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A Motorized Extendable Couch

Rig Studio's Benjamin Sofa

By Rain Noe - July 24

in Furniture Design

Have you ever wished you had a couch that needed to be plugged in? This Benjamin Sofa, by furniture brand Rig Studio, features a user-adjustable seat depth.

By default it's at 55cm (21.7"), which you can extend to 105cm (41.3"). There's a motorized mechanism inside, and you operate it with a remote control.

My question, as always with these types of products, is who do you call when it breaks? (The China-based company doesn't list any repair options on their website.) As you can see above, each section is motorized separately, so there's a fair bit going on inside.

The sofa is offered in no less than nine different widths. The smallest, at 152cm (60") wide, runs $2,340. Their largest is 360cm (142") wide and rings in at $4,885. Shipping not included.

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Sandro Barbosa

4 months ago

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Extended seat sofas are really common in Europe. In spain in particular, this type of sofa is THE standard sofa everyone buys.
https://www.ikea.com/es/en/p/eskilstuna-3-seat-sofa-with-chaise-longue-hillared-anthracite-s59520193/
Motorized versions are also fairly widespread, mostly in countries like Italy or Germany. From a user point-of-view, having an electric motor is just added trouble. You need to have the sofa connected to a power source; motors are usually slow, taking several seconds until fully opened\closed; are more expensive, and obviously more prone to fail.

This chinese version is a little different though, because the extension folds downwards. This allows the back of the sofa to be less deep, which can be nice in terms of proportions.

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Ben Blackhall

4 months ago

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Appeals to me, but I am biased towards electronics and motors....

Like you say claiming warranty could be hard. Though one of the easiest and cheapest ways to do this sort of thing is to use linear actuators, they're often of a relatively standard design and are easy to wire and low voltage - so would be user repairable (or by an electrician).
12v power supply, a couple of wires to the motors and a switch to engage and set the direction to move.

They can be slow though, slower than pictured. Wouldn't be the first time a company slightly speeds up their marketing video ;) There are faster similar alternatives though.

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