Welcome to my ultimate* home office guide! 🤣 As someone who has been working from home for awhile now, having a productive workspace is essential. Over the past 10 years that I’ve been WFH, I’ve cobbled together this setup that enhances my workflow and helps streamline my daily routine. In this list I’ll provide a link to the product (it’s an affiliate link, I appreciate you 🥰) and the reason why I like it. Hopefully this breakdown of my gear will provide you with ideas while creating your own perfect home office environment.
- MacBook Pro (16 inch) – my company provided work station for recording/editing videos & all my non-gaming needs. This MacBook has 4 video outs, which I need for my various peripherals & monitors.
- Dell XPS 8960 (customized) – used for recording videos that need a Windows OS and gaming
- iPad Pro 12.9 – I used this for taking notes, watching tutorial videos away from my desk, reading books, and recently it’s been my lightboard!
- MacBook Pro (14 inch) – This is my personal “road laptop” which is travels better than the 16″ MacBook. If I’m just traveling to present and don’t need my work laptop, I’ll take this instead.
- ASUS monitor (24 inch) – This is my “presentation monitor”. Because ultrawide monitors can act weird with different webinar type software (looking at you, Zoom), I decided to keep a dedicated, standard resolution monitor off to the side. I also use this for secondary screen stuff (email, background music, learning videos that I don’t have to really pay attention to)
- Dell UltraSharp (34 inch) – This is my main workhorse monitor where all immediate attention items go. Great for editing videos, side-by-side coding exercises, and gaming!
- Shure SM7b mic & Elgato Low Profile Mic Arm – my company provided the Shure for me (previously I had the Blue Yeti) and I really like it. The Low Profile arm is fantastic as it doesn’t sit in frame while recording, is very unobtrusive, and swings out of the way easily when I’m not using it.
- Elgato Key Light – This is a really nice key light & honestly the 1st one that I’ve ever used. My company provided this to me for home recordings and, while I like it, I don’t think I would have spent that much money out of my own pocket for it.
- Elgato Teleprompter – I really love this thing. Easy to set up, acts as a third “monitor” when not being used as a teleprompter. Allows for eye contact during zoom/webinar/podcasts. The software to use it as a teleprompter is also simple to figure out.
- Logitech H800 headset – This is my “all day wear” headset: very light, battery lasts forever, audio on the mic is also good enough to get by if I’m having technical issues with the Shure. I use this most of the time.
- Sony WH-100XM4 headset – I use this headset for: flights, noisy conditions when I need to concentrate, hotel room recordings, really enjoying music or a good audiobook🥰
- TESmart KVM switch – Because I have so many peripherals that I want to use with BOTH my work laptop and my gaming rig, I went with a hardware KVM switch to be able to quickly flip between the two setups. This works best for me even though you need 1/3rd more cables to run everything.
- Sony ZV-E10 vlogging kit – I wanted an entry level (i.e. cheaper) mirrorless camera that could both take good pictures but also (more importantly) also be great for video. I did a bunch of research and at the time the ZV-E10 fit the bill for all of my needs.
- Sigma 16mm lens – This f/1.4 lens came highly recommended by the videography community as a great, relatively cheap lens that has several uses. Great for bokeh-styled video (that softened background effect), as well as many types of photographic styles (portrait, outdoor, etc…).
- Elgato Wave XLR – If you are using the Shure mic I have, you need an XLR mixer. This was the one provided to me by my company. I honestly don’t know enough about audio mixing to really have an opinion one way or the other about if it’s “good” or not.
- Triton Audio FetHead in-Line – Without the preamp I was getting a lot of “hissing” noise on my Shure. This is a known issues & the FetHead fixes that problem.
- I love love LOVE my Elgato Stream Deck Mk.2 – It’s very versatile & if you go to YouTube you’ll see 1000 uses for it. I use it for:
- Application switcher
- Sound effects board during livestreams
- Scene switching with OBS
- I even use it for gaming (currently it’s my Helldiver 2 stratagem caller 🤣)
- I didn’t number it, but the desk is an Uplift standing desk – I got it during the pandemic because I need to stand more (it alerts me when I’ve been sitting too long). It’s a PITA to assemble honestly but I absolutely love it.
That’s it I think? I also have my travel recording gear but I think I’ll save that for a different article😁
(* According to Chris Williams who is highly subjective, opinionated, & often wrong 🤣🤣🤣)
Thanks Chris. This is really helpful. I understand completely the need for that standard resolution monitor.