workspace upgrade

[totient]

In the Before, I almost never worked from home, because I didn't want to sink the cost of learning how to do that effectively. So of course in March and into April I spent a bunch of time -- about three weeks in all -- coming up to speed on this WFH thing and optimizing my workflow. As part of this I spent a bunch of time on the equipment. I hyper-optimize my workspaces, getting everything just so from an ergonomic perspective. But a home workspace has different needs. I need more screen real estate to put chat windows on since you can't talk to me in person. I need a good microphone, and good lighting for my webcam. So I had to redo it all. And I did it with the future in mind.

Specifically, a future with better weather than March and April. That future is now! So I hauled my setup outside. It takes three trips to carry it all.

First, the table, with the power bricks and much of the cabling. Here's the underside of the table:



Cable management is routed to allow the table to fold, so I can bring it outside. Note the adjustable legs. 2x lumber at bottom is for the legs to rest on for additional adjustment, though I didn't need it with the porch seating.

The table flipped right side up and unfolded looks like this:



Eight cable ends are visible, in three groups: power, video, and USB to the monitor (which is also a USB hub); power, video, and USB to the laptop (all on the same side of the laptop, for easy attachment); and 2x AC power to the outdoor triplex extension cord that's lurking under the couch. Note the spike marks for placement of monitor and microphone.

Two more trips, and my workspace looks something like this:



The keyboard, mouse, and phone charger cable stay plugged in to the monitor during transport and rest on its legs when I carry them. The mic plugs into the monitor and the headphones plug into that, which lets me feed back the mic into my headphones (and also gives me a real knob for the headphone volume control, in addition to the real gain knob for the mic and the real button for muting). This is more USB peripherals than this monitor can handle but fortunately it can feed plenty of power to that little hub you can just see attached to the monitor stand, so it can run in unpowered mode. There are a lot of cables here but they are all dressed and all of them except for one power brick are even color matched. No dangling cables for me.

And here I am enjoying it:



I have a great view of the bike path from here, enough shade to keep glare off my monitors, but also enough sun to be visible in a Webex call. In this shot you can see how the legs of the table fit underneath the edge of the couch, so I can get my keyboard into an ergonomic work position.

Comments

[jasra]

Nice set up!!

[rmd]

niiiiiice.

[blk]

That's lovely. How much time does setup / unsetup take? (Since I assume you don't want to leave any of that outside overnight)

[totient]

I've been leaving the table out, though probably I'd bring it in if rain were forecast. It only takes a minute to unplug everything or reattach it, and another minute or two to bring it in or take it out.

[vettecat]

Looks lovely! Just hope you have a way of sheltering quickly in case of an unexpected shower.