Bill of Materials (BOM) for my home office
Because Covid-19 pandemic changed deeply the way to work, home office became the defacto model, and in particular if you're in tech! Working from home is not new for me, but it's true that I've never had so many months working from home. And, when a part of your home becomes your office, it's the place where you spend most of your days... and part of nights, sometimes.
Outside of mental sanitary good practices that are mandatory in my humble opinion to sustain in the long term, I think it's important to have a place where you are pleased to go with a material that makes you performing and successful in your job. Beware, I do think it's a step by step approach, and in my case I built my setup pieces after pieces, enriching my experience based on what I was missing and browsing for feedbacks from others sharing their own setups.
Another reason to share my bill of materials is that as more and more friends or colleagues are turning remote working, and a lot of them asked me what pieces I picked!
Please note that this Bill of Material only reflects my own experience based on my own needs.
After spending days on a (too) small table, I definitively switch to an height adjustable desk. After a quick lookup to the market and reading feedbacks, I choose a standing desk frame 3-Stage Dual-Motor E5 from Flexispot. With three programmable presets, you can easily save your favorite seated, standing, and underdesk cycling heights. You can also setup convenient activity alerts to remind you to sit or stand at regular intervals, or turn the alerts off completely when necessary. After some days of practice, I mainly use two positions, a stand up position at 110 cm and a sit down position at 75 cm.
For the desktop, as I wanted something in bamboo, I choose Ikea Hilver with 140x65 cm size.
As cable management came quickly as an issue to manage, I choosed this under desk cable tray. The set contains 2 under desk organizers (40,5cm each) giving you a total of 81cm of under desk wire management space. I hung them centered with a back access. It is really spacious and strong as it holds up to 10 lb, perfect to put power strips and batteries. I succeeded to have them in white, it fits nicely with the desktop frame, also in white.
As time went by, I realised that I was getting more and more pain at the base of my neck at the end of day, because my screen was not well positioned. So, I decided to add a monitor stand riser to place it exactly at the right height. I pick the one from Navaris in bamboo from amazon for nice integration on the desktop!
My monitor is a Dell SS3221QSQ, it's a 4k/60htz 32" incurved format. I choose this one for several reasons. First, because it has 2 HDMI and 1 Display Port inputs that may allow me to have 2 computers on the same screen, and on nominal setup, the resolution allow me to have 3 active zones to work. Then because of the USB connectivity that feed my keyboard and mouse; Finally, the ratio spec / price/performance was perfect for me.
Trust me, when you spent your life on max 24" flat screen, such a one is HUGE. It took me one week to adapt myself, but it's dope right now!
Because I wanted to have a regular and constant intensity light for my video recordings or video conferences, I picked the famous Key Light Air from Elgato. Definitively, it gets your camera feed looking professional, and because I'm personnaly really sensible to light, I use it, as well, for luminotherapy session when working. It is LED based, and raise no flash sensation to your eye retina. The 3D Swivel mount moves nicely to find your perfect beam angle. The Freestanding base allow to put something on it, like USB hub if needed. Be aware that it's only working with WIFI connectivity on the 2.4Ghz band, and once paired you're able to easily manage the lumen output and the K color range. Just to conclude, I hesitated with the Key Light Model which have 2400 lumens, twice the Key Light Air, but frankly speaking it's still a very serious lighting!
As there is more and more connectivity needed on my desktop, I choose a Netgear GS305 Gigabit Ethernet unmanaged switch with 5 RJ45 ports to distribute my home fiber connection to my PC laptop, my mac and my Raspberry Pi Lab. It's full plug & play and fanless metal housing material that can be put on the desktop or wall mounted. In my configuration, I installed it under my desktop close to my cable management system. As I'm thinking to build my own Raspberry Pi Lab cluster, I'm considering to pick a POE Switch to limit the number of cables. This part is in progress!
