and produces exactly the downward gaze the whole exercise is meant to avoid.
The 20-20-20 rule for eye health: Every 20 minutes, look at something 20 feet (6 meters) away for 20 seconds. This reduces eye muscle fatigue caused by prolonged close focus.
Additional ergonomic tips:
- Keep your feet flat on the floor or use a footrest.
- Your lower back should be supported, use a lumbar cushion if needed.
- Position the keyboard so elbows are at 90° and wrists are neutral (not bent up or down).
- The monitor should be directly in front of you, not to the side.
- If using dual monitors, place the primary screen straight ahead.
- Take a short movement break every 30–60 minutes.
These are starting-point guidelines. Fine-tune based on your own comfort after a few days of use.
How we build and check this calculator
This calculator runs entirely in your browser, so the numbers you enter stay on your device. The math behind it is written by hand and tested against worked examples and standard references before the page goes live.
SuperGlobalCalculator is independently built and maintained. See how we build and verify our calculators.