Share your HOME WORKING workstation environment - pics

[Watchman]

rowley birkin said:

Forgive my ignorance, but why do some of you chaps need 3 screens simultaneously ? Can you give some examples please ?

I've got 5, and it's less about need, and more about how many I just had in the loft Vs how many I could actually drive.

I could work off 2 comfortably.

[Watchman]

xeny said:

Meeten-5dulx said:

I have some Bose QC35ii and they are even better, connect to the laptop via BT so allos me to move about. The only prob is that when an email comes in, it mutes any conversation for approx 3-4 secs - which is not that long in the scheme of things, but whilst having a convo, you can miss the thread of the conversation. Anyone offer suggestions? I had a look online, but the machine is loced down by admin so not sure I am able to make too many changes to it.
.

Mute notifications on the laptop, and have email set up on a phone as well (use vibrate if you don't hear it through the noise cancellation), so you get notifications, but they don't interrupt the speech?

What are you making the calls in? I've had audio notification enabled in Teams, and not noticed an interruption.

Yes, all of the above. My QCs are connected to the TV and my phone, so when I'm watching the TV I just turn off BT on the phone to stop it notifying me, as described.

[Watchman]

p1stonhead said:

Having attempted to get by for 3 months without a printer, I think I’ve finally thrown in the towel. It’s hard to go fully paperless.

So much easier to check through documents physically, read drawings etc.

Gonna get a laser jet A3 for next to my computer I think.

I hate printers. They're the one item of IT kit that always seems to go wrong without any reason behind it, and one I always fail to fix. Last time ours failed, I told my wife we're not having another and, massively unusually, she's gone along with it.

Obviously, since working from home we haven't the safety net of having one to lean-on at work, but I think we're OK now. We just expect not to have one, and use a phone if it's important to carry info around with us.

[Watchman]

Carbon Sasquatch said:

Trevatanus said:

I've upgraded

I watched the video yesterday - very impressive as I assumed the guy must be strapped in but he wasn’t ??

Got a link?

[Watchman]

Carbon Sasquatch said:

https://digg.com/video/parasailing-on-a-couch

WOW..!! Massively impressed with his landing.

[Watchman]

XJSJohn said:

I'm up to 6 monitors now. My wife has 3, my son 4 and my daughter 2. My company is providing an additional £30/month "homeworking costs" which I'm certain goes nowhere other than to the electricity company.

[Watchman]

xeny said:

Watchman said:

My company is providing an additional £30/month "homeworking costs" which I'm certain goes nowhere other than to the electricity company.

Haven't you got a PI 4 driving your setup? That at least is low power.

Say electricity is £.15/KWh

That £30 pays for 200KWh.

20 working days in a month, so 10KWh/day.

Unless you're running a small HPC cluster you should be fine.

What I'm discovering can be a surprising power hog are older CCFL backlit LCD screens, which also weren't too much fun to be near at the height of summer due to the heat given off.

Oh, I'm not seriously upset. No-one needs 6 screens but I have managed to put them all to work.

Yes, 2 of them hang off the Pi4, another off a PiZero (I am trying to get that to monitor my UPS), and the others are my laptop screen plus 2 more that it drives.

The screens are all freebies and it is almost an exercise in how to mount them - I've had a couple of mounts custom welded-up, and then I'm using my drum-rack clamps and cheap VESA plates. It's not finished yet. I'll post a pic when it is.

Edited by Watchman on Friday 21st August 09:12

[Watchman]

XJSJohn said:

Yes, I am taking the piss.. a bit.

[Watchman]

J4CKO said:

CorradoTDI said:

J4CKO said:

Sure, here you go mate,

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01MZ70QA8/ref...

Very pleased with it, dead solid and pretty easy to set up, ignore some of the negative reviews as I think some people are just a bit less handy doing stuff like that, in reality it was simple to set up.

Thanks for confirming (I thought it was that one) - ordered!

Cool, how you getting on with it ?

I bought my wife one of these. It feels as though it's a solid piece of metalwork in the hand but the desk clamp just doesn't tighten enough to stop it leaning slightly towards you. I think it'd be spot on if we drilled a 10mm hole in the desk and used the alternative mounting method. There is no cable hole in the middle of her desk so it's drill or put up with the edge clamp. She didn't want me to drill so...

Getting all three screens lined-up was easy enough although I think we're at the screw-limits on one side. I wonder if I mounted it with the hole method as mentioned it'd be fine. Suspect the slight lean is pushing it out of whack a little.

Not bad for the money.

