I wanted to walk while I worked, without a machine taking over the room.
How the Office Walker started.
Working from home with a desk job and two little kids meant almost no time for workouts. I was moving less, and I could feel what sitting all day was doing.
Getting a walking pad changed that. I could easily hit 10,000 steps while working, and I felt more energized and more focused. But the electric models I tried were noisy and unreliable, and none of them were built to last. The high end manual ones were bulky and priced in the thousands.
So in mid 2024 I decided to build something better for myself. A quiet, compact, durable manual walking pad made for a real home office. No motor and no remote. Just movement, powered by me, and made to look like it belongs in my decor.
I still walk 10,000 steps a day on one while I work. Almost every week I find something to make a little smoother or quieter, and the next build gets it.
Johannes Kettmann, the programmer who walked his back pain away.
Johannes has written software for more than 15 years. All that sitting wrecked his back, and after COVID it got worse: a job at home, two small kids, and no time for the gym.
Walking at his standing desk was the one thing that fit into the day. He got hooked. His back pain went away, he lost 15 kg, and he still walks 3 to 4 hours a day while he works, more than 3,000 hours on a walking pad so far.
At 10,000 to 15,000 steps a day, the cheap electric pads did not last. Each one got louder within months and then broke, so he bought a pricier one, and that one broke too. After three to four years of this he bought one of the big manual machines. It was quiet, but huge, expensive, not safe with kids around, and it took over the apartment.
So he designed one for himself: small, quiet, manual, repairable, safe around children, and easy to ship without a pallet. He cut the first one on a laser cutter in a friend's workshop and walked on it until it worked. When the first Kickstarter batch sold out in five minutes, he knew he was not the only one.
The prototype that did not work is the reason this one does.
The first prototype used the same mechanical design you find in a traditional curved manual pad. It worked, but it could not be made compact enough to sit in a room people actually live in.
That limitation pushed me to build 38 prototypes and invent a new mechanical system, now patented in the US and EU, with applications in China and internationally. In early 2025 I laser cut a proof of concept in a friend's workshop, an Office Walker that actually worked, small with low noise. From there we refined it into a full size prototype that kept the quiet motion and lost the bulk. That is when I knew it was ready to show people.
Two years, 38 prototypes.
Every stage below fixed something the one before it got wrong. The dates are real, including the ones that moved.
The idea
A desk job, two small kids, and the growing sense that sitting all day was costing me something.
The first prototype
Built on the mechanics of a traditional curved manual pad. It moved well and it was far too big.
Five prototypes, tested
A new mechanism, then five more prototypes, each one fixing what the last one got wrong.
The patent application
The new mechanism was different enough to protect, so we filed our first patent application, in the EU.
Wood, then soft touch slats
The wooden model came first. Then the soft touch slat covers that made it comfortable barefoot.
Lab testing, and a space to build in
Concept devices went out for durability lab testing and production optimization, and we leased the production space.
The production setup finished
The line was built and finished, ready to make units rather than prototypes.
Product finalized
Product and testing signed off, and the final parts ordered.
The pilot run
Thirty to forty units, built and tested one by one, to break the packaging and the shipping before volume starts.
The first backer batch
The first 100 units ship to backers in the EU, to test in the real world before large scale shipping.
Wave two
The main shipping wave starts, at 250 units a month.
500 a month
Two more people join production, capacity moves to 500 units a month, and the remaining backers ship through April 2027.
The electric ones broke. The manual ones cost thousands.
Cheap electric pads are loud, draw power all day, and are landfill within a year or two once the motor gives out. The few beautiful manual ones were enormous, gym sized, and priced in the thousands.
There was nothing in between: quiet and manual, small enough for a real home, and made to last. That gap is the reason I started.
The people behind it
A small team in Berlin, with partners across the EU. When you email us, one of these people answers.
Started this from his own home in Berlin, and still walks 10k on an office walker every day.
Builds the store, the emails and the search behind it.
Makes each Office Walker by hand and tests it with Johannes at our Berlin workshop.
CAD, structural calculations, FEA and the production line setup.
Makes each Office Walker by hand and quality tests it several times before it ships.
Running the campaigns and our social media.
Our mascot, our spirit animal and our best friend.
The hard part was making it feel natural at a slow walk.
A manual pad has to move easily enough that a slow shuffle works, and hold up to being walked on every day. Getting both at once took a new mechanical system, patented in the US and EU, with applications in China and internationally, and more than a year of prototypes to make quiet and smooth.
It runs on Italian steel bearings under a wood and steel frame, and every part of it can be repaired in about 10 minutes if anything wears out. That mechanism is what the whole thing is built around.
I built it to be kept, not thrown out.
Most consumer products are designed to be replaced. I designed the opposite: wood and steel, parts you can name and order on their own, and a deck that opens with two bolts.
If yours is still doing its quiet job in 10 years, I got it right. That is the only benchmark I care about.
Every part comes off, and we send you the one that wore out.
You fit it yourself in about 10 minutes, with the tools you already have at home and a video guide for the job. If anything breaks, we ship you the part. This was designed to be repaired rather than replaced, and that is the whole point of it.
In Berlin? Come walk on one.
The workshop is open by appointment. Try the Office Walker for as long as you like, see how each one is built, and walk on the manual and electric pads we test it against. Write to us and we will send you the address and the details.
Get your name down for one.
Backers get theirs first. After that the waitlist orders, below the price the store will charge once it opens to everyone. Tens of thousands of people are already on it, so it is worth putting your name down now.