Top Tech for Your Home Office

The space you work in can have a massive impact on the quality of work you produce. Chances are, if you’re self-employed, you have a home office. Today we’re looking at the best tech and gadgets on the market that will help you work more productively, more happily and more geekily!

 

 

Bigger is better

Tiny laptop screens are actually really bad for your vision and posture; hunched over a desk for 8 hours a day is never going to be good. And if working on computers for hours at a time wasn’t bad enough for your eyes, doing so with a small screen is absolutely awful!

Whether you’re team laptop or team desktop, a bigger view is always a welcome change in the office. And since dual screens are sooooooo 2013, we’ve been checking our ‘ultrawide’ screens!

They’re high res, some are even curved (ohhh!), and they will help you if you work on several programmes at a time, which let’s face it, we all do! Even if you just want sight of your Twitter feed or Spotify while you crack on with the task at hand, ultrawide screens are great.

Here’s three of our favourites:

 

• Spend a little

The LG Ultrawide IPS monitor comes in 3 sizes. 25” from around £160, 29” from around £260 and 34” from around £400

 

• Spend a little more

 

The Samsung 34” Curved LED monitor with speakers for around £730.

 

• Spend a lot

 

The curved LG 38” IPS monitor with adjustable height and Bluetooth speakers comes in at around £1,300

 

 

Are you sitting comfortably?

…well maybe you shouldn’t be! Sitting all day every day is terrible for your health and your productivity, plus the bad posture! If you absolutely have to sit, make sure you invest in a very good office chair with lumbar support and adjustable everything!

If you’re open to the standing desk trend, then we have found some gems for you! The best choice is always going to be the adjustable desk. If you’re planning on standing more throughout the day, you need to start with just a few hours and then build up your standing time gradually.

Here are our recommendations:

 

• Spend a little

 

The Lavolta folding laptop table is brilliant for those who use a laptop all day, it adjusts in so many ways and folds up small so it’s fully portable. Turn any desk into a standing desk with this neat solution. Available in a variety of styles and colours from around £23.

 

• Spend a little more

 

The Ergotron WorkFit Sit-Stand Workstation is a great solution for those who use a desktop and want to stand or sit without throwing out their current desk completely. It ships fully assembled too, so no flat-pack nightmare with this new piece of office furniture! Price £666.

 

• Spend a lot

 

If you’re looking for the ultimate solution, you need to take a look at AJ Products’ Adeptus II Ergo Desk. It’s an electric adjustable height corner desk that will provide you with a large workspace all on one level. Coming in at £1,149 it’s expensive, but a great investment too.

 

 

Lighten up!

Light is so important in your office. Harsh light + late-night deadline rush = confused circadian rhythm, which means you’ll mess up your sleep and productivity. On the other hand, don’t light your office and you’ll likely strain your eyes too much.

Get it right with the latest in lighting tech. We’ve picked out some of our favourite flexible office lighting solutions here:

 

• Spend a little

 

This TaoTronics LED Desk Lamp with a USB charging port is a nifty little desk gadget for your office. With 4 lighting levels it can be adjusted to suit your activity and time of day. It will also double as a phone-charging device and even has an auto-off timer. At around £30 it’s not going to break the bank.

 

• Spend a little more

 

The unusual design of the BenQ LED Desk Lamp’s purpose is to deliver more lighting coverage. With flicker-free illumination and a wide variety of lighting colours, this lamp is suitable for all working conditions. It even has an e-reading mode in which it will detect ambient light and adjust itself for optimum screen viewing light! At £179 it comes in a variety of colours, it’s not cheap, but the good quality if you like your lamps!

 

• Spend a lot

 

If you’re super-keen on getting the best lamp out there, it’s going to be pricy! We’ve picked out this Amorea LED Lamp that focuses on eye health primarily. It’s a no strobe lamp, which can be important for those with certain health conditions or light sensitivities. Selling at £1,199, it’s still a great buy if other desk lamps give you headaches, eyestrain or if you’re sensitive to artificial light.