[Watchman]

jimmyjimjim said:

Hosted telephone system support, alas. No free marching powder, but I do get to make as many free calls as I want. Which isn't many.

I did have about 80 phones down in my office at one point.

A YouTuber has a great explanation of how to use cheap VoIP phones using the free 3CX on a Raspberry Pi. It just so happens that I have boxes of redundant Polycom phones at work (a place I'm currently not allowed to go to - however) so I'm planning a multi-site set-up despite having absolutely no need for it.

Free kit is addictive.

https://youtu.be/8QyFidVcoLM

[Watchman]

paralla said:

DoubleSix said:

Was sceptical about them but had new carpets down and needed something. They are actually very good and not annoying as I thought they might be, need repositioning occasionally.... best compromise if you don’t want hard floors.

The Ikea bath mat that I use to protect my carpet needs adjusting a lot more than occasionally, it's a PITA but my other half doesn't want the guest bedroom to look like an office, I don't have a proper office chair for the same reason. I can't remember the last time we had guests and I use this every day as an office so I think I'll have to have one delivered on the quiet.

You have my sympathies. My wife thinks the same way - a guest room that was last used at Christmas, and since March has been used everyday as my office.

Still, I'm winning. I've taken over completely, to the point where there just isn't anywhere else for my IT equipment to go if I ever do go back into work.

I suppose I could propose I build an extension...

[Watchman]

illmonkey said:

The other one has draws, I need a cupboard.

Drawer. Drawers.

Sorry - in an effort at being positive, I had a look on Etsy for something that might suit your requirements as Amazon and eBay both appear to only be selling utter ste in the name of workstations at the moment, and I was equally disappointed there too.

Etsy usually has something close to what I want - although usually at a slightly uncomfortable price - but the maker/sellers there are also usually willing to make design changes to accommodate slightly different requirements. But today, nothing came up that was any combination of "workstation", "white", and/or "cupboard".

[Watchman]

illmonkey said:

That's the problem (not my spelling ), everything is ste, even the £750 units on JL or dwell etc.

Basic desk(er)s are easy to find, but you won't get a matching cupboard, so will look odd.

Suppose I'm stuck with the Ikea unit.

LOL

That Ikea desk looks too small though. The distance front to back seems tiny. I would have thought an absolute minimum distance should be 60cm. In fact, mine is 60cm and I feel it's a little tight but I stole it off my daughter (and replaced hers with a bigger one - who's the mug?) so "it's free" kind of justifies my continued use of it but if I had a choice...

When we all first went into lockdown, and I was seeking something bigger than this desk, I saw some amazing ones on Etsy but they were catastrophically expensive, to the point where I seriously considered jacking-in my job to make tables and workstations as a living instead. Back then, there were loads of different types and makers were offering to put together whatever you wanted if you would submit a design but I can't find any of that anymore.

By the way, by "catastrophically expensive", I'm talking about £1200 for an admittedly lovely steel framed, reclaimed-wooden topped large desk. Nothing fancy - no drawers, cupboard(er)s , shelves - just a plain table. Twelve hundred quid. PLUS shipping. I worked out that if I already had a welder, I could probably make one for around £100 and it'd take me a day.

Twelve hundred quid. I can still barely believe it.

But even now, at the more reasonable prices, I'm still considering turning my hand to this as an early retirement plan. It would still likely earn me a lot more than I earn today, and would be quite satisfying I think.

[Watchman]

anxious_ant said:

Carbon Sasquatch said:

DanL said:

Mine, inspired by some of the others on here. It’s now a better set up than I have at work!

I think an increasing number are falling into the category - just another consideration for going back to the office, a worse desk / monitor set up

I feel you... the only better thing as work compared to my home setup is a much bigger office. However I can really make do without.
I'm really finding the mojo now working from home, having spent quite a fortune on it.

Me too... but overall I've saved enough to justify it. Thing is, having invested the time, money and "thinking" to customise my home environment, I definitely don't want to go back into the office.

Fortunately, the company is not in a rush to have people back, recently claiming we'll likely remain at home until a vaccine is widely available, proven to work, and we've all had it.

So, to improve video conferences, I've a new camera on the way.

[Watchman]

A900ss said:

So it looks like monitors are covered well in this thread but now the evenings are drawing in, I feel my home office is too dark. What’s the recommended set up for lighting?

I defo need to upgrade and wonder if a desk lamp is enough or if I’ll also need to change my ceiling lights as well

Do you need lighting for video conferencing, or just a puddle of light on your desk?