My (Meandering) Guide to VESA Monitor Mounts
As signatories of my petition are aware (more details here), e-commerce giant Amazon is currently running an unprecedented free shipping extravaganza to Israel.
For the first time in Israeli online shopping history it’s both affordable and convenient to shop directly from Amazon.com — so long as the items are marked ‘free shipping to Israel’ and are under Israel’s VAT-free import limit of $75, including shipping (necessary context: Israel is one of the world’s biggest adopters of online shopping but, traditionally, the shipping and import fees have made Amazon purchases unaffordable.)
Like many shoppers, I’ve been trying to hedge my bets with my ordering — purchasing things I think will really provide value while simultaneously attempting to save my credit card from, well, killing by bank account by a thousand Amazon orders.
Given that Amazon has wisely refused to be drawn on when the offer will conclude — thus placing the entire country in a form of protracted mental torture — I’ve been maintaining a separate ‘Amazon Israel deal’ wish list and moving $50 to $70 worth of goods into my cart every two weeks or so, purchasing roughly in order of decreasing priority and utility.
Given that — as an avid online shopper living in Israel — I have spent the best part of five years accumulating various electronics cables and sundry merchandise from Aliexpress, Ebay and Amazon UK (during forays to Ireland), there wasn’t much that I truthfully needed or was lacking.
But given my present juncture in life — as a newlywed that spends a lot of time in the home office from which I type this — I determined that two sets of product were most likely to bring me productivity and joy this holiday season.
Namely:
- Ethnic cookbooks to adorn IKEA bookshelves and help me continue my lifelong journey through the long list of underappreciated world cuisines (acquired: Nepali, Afghani, Turkish; on the wish list: Iraqi, Indonesian, Filipino; already on my shelves: Ethiopian, Syrian, Lebanese, Kurdish).
- VESA monitor mounts: Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) is the standard fitting for monitor mounts and I recently upgraded my desktop’s graphics cards to allow me to make the leap from a triple screen workstation to a five or possibly six screen display.
Why VESA Monitor Mounts Are Great
Given that, despite my best efforts, my online shopping activity is now horribly visible to both my neighbors and the postman (unlike most post in Israel, which goes to your local post office for collection, Amazon orders generally arrive to your door), I have had to come to terms with the fact that I may reasonably be classed as something of a compulsive hoarder.
The underside of my office couch is, in fact, completely occupied by currently unused VESA mounts.
These include:
- Another triple monitor mount from my last (in-house) job;
- A double monitor mount that I set up at a client’s office while I was on project for them this summer (yes, I’m a Bring Your Own Monitor Mount (BYOMM) kind of contractor);
- Another triple monitor mount which I acquired for some nebulous point in the future when I can hire an employee / assistant who I have also presumed will be interested in multi-monitor desktop computing.
My love of monitor mounts stems from the fact that — after several years of partial and (now) full-time self-employment — I have gained a deep understanding of precisely which tools I need to operate at full productivity.
It’s not a very long list:
- Fast internet — ideally 80 Mbps+;
- An abundant supply of coffee;
- My manual Turkish coffee grinder for if/when Turkish coffee cannot be procured locally / from a café;
- A desktop running Ubuntu, Debian, or another Linux distribution, in that order of preference. When travelling, my laptop will do;
- A few LED monitors on a VESA mount; two is fine, although I’ve come to enjoy three.
Some benefits of VESA mounts versus simply using the monitors on their built-in stands:
- Can swivel monitors vertically to position them in ‘document mode’ (my terminology!)
- Ergonomics; reduced neck stain.
- Drawback: once you get used to working at a properly configured workstation, it’s very hard to go back to computing with a laptop!
To the best of my knowledge, no enterprising individual has yet to come up with some kind of retractable / lightweight monitor mount that could fit in a suitcase .
But, as I have safely lugged monitors in my carry-on to connect to my laptop this is really the last frontier in me being ready to embrace the lifestyle of a true digital nomad (at which point, you know, I could travel to exotic locales bearing my cookbooks while also working there; what a win that would be).
