Make Over Your Home Office With These Game-Changing Goods
A lot of us have been making do with ad hoc, hastily set up home offices. It’s time to give your space an intentional upgrade with some of these new products—from desktop air purifiers and dimmable lamps to under-the-desk footrests and the latest virtual tech. See it all, and much more, below.
To Your Health
Skyview Virtual Skylight
If your work-from-home setup is more cubbyhole than corner office, consider installing this 4K UHD simulated skylight to brighten your space and boost your mood. We see you raising your eyebrow, but its eight-hour playlist of serene, cloud-filled views is genuinely soothing. Just don't expect it to deliver vitamin D.
Swiss IQAir’s reputation was built on designing medical-grade air purifiers. Now the company has miniaturized its tech to create a portable, desk-friendly version that’s capable of filtering more than 99 percent of particles with whisper-quiet operation.
Like Crocs, Apple Watches straddle the line between practicality and nerdom. But even if you’ve managed to resist buying one, it might be time to think again, thanks to its latest suite of health apps, which remind you to move around, eat, and give your eyes a break when you're working.
This award-winning purifier allows you to maintain indoor air quality without sacrificing an iota of style. Though just 18.5 inches tall, the Airmega 150 (shown here in SageGreen) and its triple-layered filtration system can remove allergens, odors, and certain bacteria and viruses from a 214-square-foot-room.
From a company founded by a group of CERN scientists, this battery-operated monitor is designed to take the guesswork out of indoor air quality by detecting radon and common pollutants. Simply wave your handover the device for a visual assessment (it will glow green, yellow, or red) or download the app for detailed reports.
If you spend the better part of your day staring at screens, your eyes could likely use a break from blue light, the color on the visible spectrum that can cause eye strain and disrupt our circadian rhythms. Barcelona-based Barner’s lenses (available with or without a prescription) are designed to block 100 percent of blue light and come in frames that lean more chic than geek.
Taking a Netflix break? Add a set of these light strips around the back of your television. They’ll automatically sync with whatever is on display, extending colors onto the walls for a cinematic experience that helps reduce eye strain after a day already spent staring at a monitor.
French designer Pierre Charpin’s modern update of the classic Luxo Jr. task lamp hides the springs and adds a touch-dimmable LED light while retain-ing the charming personality of the original.
The ideal task lamp is bright and dimmable, easily adjustable, and unobtrusive. The aluminum-built Muuto Leaf (shown here in Copper Brown) is all of these things and glows with personality, combining sleek Scandinavian design with an adjustable LED.
Designer Ilse Crawford’s interpretation of the library lamp looks like it was cut out of the center of Apple’s headquarters. But this table lamp is precisely tuned to glow at 2700K—the perfect color temperature for work or reading at night without disrupting sleep patterns.
These triangle- and hexagon-shaped modules from Nanoleaf allow you to build light-up mosaics on your walls. Designed to snap together into myriad configurations, the panels change colors when activated by voice, touch, music, or app, adding instant pizazz to your home office.
If you share a work surface, the library-inspired Juniper Thin Shared Task LED Lamp provides an equitable source of light from overhead, offering customizable lengths, finishes, and light temperatures.
Unlike traditional desk lamps, the BenQ ScreenBar Plus clips to the top of your monitor to illuminate your workspace while freeing up surface area. Its position cuts down on screen glare, while an ambient light sensor automatically adjusts output to optimal brightness, and a dial allows you to manually fine-tune color temperature.
Lighting is everything when you want to look your best on camera. Elgato’s new compact LED lamp illuminates features evenly for video conferencing—but not so intensely that you feel like you’re staring into the sun. It’s easy to adjust, too, with brightness and color temperature controlled wirelessly by mobile or desktop app.
Everything in Place
Poketo Reminder Stickers
Sometimes a tactile reminder is worth 1,000 calendar invites. These 186 colorful stickers make the case for analog organization, not only as a break from the digital world, but for slowing down and sorting through priorities with a well-designed system.
The Perch collection of shelves, containers, and dry-erase boards attaches magnetically onto wall plates, turning any vertical surface into an opportunity to organize.
If you’ve ever reached for a charging cable only to find it in knots on the floor, you’ll appreciate this ingenious doodad from designer Benjamin Hubert. The tangle-free cable has a loop to keep it hitched to its weighted desktop dock, always at the ready.
