Herman Miller Flo Monitor Arm Review: Form Over Function
The Herman Miller Flo monitor arm is among the best-looking monitor arms you can purchase and today we will be reviewing it and mounting an LG 38BK95W-C 38” ultrawide monitor. The Flo monitor arm is made by a company called Colebrook Bosson Saunders but when Herman Miller bought the company, it became known as the Herman Miller Flo monitor arm. A Red Dot Design winner, the Flo monitor arm has a slender, metallic look and is supposedly one of the more premium monitor arms on the market. Let’s see how premium it truly is.
Unboxing & Setup
The Herman Miller/Colebrook Bosson Saunders Flo monitor arm comes in a box like this.
Here it is opened.
There are various parts including: the monitor arm, VESA plate, desk clamp, hex keys and instructions.
Our Flo monitor arm shipped with a desk clamp mount, perhaps the most common mounting method as it is the easiest and does not require permanently altering your desk.
First, we secured the clamp to our desk via the threaded screw and plastic cover which are screwed in from underneath. It seems very strange that the screw and plastic cover are separated as this is typically not the case with desk clamps. This part also usually has a handle of some kind as opposed to the hex key tightening, the Flo’s desk clamp required.
The way it works is you start screwing the threaded piece into/under the desk clamp with the included Allen key. Then put the plastic cover on top of the screw once the top portion of the screw has made it through the hole. This should really have been implemented differently and it’s frustrating because the plastic piece cannot be secured to the metal screw. You have hold it all together until you’ve made contact with your desk. However, with enough patience we were finally able to secure it.
One thing to note is the abundance of plastic on this monitor arm and desk clamp. There’s plastic on the bottom section of the clamp that rests on your desk, which we believe should have been made with soft rubber. The underside of the arm is also completely plastic.
Here it is installed. Again, the silver piece that covers most of the clamp is plastic. Really Herman Miller… yet another piece that should be metal!
After mounting the arm onto the desk clamp, we are nearly ready to mount our monitor.
First we needed to remove our LG 38” ultrawide’s stock stand. Then, remove the four screws which are preinstalled in the VESA mounting points.
Next we added the plastic VESA mounting plate to the back of our ultrawide monitor. Finally, lift the display and secure it over the end of the arm via the VESA mount.
It clicked into place and our monitor was mounted.
A few refinements later and we were done. Our monitor is 17lbs without the stand which is on the heavier end of what the standard Flo supports (19.8lbs is the limit). So, when we initially mounted it, it sagged and was nearly laying on the desk. By tightening the tension in the spring, we secured the monitor in our ideal mounting position. We also needed to tighten the flat head screw on the end piece of the arm which clicks into the VESA plate, this secured the tilting angle we wanted.
The tension points we tightened.
The final result.
Conclusion
The Herman Miller Flo monitor arm is certainly an attractive monitor arm with a minimal profile, but an otherwise excellent design is plagued by plastic. Plastic is prevalent in too many parts of this arm including the all-important desk clamp. Does it function and get the job done? Yes, but not to our standards and likely not to a consumer who wants the best possible product. Also, consider the fact that some people (like us) will be mounting $1K plus monitors on these arms. Do you really want to trust a piece of plastic with your expensive display? We certainly don’t.
Being a Red Dot Design award winner with a good reputation, we really wanted to love the Flo monitor arm. But for a $200+ mount, it should have an all metal design. It’s made in China as with so many things in today’s world and it’s obvious that cost-cutting was part of the production of this mount. If you love the design, it’s certainly worth trying but it’s not for us.