You could say that working on my home-office is one of my hobbies. I like tinkering about which tools and gadgets can help me work more productively. This can mean software, but definetly also hardware. On this page I’ll take you through all the hardware items that are part of my home-office setup and use on a daily basis to be my productive self as a business analist.
Use the links below to quickly jump to an item:
- My standing desk
- Monitors: Dell Ultrasharp U 2515H
- Mouse: Logitech MX Master 3
- Keyboard: Keychron Q5 QMK
- Microphone: Audio Technica AT2020+
- Speakers: Audio Engine A2+
- Webcam: Logitech C922 Pro Stream
- Monitor lamp: Quntis Screenlinear Pro
My standing desk
Let’s start with the most important one. My desk is by far the most important piece within my home-office setup. Being able to alternate between sitting and standing during a workday is vital.
The desk I own dates back from the pre-corona period. I have been a fan of standing desks as soon as I got a glimpse of one years back. This is how it looks:
I bought the desk at a local shop near my home in Utrecht. The desk is motorized and has a digital memory with 4 presets so that both my wife and I can use 2 presets each. It cost me around 650 euros, but it has been worth every penny!
Monitors: Dell Ultrasharp U2515H
The two monitors on the images above have served me well for a long time already. I bought the first one in 2015 and the second one in 2017. They have plenty of connectivity options and fit nicely on my dual monitor arms. I bought them back then because they were big and had a small bezel.
I have to be honest though; for a long time now I’m considering replacing these two with a single larger screen. At work we have 32 inch wide-screen monitors that I really like, so that might be my next step.
Mouse: Logitech MX Master 3
A mouse in the MX master series of Logitech that I have been using for ages. I use it at my home-office and always pack it up when I have a day at work. I started out using the earlier versions of the series and never switched to anything else. I’m hooked by the form of the mouse, it fits nicely in my hand. It has a couple of extra programmable mouse buttons, which I mostly use during MS Teams calls (mute, unmute, enable video, disable video).
I can’t state how much I like the MX Master, it’s just a brilliant mouse to work with.
Keyboard: Keychron Q5 QMK
I’m a fan of keyboards. I used to own over 5 of them, which got me raised eyebrows of my wife. Especially when I spent over 150 euros on one. But hey, what can I say. I like keyboards. And I know for a fact that some people spend way more on keyboards.
For my current setup I went for a mechanical keyboard from Keychron. The Keycron Q5 QMK keyboard has lots of options to tweak my way to being enormously productive. I can assign different keyboard layouts through their software, which can be helpful. But to be honest: I’m mostly enjoying the keyboard itself and am not using the extra options it gives me.
What I like about the keyboard is its weight of over 2,3 kg. This ensures the keyboard will never move unless I actually lift it and want to move it.
Microphone: Audio Technica AT2020+
When the corona crisis started in 2020, me and my team were asked to work from home for a couple of weeks. My home-office was in pretty good shape becuase I used to do lots of gaming (World of Warcraft was my thing), but I lacked a proper microphone. While gaming I used some randon set of earbuds, but now the situation changed to me being in MS Teams meetings all day. I didn’t want to have earbuds in my ears all day, so I bought a new microphone (and eventually; the new fancy speakers listed below)
The Audio Technica AT2020+ is the one I picked as my microphone. I wanted it to be a USB-connected microphone. It delivers quality sound, has the option to adjust its monitor and contains a audio-jack at its back. Very convenient microphone and well worth the investment.
Speakers: Audio Engine A2+
The Audio Engine A2+ speakers are one of the most recent additons to my desk setup. They look awesome, have a very crisp sound and can be connected through either a cable or Bluetooth. I’m very happy with this purchase. I also bought the stands they sit upon, so tilt the speakers up a bit.
Webcam: Logitech C922 Pro Stream
This is another one I bought during the corona crisis. Working from home got to be the standard for us. So making sure my colleagues could at least see me properly was worth it. The Logitech C922 Pro Stream neatly sits on one of my two monitors. It delivers a clear image and is adjustable in its angle whenever I move the screen around. It’s a vital piece of equipment for my home office setup.
Connectivity Hub: JSAUX Omnicase 2
This little gadget is invisible if you look at my desk, but is actually the piece of equipment in my home office setup that glues everything together. As you can read in this [blogpost] I bought this from a Kickstarter campaign. It serves as a hub to connect my two screens, microphone, webcam, network cable, keyboard and printer. All I need to do is connect one USB-C cable to it from my Macbook Pro, and I can start my day of work.
The JSAUX Omnicase 2 is a cheaper alternative to the product I have had my eyes on for a long time, the CalDigit TS4. That is one that is on my wishlist, but I find it to be way too expensive.
Monitor lamp: Quntis Screenlinear Pro
My home office is located at my attic. That means that, especially in wintertime, I don’t have a lot of natural lighting in the morning (I start work at 7am) and evening. I also have a lack of power outlets in my attic, so I had to find a way to have proper lighting without using a power outlet.
The Quntis Screenlinear Pro that I bought off Amazon has been a trusty monitor lamp that I’m using every day. It is USB-connected, has several preset lighting options and can even be set to automatically dim the light when natural lighting is sufficient. The only drawback of the product is that it’s not as sturdy as I would like it to be: moving my monitors likely means it will tumble off. Luckily I don’t touch my monitors all that much, so it’s not a big issue for me.