Knoll’s compact wheeled office cart is designed to go wherever you need organization. A notch in the top tray makes charging cords accessible for mobile devices or laptops, and a removable bin at the bottom hides clutter or makes for a handy desktop file tray.
Anyone who works from home on two computer monitors knows what a pain in the neck the configuration can be—from all the head-turning and from all the desk clutter. Grovemade’s roomy hardwood desk shelf (shown here in maple) elevates your setup, keeping your eyes at an optimal level and your stuff out of sight.
California-based Nomad is known for its handsome and fast-working line of wireless chargers, and the Base Station Stand is no exception. Accented with leather, it offers a soft spot for a mobile device to sit back on while dual 10-watt coils provide a quick refuel.
The Copenhagen Office Cabinet delivers an all-in-one solution for home offices where space is at a premium. This versatile cabinet, clocking in at just under three feet tall and three feet wide, offers a pull-out desk top and a duo of drawers. You can also request custom finishes (ranging from cherry veneer to sage-colored MDF) to suit your decor.
Leave it to the work-place gurus at Steelcase to introduce a powerstrip that is as useful as it is attractive. Available in 12 colors and 12 configurations (including USB-A, USB-C, and standard power outlets), this powerstrip easily clamps to your work surface.
Sit and Stand
Humanscale Ergoiq
The ergonomics experts at Humanscale developed this 10-minute online self-assessment tool to help people improve their work areas. It uses a scoring system to suggest easy-to-understand improvements, customized to your office setup.
Inspired by origami, this flat-packed laptop stand unfolds into five possible configurations—one for standing and four optimized for seated work. It’s strong enough to hold up to 22 pounds.
What do you get when a furnishings juggernaut teams up with a leading manufacturer of gaming gear? You get an ergonomic chair that literally has your back at work and at play. It features customized spinal support (with design input from 30 physicians and PhDs) and cooling foam to dissipate heat. Game on.
Prop up your feet and take some pressure off the back of your thighs with this 100 percent recyclable expanded polypropylene foam footrest from Steelcase. At just three pounds, it's light enough to carry wherever it's needed.
This spare, wall-mounted desk, designed by KeijiAshizawa, doubles as a shelf or counter. Despite the Rail Desk’s light weight and minimal profile, its 17.7-inch depth is more than sufficient to accommodate a laptop or even a small book collection—perfect for small space dwellers.
Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec designed HAY’s Copenhague 10 Desk to survive the wear-and-tear of a university setting. Topped with a newly developed nanotech linoleum, the desk is resistant to fingerprints and easy to wipe down.
Whether you’re a chronic slumper or a victim of the work-from-home "tech neck," the Upright Go 2 promises to coach you to better posture. Simply attach a rechargeable, two-inch sensor to your upper back with the included adhesive strip (it's also compatible with a stick-free lanyard), and it will gently vibrate to prompt you to straighten up.
If you want to alternate between sitting and being on your feet while working but balk at the idea of investing in a standing desk, Humanscale will meet you halfway with its sleek QuickStand riser. The portable design comes in three configurations, perfect for one laptop or up to two monitors.
Being Here and There
Kids Creative Agency | Miss the Office
Admit it—you miss water cooler chatter. Fortunately, Berlin-based Kids Creative Agency has introduced the next best thing, a device that emits an aural facsimile of office sounds to convincingly reproduce the buzz of the workplace. It might not include the day’s gossip, but it’s effective white noise nonetheless.
Logitech’s premium wireless mouse is designed to provide performance and support on virtually any surface. Coders will love the electromagnetic wheel’s super-precise, super-fast scroll (it can stop on a single pixel, according to Logitech), while design-savvy users will appreciate the weight of its machined-steel components.
Lightweight, hi-res, and affordable, this second-iteration VR headset seems ready for mainstream prime time. But it’s the soon-to-come virtual reality office space that may prove to be its killer app.
We may soon be saying farewell to the Intel-powered era, but the iMac’s crystal-clear 5K resolution display and minimal footprint still makes it the best all-in-one desktop solution for most people.
They may look like oversized marshmallows, but the sweetest feature of these dual-band devices is a simplified Wi-Fi mesh network setup that results in stronger signals beamed into every corner of the home, letting you stream multiple ultra-HD videos at once and connect up to 200 devices.
Calls and music sound crystal clear when you’re wearing these streamlined headphones from Microsoft. But what many will most appreciate is their magical ability to filter out ambient sounds (and housemates) with 13 levels of noise cancellation.
Product selection by Gregory Han.
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