Home Office Setup

[SPMN]

Does anyone have a nice home office setup to share? I’m in the process of redoing mine and am looking for ideas, specifically related to monitors. I have dual 17” monitors at work, which I love for productivity. I’m considering doing the same at home, or buying one of the ultra-wide or curved monitors. Has anyone regretted going ultrawide instead of having a dual monitor setup?

I don’t do any video or photo work or play games. It’s mostly for spreadsheets and email - the most stressful video task that will be required is the occasional YouTube video.

Thanks!

[Etschell]

always go dual.

i prefer it to the ultrawide for ease of scaling programs within each minitor.

[locutus49]

Sanitized of personal info.

[Art 1]

I had a very nice one for years.

[bdex75]

Kind of a mess at the moment but.




My VDI connection for work does not work with a dual monitor setup. So I just use the screen on my 15” MacBook Pro.

Looking out the front window so I can see the UPS or Amazon driver coming as to keep the puppers calm as I am always on the phone it seems.


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[mtrunner]

I work remotely full time now. When I was in the office I had dual monitors but went with a Samsung 34 inch ultra wide monitor and love it. I now prefer it over the dual monitors.

[SPMN]

Originally Posted by mtrunner

I work remotely full time now. When I was in the office I had dual monitors but went with a Samsung 34 inch ultra wide monitor and love it. I now prefer it over the dual monitors.

That's good to know. I was thinking about getting a 29" monitor, as that has the same amount of resolution as the dual 17's I have at the office, but it makes sense to go a little larger.

[OmegaJJH]

Dual monitor setup is a useful tool to have I totally agree and certainly helps with productivity.

At home, I have a 27” 5k iMac and the screen on that is phenomenal!!


Sent from my iPhone

[SPMN]

Originally Posted by locutus49

Sanitized of personal info.

I really like this desk! Does the writing surface flip to the top to become a cover?

[tritium8]

Originally Posted by locutus49

Sanitized of personal info.

That is a great looking desk. Love the floors, too.

[smak]

best of both worlds..

this in an early incarnation of my home office.. i'll snap an updated shot in a few days if this thread is still kicking around.

[77T]

Mine was dual, but was different than many. Doing work in Motorsports I can never tell when I’m going to need MacOS or Windows for different reasons.

Had the big iMac and a Lenovo Media Center side by side. But a certain cretin stole the iMac. Anyway here is the set-up sans the iMac.





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[jrs146]

I like a dual monitor as I usually have excel or another program up with a web browser at the same time. Works well.


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[breitlings]

Originally Posted by SPMN

Does anyone have a nice home office setup to share? I’m in the process of redoing mine and am looking for ideas, specifically related to monitors. I have dual 17” monitors at work, which I love for productivity. I’m considering doing the same at home, or buying one of the ultra-wide or curved monitors. Has anyone regretted going ultrawide instead of having a dual monitor setup?

I don’t do any video or photo work or play games. It’s mostly for spreadsheets and email - the most stressful video task that will be required is the occasional YouTube video.

Thanks!

I would get 3 25" monitors at 1080p or 3 28"monitors at 4k, then I would have a 50-80" 4k for presentations and video conferencing, if you use more than one application at a time, having a central monitor is great as there is one point of focus and then two support screens versus two screens. Its good to get matching monitors, and buy them all at the same time if you can. If you don't multi-task e.g. video editing, graphics, etc. big screens are nice but get high resolution.

Window management is a lot easier on multiple screens, and video conferencing is much easier with multiple screens if you are running goto meeting type of desktop sharing session.


I would set the TV in front of a conference table to the side of the workstation (some people like the top but I prefer the side). The big TV will be for watching videos, showing work, and video conferencing. I'd put a good 1080p camera on top of the 50-80" TV and depending on the room size either a microphone setup on the conference table or some of the high-end webcams have good mics.

Having a big TV overlook the conference table is a big deal more professional and projects a great image as well as it is just very effective for meetings. It's also a great place for physical meetings, and to work as well as relax.

If your computer is mission critical or you have other people come in to your office to work, (book keeper etc). I would also suggest setting up a back computer or second computer to the opposite side of the big screen, and I would have it run a different OS, so if you use Mac have a Windows 7 or Linux box, and I would do one large monitor on that if you wanted both worlds, maybe even a touchscreen large monitor.

I would route both of the computers through a AVR (there's no point in not having surround sound imho, having a center channel, being able to use the big monitor for both computers just by switching the input is very useful, I run surround sound and a set of small bose speakers depending on what I need to do) and allow you to let either computer display on the big screen. A wireless display receiver on the big screen is nice too if you have consultants or clients who want to show their vision from their computer, so for one of the inputs on an AVR an apple TV, maybe a Roku as well, but it needs to be accessible from a network a guest can use, otherwise it's not helpful.

I may have a picture of my old office setup around that depicts the aforementioned setup. Currently I am running a 3x 25" + 60" but I am thinking of going to a 75". Conference table isn't out of storage yet and the 2nd workstation isn't either.