Additionally, although I’m truthfully extremely satisfied by the triple monitor workstation I have been using for the past few years, it seems strange not to be constantly striving for improvement — particularly as four and above display workstations are no longer the sole preserve of financial analysts and day traders (that link is to /r/battlestations, which anybody interested in this topic should absolutely be following!).
Which VESA Mount Configurations Exist?
With the above in mind I recently upgrade my desktop’s graphics card to this Gigabyte card which sports three HDMI outputs, a DVI output, and one DP output — and which somehow also didn’t exceed the power requirement of my PSU.
Unrestricted from the limitations of my previous card (which sported a humble three outputs — please!), I began leafing back through my Amazon wish lists to see which mounts I could get shipped here to build out my workstation.
In the process, I realized that there are more VESA mount configurations than might be immediately apparent — and I also couldn’t find anyone that had put together a list of all the permutations currently on the market.
So, without further a-do (and in the off chance that this might be helpful to someone sizing up their options!) here’s my quick summary of all those that I found. (The amateurish ‘diagrams’ are my own and the product images were mostly sourced from Amazon.)
Single VESA Monitor Arm
Dual VESA Monitor Arm — Horizontal Configuration
Dual VESA Monitor Arm — Vertical Configuration
Triple VESA Monitor Arm — Horizontal Configuration
Triple VESA Monitor Arm — Vertical Configuration
Note: triple vertical arms seem to be a rarity. I’ve never used one, but I can imagine that there’s quite a lot of neck strain involved in trying to look at the top row of such a display. Nevertheless, a few options do exist.
Triple VESA Monitor Arm — Two Horizontal with One ‘Overhang’
This seems to be the most ‘exotic’ VESA monitor arm combination. If I wasn’t already on a triple horizontal layout I could see the overhang screen being useful to display a terminal emulator or even an inbox.
Quadruple VESA Monitor Arm — Four Horizontal
I wasn’t actually able to find a VESA arm with this configuration. In practice, however, it could be achieved by aligning two horizontal dual arms side-by-side, which I presume is what the user in the ‘real setup’ image below has done.
Quadruple VESA Monitor Arm, 3+1 Layout
Another overhang option that can commonly be found. As above, I can imagine the overhand monitor being useful for a terminal — or to permanently host an application such as Rambox.
Six Screen VESA Monitor Arm
This is the VESA mount with the most number of screens that can be sourced without having to buy from specialty ergonomic retailers. E.g., this hex mount from Amazon, which sells for more than $100.
Personally, I’d be more inclined to configure three dual vertical stands — the shipping weight for the product is listed as 10KG, and judging by the weight of my triple arm I’m not in the least surprised!
Eight Screen VESA Mount
At this level of obscenity, you’re already into buying from specialty retailers such as Ergomart.
It’s also worth pointing out that it would take a serious graphics card to power enough HD displays.
Your best bets, in this respect, are probably either buying a Maltrox card, running a dual GPU display, or choosing from one of these options helpfully compiled by MultiMonitorComputer.com.
As easy as it is to roll one’s eyes at the idea that anybody could ever need eight monitors, my fascination with this topic has shown me that there are in fact many occupations which routinely do. Among them:
- Emergency center dispatchers
- Financial analysts
- Flight dispatchers
Eight is the Limit
Eight does, however, seem to be the natural limit for how many monitors a human can comfortably scan through horizontally — just as two or three rows seems to be the limit on the vertical plane.
Concluding Words
I hope that my meandering guide to the various VESA monitor mounts on the market has made you feel bad about working in a coffee shop from a 17 inch laptop.
Jokes aside, I am an enormous fan of multi monitor workstations and desktop computing in general. I am also glad to see that the VESA mount market seems to be growing by the year and that mounts that were considered specialty products just a few years ago are now appearing in high-street technology retail stores.
My prediction, however, is actually that the trend will be for less but bigger screens as:
- Displays get larger.
- VR technology matures and alternative peripheral interfaces emerge.
- Major operating systems improve tiling window managers.
I hope my guide has been of some use and if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to get in touch!
