My ‘budget’ WFH setup
With WFH looking like it will be a reality in India for the foreseeable future, I undertook a project in July to upgrade my home office setup.
While you have no doubt seen amazing setups (here, here, and here) with standing desks, curved monitors, high end cameras, $1000 office chairs etc, I had a more modest budget.
Luckily, my employer, Razorpay, pays a WFH allowance of Rs 1500 a month and allow employees to pick up work gear such as monitors, chairs from the office which helped. I also relied on gear that I was either already using or was lying around unused.
Learn to walk….
The most important thing to get right is the ergonomics. Working on the dining table, couch, and bed left me with aches and pains and I decided to invest in an ergonomic chair.
This Featherlite Versa chair is comfortable, has good back support and the height of the chairs and arms is adjustable. It costs around Rs 8000 which is a fairly good deal.
The other thing that is important to me is a wireless ergonomic mouse as using a trackpad for long period of time hurts my wrist. Four years ago, I switched to using a wireless trackball mouse and while there is a period of adjustment, it has helped immensely and I am never switching back.
…Before you run
Next I went down to the Razorpay office to pick up a Dell Ultra sharp monitor. Having a big screen with all that extra real estate is great, easier to read text without straining. It’s also height adjustable so as recommended, I lowered it until my eyes were level with the top of the screen.
One issue is that the 13" Macbook Pro only comes with two USB ports, so at this point, I needed to get a good USB C hub. I got an Anker USB hub (Rs 2500) with power pass through which means I can charge my laptop through the hub. There were cheaper options, but reviews mentioned that they heated up on prolonged use, so I steered clear.
With an external monitor, it’s almost mandatory to get a wireless keyboard and I was able to borrow a Logitech MK 700 from a coworker. As a bonus, the keyboard connects to the same USB receiver that the wireless mouse uses using Logitech’s Unity app.
Icing on the cake
My fixed desk has a window behind it which leaks light and the tubelight is on the sides means that the video quality on Zoom is abysmal. While some enterprising folks have used their high end DSLR cameras to get amazing quality, this requires a video capture device that is either expensive or out of stock in India.
I looked at Webcams, but then happened upon a software called Camo by Reincubate. The company claims that the cameras on most modern smartphones is superior to webcams and makes software to enable them to be used for video calls.
I tried it out and the quality was better, however the image was still dark. I read that this could be improved with a ring light. I got a regular Wipro LED table lamp (Rs 1500) and it did the job quite well.
It was however annoying to have to keep attaching and removing it from the tripod. Hence, I got this phone stand with a magnetic connector that the phone snaps to and a cable to connect the phone to the USB Hub.
This setup works really well, the only annoyance is that the video cuts off anytime you get an incoming call.
At work I normally use my Shure closed earphones when I want to drown out the office noise. However using earphones for a long time can be fatiguing so I picked up my long ignored Amazon Echo and use it to play classical music which helps me focus.
Future upgrades
I think I’m mostly set for awhile, however, there are still a couple of thing I am keeping an eye out for.
I’d like to add an external microphone, the difference with the inbuilt microphone is amazing. A lot of the top rated selections (Blue Yeti 12000, AKG Lyra 9500) are built for podcasters and would be overkill for Zoom.
The budget options are currently highly priced due to the demand. Some of the newer options have an USB C connector which would enable them to be connected to phones and iPad.
The other wish I have is that Sony adds support for the RX1 to be used as a webcam through a firmware update. Second best would be if the still to be the announced iPhone that I plan to buy sports an upgraded front camera.
Final price tag
This was how much the upgrades cost me. The monitor and keyboard were free and I had a mouse and speaker that I had purchased before.
Including the cost of those items would add up to around Rs 45000 which is a lot.
So obviously, I cheated a bit on the budget, but actually could have gotten the office chair for free, but I felt it was worth investing in one of my own.
