The IT Nerd

It’s been a couple of years since I last did an overview of my home office setup. And since then, I’ve made a fair amount of changes that I would like to cover here. Now unlike the last time where I pretty much blew up my home office and did it from scratch, this is more of an evolution. Let’s start with the cable management.

Underneath the desk I use a combination of stick on cable clips and cable raceways to keep all my cables under control. I also moved the power bar that was on the left leg of the table to underneath my table. Then I route a few small power bricks that power some items on my desk along with the power brick for a wireless charger that is built into my desk to it.

That results in the only two cables being visible. A Thunderbolt 4 cable at the top and a power cable for my desk phone at the bottom. The former is like that to accommodate the desk moving up and down as it is a standing desk. More on the desk later. I really want to do something about the white wall as I’ve repainted it a year ago and it’s looks like this. But I am still trying to work out what exactly to do.

All of the cables route down a stick on cable raceway on the right side of the desk.

Then they get bundled up and plugged into an APC BackUPS 600. In my condo, I have UPS units all over it to protect my various electronics as a UPS or Uninterruptible Power Supply will keep your gear running if there is a blackout thanks to the built in battery. Plus it will protect you from power surges (too much current) and sags (too little current) thanks to said battery. It also has a USB-A cable that connects to your computer so that if the UPS needs to shut down your computer due to a power event, it can use that cable to send that command to your computer. Though I should point out that UPS based shutdown doesn’t work on portable Macs. Which is still fine for me as it still protects my gear. The white cable is the power bar that you saw earlier. I don’t plug the power bar into the UPS as you should never do that due to the fact that it can confuse the UPS and not deliver the level of protection that it should.

On the back of my monitor stand, I am using a bunch of stick on cable clips to keep the cables under control. On top of that, there’s a USB-A hub on the back to plug all my gear that does USB 2.0 speeds into so that I can feed one cable to one of the USB-A ports on my monitor. There’s a second USB-A port on my monitor that has a memory card reader plugged into it as it runs at USB 3.0 speeds. That way all devices can run at the best speed possible. I will touch on the gear that is plugged in here in a moment.

Moving up is a Gry Mattr Three Drawer Cabinet that I got at Staples. On top of it is a plastic tray from Amazon and most of my every day carry stays in here when it’s not in my pockets. I can push it out of sight, but still have easy access to it. And as a bonus, none of these items occupy any desk space which reduces clutter on my desk. There’s a second smaller tray from Amazon which holds my AirPods Pro, the Taotronics SoundLiberty 79, and the Creative Outlier Air V3 earbuds along with the receiver for a set of over the ear headphones that I will touch on later.

On the left is an Alex drawer from Ikea. I used to have a pair of Ikea Kallax shelves with drawer inserts. but I gave one to my wife and got the Alex drawer instead. You can see the other one just to the left of the drawer unit. The Alex drawer holds more stuff, and at the same time it opens up space for this.

I now have my desk phone along with my 16″ M1 Pro MacBook Pro located here in clamshell mode. After 2 keyboard replacements under AppleCare, I didn’t really want to have a third one. Thus I have reconfigured my desk to allow me to use an external keyboard. If you look at the right corner of the MacBook Pro right next to the speaker, there’s a cable clip where I put the Thunderbolt cable that connects the MacBook Pro to my Monitor. It’s a single cable connection that supplies power and connects all my desktop gear to my monitor as the monitor acts as a USB hub for me. The MacBook Pro sits in a Ugreen Laptop Stand that I have stuck double sided tape to it as a means to ensure that it doesn’t move.

Above all of this are a pair of hooks which are attached via 3M Command Strips where I store this Panasonic headset for my desk phone on the left, and the HyperX Cloud Stinger 2 Wireless Headphones that are intended for gaming, but I will sometimes use for Zoom or Teams calls.

