What is your WFH setup ?
During COVID-19 lockdown, like most of you, I have been spending most of my time behind my screens (I have 3). I actually have been working from home for many years now, so lockdown didn’t really make a difference in terms of work habit for me as I already had a work routine; but I did take the opportunity to upgrade my gear. Some of my inspiration for this post comes from my friend Paul Papadimitriou’s post. I hope you can benefit from some Black Friday deals this weekend if some of the elements here inspire you.
So let’s start with the basics.
- a proper large desk. I’ve had mine from IKEA for 15+ years. Had I bought mine more recently, I would probably have gone for an electric sitting / standing desk (IKEA has a series of affordable ones in the BEKANT range).
- an ergonomic desk chair. I did quite a bit of research before I upgraded from my old IKEA chair to my current one. I found Herman Miller to be a great manufacturer. Aeron was obviously the Silicon Valley darling during the 1st bubble. The new Aeron version is a great choice, and Cosm looks great and is best if lots of different people will use it as it adapts to yoru body automatically. I went for an Embody chair that has lots of settings, and it’s only for me.
- I use a 2019 iMac (not the Pro) with a 27" 5K screen. It’s great, enough power for my daily work. The only downside is that it has only 1 USB-C bus, meaning that the data that goes to my 2 outside RAID-5 disk enclosures and screens, and TimeMachine backup disk, all share that bus, meaning it can be slower. The iMac Pro would solve this problem with 2 buses. I went for the fastest graphics card (to be future-proof for a long time — I used my previous desktop for 10 years -, and I use GPU in some of my tasks such as compressing video, and photography workflow). I also maxed it out with 128 MB with RAM for OWC (I bought the minimum RAM from Apple) so that all the apps I have on all my screens stay in memory without swapping to disk. The boot disk is a 2 TB SSD, with my local copy of Dropbox for super fast access, but my more static data go to 2 external RAID enclosures (photography, backups, videos, music, etc.).
- I connected 2 external DELL 4K U2720Q screens with a DELL MDS19 Dual Monitor stand the iMac through USB-C. No problem whatsoever with the current graphics card. I use the little Display Menu app to set the resolution for each of the 3 screens to 3200x1800 pixels (most comfortable to me) and have a really wide screen. Hence the camera is now on the right screen. In general I use the left screen for emails and reading material; the central screen for writing and taking notes on Evernote, and video communications; and the right screen for chats (all services opened there with their desktop apps, including all-day Slack with my team). I find this setup very easy to use, as everything is always on the same place and open. In addition, for example on Zoom, when someone shares a screen, I put it on the right, the face in the center, and I can still take notes on the left.
- I also upgraded my A/V setup: the iMac has a 720p camera, hence a Logitech 1080p Brio camera enhances the image, in addition to a great HDR contrast in low light. And I can put it on top of the central screen, better for video communication (than on the right on the iMac). Voice being still the most important parameter in video, I got an external mic, that I replaced with a great setup from Blue (Yeti X mic in front cardioid mode, using software to make my voice “broadcast” quality; with a Compass arm and Radius iii mount. I picked up a generic antipop). Finally, as soon as daylight (I’m next to a window) gets weaker, I use 2 Elgato Key Air lights for proper lighting.
- As I wrote in one of my previous post, I got a new USB DAC from Audioquest (Cobalt) for better sound that I connected to old generic DELL speakers . The difference is really crisp.
- Wireless rechargeable keyboard and trackpad.
I also have a MacBook Pro 16" (the large screen is nice) that I use on the other side of my apartment for morning light and to work from 2 different places during lockdown. All necessary files follow me there with Dropbox sync. I can access my RAID-5 enclosures on my internal network powered by an eero mesh network.
Finally I use now a lot the integrated scanner of my little laser printer to sign documents, send receipts, etc.
ps: I just got new progressive glasses with short range reading specs for my keyboard and medium range for the screens, with blue screen protection. Eyes matter :)
What’s your setup ?
