The XOOT uses Anti-Topple arms to prevent the base from toppling over when the screen is pulled forward.
These arms add complexity and cost to the XOOT design. Why use them?
In short:
Traditional monitor arms hold the screen in the air from a small clamp area at the back of the desk. The arms act like having a weight on the end of a long pole. The longer the pole, the more the weight tends to wobble at the end.
The drawing below shows an oval area under the monitor arms, this shows how far the screen cantilevers out.
The XOOT system does not extend the screen far beyond its base, see the smaller oval under the arms. Yet, Anti-Topple arms allow the screen to extend further forward than the monitor arms shown above.
The Anti-Topple arms make for a more stable screen and cover a larger area of the desk for screen placement.
Traditional monitor arms have a small clamp area at the back of the desk. This is good for freeing up desk space but it can be bad for screen stability. The drawing below shows a lever and fulcrum below the monitor arms. This demonstrates that a small force down on screen creates a large bending force at the back of the desk.
Any small bending at the base of the arms translates to large movements at the end of the arms. Thus, with traditional monitor arms screen stability is highly dependent on construction of your desktop.
Anti-Topple arms help to move the fulcrum away from the clamp at the back of the desk. A large press on the screen only generates a small lifting force at the back of the desk.
Thus, screen stability is much less dependent on a having a heavy-duty desktop.
Stands with a base tray (Like the Wacom Ergo Stand) can be moved around the desktop and extend the screen over the edge of the desk. These stands make for a stable screen because the arms only have two positions, Upright and Down. When Upright there is only a tiny cantilevered area between the base and the screen. When Down the edge of the screen is supported by the desk or the stand.
XOOT does not use a base tray because the tray takes up too much space in front of the screen. The general the configuration can be awkward, inevitably the screen seems to come down where the keyboard wants the be. This leads to a lot of busy work shuffling the keyboard and mouse around.
Anti-topple arms allow a lot more open desk space in front of the screen. The keyboard can be kept at a good ergonomic distance without the worry of the screen landing on top of it.
Note:
We’ve still not fully happy with the XOOT solution. When the screen is pulled down to the low angle it hides the keyboard under the screen. We have a couple solutions in mind… but we need to get the base product out first before testing add-on solutions.