On network cables side, I choosed Cat 7 Flat Ethernet Cable, high speed 10GB shielded (STP). I picked flat cables because they are much easier to bend on short distance.
My keyboard is a mechanical one as I love the touch of those ones. I picked an APEX 7 from Steelserie with linear and quiet red switches. It's certainly a geeky feature but I like the OLED display which act as an integrated command center for useful information. There are also up to 6 macro buttons for quick shortcuts. The keyboard frame is in aluminum alloy, heavy and stable; nothing moves on the desktop!
I also decided to choose this APEX7 because it is deliver with a magnetic wrist rest. It is link to the keyboard with a simple magnetic solution for easy and secure attachment. It is big enough for a full palm support, and have a soft touch finish, so you’re comfortable typing or coding as long as you want!
Ok, for the mouse, I picked one from the gamer space! I choosed a RoG Gladius II. The Gladius II has an advanced 12000 DPI optical sensor with Omron switches. It is super ergonomic with rubber side panels that ensure a secure and comfortable grip, and it's aesthetic with embeding a lighting system with breathing feature, like my keyboard! There are also 2 buttons on the left side to activate macros, and I choosed Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V.
As there are more and more USB peripherals to plug or to power, I choosed a D-Link DUB-H7, a 7-Port USB 2.0 Hub with seven Fast Charge USB ports. It operates without an external power supply or with the included power source to supply power to connected USB devices. This USB hub integrate a Fast Charge mode which provides an increased maximum charging current of 2.4 A to connected devices. This makes it ideal for charging power-hungry devices, such as an iPad, for example. Moreover, its compact design is ideal for travel.
After spending hours in calls or video meetings, I quickly decided to pick for an external mic with good quality for live discussions or recorded sessions.
After a quick market analysis and comments review, I decided to choose a Rode NT-USB I bought from Woodbrass. Along its good quality, the microphone comes with a microphone clamp, a tripod and a custom pop filter. On the side, you will find two rotary knobs and a connection for a headphone. The lower button allows you to adjust the volume of the headphones and using the upper button you can adjust the sound of your computer to that of the microphone.
The microphone plugs in over USB which means it does not need a microphone port and appears as a recording input for easy selection in Zoom, Webex, Google Meet or Microsoft Teams. For podcast and audio session, I use the free, cross platform and open source Audacity.
Because It was important for me to keep my desktop not too crowded, I quickly considered to add a boom arm which became essential for moving the microphone off the desktop, as well as to have it close to where I needed. I choose the Rode PSA1 which fits perfectly with my NT-USB mic.
I choose a Logitech StreamCam to deliver a better video quality experience in my zoom-like sessions and record some videos. After some weeks of use, I think that Streamcam’s main strengths are its accurate colors, 1080p60 capture rate and possibility to record in landscape or portrait mode. Be cautious that to achieve high-data throughput, it uses a USB type-C connection!
It's also worth to say that the Logitech Capture software is pretty simple and allow interesting features like auto-framing and stabilization. You can choose to record at the same time two video streams, one with your camera and another one with your screen, interesting for demo!
It's certainly an over-hyped part of the setup, but I wanted a DAC to bypass the poor one of my laptop for better sound and music quality. I decided to choose a Schiit Modi 3 as DAC and audio output for my speakers. It is powered over USB and appears as a regular output device from the OS.
I'm big fan of Schiit products. As I'm based in europe, I use the Schiit Europ online shopping site. It's currently complicated to order as there is few products availabilities and hundreds of people who want them!
The sound of the DAC is amplified by a Tangent Ampster BT II. I wanted both a hi-fi amplifier but in a compact format to put on my desk. I chose the Ampster BT II for its quality and its wide and versatile connectors: Bluetooth, Optical In, Line In, Aux In, Sub Out with 2 x 50 Watts. As for the speakers, I selected the Cabasse MC-170 which perfectly complements the audio system! Clearly, I wouldn't have put these on if I hadn't stumbled upon a very good deal.