Finally, I'd also use good GPUs for a variety of reasons, and I would disable HyperThreading at this point if you have more than 4 cores, but I guess that is a different thread.

[yooyotis]

Originally Posted by bdex75

Kind of a mess at the moment but.

My VDI connection for work does not work with a dual monitor setup. So I just use the screen on my 15” MacBook Pro.

Looking out the front window so I can see the UPS or Amazon driver coming as to keep the puppers calm as I am always on the phone it seems.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

What brand safe is that? I’m looking for one similar for my house. Thanks!


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[SPMN]

Originally Posted by breitlings

I would get 3 25" monitors at 1080p or 3 28"monitors at 4k, then I would have a 50-80" 4k for presentations and video conferencing, if you use more than one application at a time, having a central monitor is great as there is one point of focus and then two support screens versus two screens. Its good to get matching monitors, and buy them all at the same time if you can. If you don't multi-task e.g. video editing, graphics, etc. big screens are nice but get high resolution.

Window management is a lot easier on multiple screens, and video conferencing is much easier with multiple screens if you are running goto meeting type of desktop sharing session.


I would set the TV in front of a conference table to the side of the workstation (some people like the top but I prefer the side). The big TV will be for watching videos, showing work, and video conferencing. I'd put a good 1080p camera on top of the 50-80" TV and depending on the room size either a microphone setup on the conference table or some of the high-end webcams have good mics.

Having a big TV overlook the conference table is a big deal more professional and projects a great image as well as it is just very effective for meetings. It's also a great place for physical meetings, and to work as well as relax.

If your computer is mission critical or you have other people come in to your office to work, (book keeper etc). I would also suggest setting up a back computer or second computer to the opposite side of the big screen, and I would have it run a different OS, so if you use Mac have a Windows 7 or Linux box, and I would do one large monitor on that if you wanted both worlds, maybe even a touchscreen large monitor.

I would route both of the computers through a AVR (there's no point in not having surround sound imho, having a center channel, being able to use the big monitor for both computers just by switching the input is very useful, I run surround sound and a set of small bose speakers depending on what I need to do) and allow you to let either computer display on the big screen. A wireless display receiver on the big screen is nice too if you have consultants or clients who want to show their vision from their computer, so for one of the inputs on an AVR an apple TV, maybe a Roku as well, but it needs to be accessible from a network a guest can use, otherwise it's not helpful.

I may have a picture of my old office setup around that depicts the aforementioned setup. Currently I am running a 3x 25" + 60" but I am thinking of going to a 75". Conference table isn't out of storage yet and the 2nd workstation isn't either.

Finally, I'd also use good GPUs for a variety of reasons, and I would disable HyperThreading at this point if you have more than 4 cores, but I guess that is a different thread.

This sounds like an awesome setup! A little more than what I need, but awesome nonetheless. I made an offer for a 34" 3440x1440 LG on Greentoe last night. I'm kind of kicking myself now that you mentioned GoToMeeting, as I regularly use that and almost require 2-screens while giving a presentation. I may cancel that offer and find a dual 28" setup. Thanks for the detailed input!

[SPMN]

Originally Posted by 77T

Mine was dual, but was different than many. Doing work in Motorsports I can never tell when I’m going to need MacOS or Windows for different reasons.

Had the big iMac and a Lenovo Media Center side by side. But a certain cretin stole the iMac. Anyway here is the set-up sans the iMac.





Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'm sorry to hear about the iMac, but you have a beautiful setup! Thanks for sharing!

[mjclark32]

Nothing fancy, but works for me

[singe89]

Surface docking station with dual monitors. Have the same setup in my office as well so very easy to transfer back and forth. Enjoy having walking room to be able to pace while on conference calls and a TV for background noise.

[Valhala]

Originally Posted by singe89

Surface docking station with dual monitors. Have the same setup in my office as well so very easy to transfer back and forth. Enjoy having walking room to be able to pace while on conference calls and a TV for background noise.

[smak]

still waiting for a cocobolo desk but that fireplace made my web perusing day.

[696DucMon]

I went with the 34" curved and I would never go back to dual. I have duals at work but working from home I find to be more productive. I can't stand the bezels in between screens and if they are not lined up perfectly it bothers me tremendously. That all influenced my decision. I looked at 4K but the increase in resolution and not size means more text on screen but smaller unless you change the magnification. Really if you're running Win10 using the virtual desktops you can get away with one screen fairly easily. The only con to the ultrawide is it is BIG! You better have a big desk for that thing because you'll need it!

[Laszlo]

Originally Posted by 77T

Mine was dual, but was different than many. Doing work in Motorsports I can never tell when I’m going to need MacOS or Windows for different reasons.

Had the big iMac and a Lenovo Media Center side by side. But a certain cretin stole the iMac. Anyway here is the set-up sans the iMac.





Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Love it.

[ejvette]

I have 3 monitors love it !

[GED]

[donas]

Originally Posted by singe89

Surface docking station with dual monitors. Have the same setup in my office as well so very easy to transfer back and forth. Enjoy having walking room to be able to pace while on conference calls and a TV for background noise.

Shuffle board table in the office - nice