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by janesvilleseo 2294 days ago
I have worked from home for nearly a decade. I guess I don’t know what I’m missing but I don’t need 1k chair. I sit at my dinning room table on a 50 dollar chair from Ashley Furniture. No problems at all. True I don’t have a desktop and use a laptop so I can take it with me to onsite meetings or move to another location like my patio, couch, or garage.

I’m not sure what I’d spend 1k on besides the machine I use to get work done on.

5 comments

For me a nice monitor is a must. I cannot be productive on a laptop for more than an hour or two. It all feels so constricting.
You can get some real nice monitors for $30 from the thrift store. I'm looking at one on my desk right now :-)
It isn't quite the thriftstore, but the last 3 batches of monitors I have gotten were all surplus or off lease.

Something like https://www.newegg.com/dell-u2412m-24/p/N82E16824260047?&qui...

I paid AU$260 for 2560x1440 27” Kogan branded displays.

And have a second hand 1920x1080 22” either side of those.

Total 4 displays for under AU$1000

I highly recommend it.

I do have a work laptop but I never use it because I hate working on the small thing(I don't like laptops that much in general). But when I work from home I use my home computer as it's really powerful(much more so than my work desktop also) and i have dual 25" monitors.
Checks price of the Pro Display XDR.
You don't need a 1k chair you just need a good ergonomic chair, that won't cause long term damage.

For me good monitor and good chair are above good PC. My PC being slow affects my employers bottom line, my chair or monitor being bad affects my health.

Monitor I guess is still habit from CRT days, when there was significant quality (measured in not damaging your eyesight) between good and average.

Which is why employer bought me 2 really good desktops, one for home and one for office.

Same. I bought a $10 stool as we had just moved (without any furniture) and I didn't want to rush into buying an office chair because I knew how important it was to get a good one. 7 years later I was still using the stool (though I added a pillow). Last year I replaced it with a dining room chair (which I had bought when my parents came to visit -- we don't actually have chairs in our house and sit on the floor, Japanese style). It's nice to occasionally sit back and rest my back, but I'm not necessarily sure that it's a good idea.

The main thing that makes the biggest difference for me is that my keyboard and monitor are at the right height. Which is to say that I have an external keyboard (elbow height) and my laptop sits upon a series of cardboard boxes so that the top of the monitor is at the same height as my eyes. I also use a trackball at elbow height that I can reach without moving anything unduly.

I've had a similar experience. I have a lightweight laptop that I carry with me to use wherever I feel most comfortable, be that at a desk (plugged into a monitor, or not), in an easy chair, on a couch, on the beach, in the woods... depends on where I feel most comfortable at the time.

For CPU intensive tasks, I've set up virtual remote desktops [1] that run on a heavy-duty machine or VPS, which I connect to over SSH or Chrome Remote Desktop. I can even connect to them using my phone in a pinch.

[1] https://github.com/kstenerud/virtual-builders/tree/master/ma...

Laptops are apparently much more ergonomical than desktops, if you use them right. I recently got treated for posture-related problems and on that occasion it was suggested to use a laptop(or similar setup) with both elbows resting on the table. So I got a cheap adjustable vesa mount for my monitor to lower and tilt it accordingly, and have had no issues since then.
Leaning your heard down Al day? My neck hurts just reading that.