Now we get to what’s on top of my desk. I use the Apple Magic Keyboard With Touch ID And Numeric Keypad along with the Apple Magic Trackpad which has a decal on it to break up the all black theme that I have going on here. Even though I have been known to swap the track pad out with the Kensington Pro Fit Ergo Vertical Wireless Mouse from time to time, I keep coming back to the trackpad as I find the trackpad to be easier to use for me. I also use a generic wrist rest from Amazon to ensure that I don’t get carpal tunnel syndrome. Above that are a pair of Creative Pebble Pro Minimalist 2.0 Speakers which are plugged into the audio jack at the bottom of the monitor. You can’t see the speaker cable in this picture, but I will show you how I hid it from sight in a moment. Also on the desk is an Apple Watch charger that’s mounted to this Spigen stand that sticks to my desk without using adhesive. Besides that is an Apple MagSafe adapter that is in a Elago MagSafe Stand that also allows my iPhone to work in Standby Mode. I do have to admit that the white cables from both of those items bug me. Thus I wish that Apple would make them in black or grey to complement my dark themed setup. To the right of that is a Ugreen memory card reader that comes in handy whenever I have a need to do something with a memory card. The problem with having a black desk is that it picks up fingerprints and dust is an issue. To mitigate some of that, I got this desk mat from a Toronto company called Uncrowned Kings. It’s made of vegan leather, it doesn’t move around on the desk, feels very upscale, and best of all only cost me $21 CDN on Amazon. Unfortunately the company doesn’t seem to be around anymore.

To hide the speaker wire so it is not visible, I swapped out the stock cable from the speakers with this one which is a flat 90 degree angle cable. If I didn’t tell you that it was there, you would never have known. Which means it serves its purpose well.

On the right side of the the desk, I have a number of items. The bottom right corner has an InvisQi wireless charger which is placed under the desk so that I can charge any wireless device that I need to without having a charger take up space on my desk. Behind that, I have a holder for my pens and other items, and my Ember Mug 2 for coffee, A new addition is this desk shelf from Ikea which has everything from Apple Watch bands to random cables in it. You might note that I have a mug in the shelf. That’s the original Ember mug that I got a few years ago as I got the grey one because it holds more coffee. But I keep the black one around in case I really need a coffee fix and the grey one hasn’t been washed or is being charged. I also have a red stapler which is a bit of a shoutout to The Office along with a notebook and some coasters.

Now onto the star of the show which is my BenQ MOBIUZ EX321UX Monitor. It’s marketed as a gaming monitor, but with the fact that it can be used as an USB hub, and has really great HDR performance on top of really great colour accuracy, I bought the review unit that I was sent and have been happy ever since. Instead of using the stand that came with it, I use the Vivo Monitor Mount which takes up very little space on my desk.

On top of the monitor is the Logitech For Creators Litra Glow which acts as a key light for Zoom and Teams calls where I need to be on camera, and the Kensington W1050 Fixed Focus Wide Angle Webcam which is a very good 1080p webcam. Both of those are plugged into the USB hub behind the monitor that I showed you earlier. On top of that, I used double sided tape to mount the camera to the Litra Glow light so that it is a single unit that is easy to adjust when required.

The most important part of an office setup is the chair. And in my case, I am using  the ergoCentric tCentric Hybrid Task Chair. Now this isn’t a cheap chair as this particular one cost me $971.50 CDN when I got it. But it’s worth every penny as it is the most comfortable office chair that I have ever owned due to the broad range of adjustability that it offers. Along with the fact that when my back issues act up, I can sit in it, work comfortably and feel marginally better as it is adjusted perfectly to take the stress off my lower back. Take it from me, if there’s one item that you want to spend money on, it’s your chair. Finally there is the desk itself. This is the FlexiSpot Electric Height Adjustable Standing Desk which has the ability to raise or lower at the push of a button. That means that I can dial in my perfect position that is ergonomically correct.

The last item that I want to touch on is lighting which is taken care of via a pair of GE Cync Full Colour Direct Connect Smart Bulbs which are Matter compatible. Meaning that they work with any smart home ecosystem. I use them with Apple HomeKit and dialled in a number of settings to easily increase of decrease the amount of light that I need.

The rest of my home office has remained the same. As in the same networking gear, the same charging station, and the same pegboard from Ikea that I had in my last setup. Thus validating that this latest iteration of my home office is an evolution and not a revelation. I’m open to suggestions as to how that I can make my setup even better. If you’ve got suggestions, please leave a comment and share your thoughts.

This entry was posted on December 26, 2024 at 2:02 pm and is filed under Products. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.