I assessment a variety of house workplace gear for my job, which suggests my workstation is in flux. A brand new desk at this time, one other office chair tomorrow—you get the concept. The one fixed over the past three years? The BenQ ScreenBar. You’ll have heard of BenQ earlier than—the Taiwanese firm makes excellent monitors and projectors—however this lamp is my primary work-from-home accent.
The ScreenBar would not take up any desk house, as a result of it hangs over your laptop monitor and brilliantly illuminates the desktop. It is a easy little factor, however it brings me a variety of pleasure, and the corporate has been iterating on it, with the most recent model being the ScreenBar Professional. I am right here to inform you that you must in all probability get one on your home office.
Let There Be Mild
The ScreenBar is available in a couple of flavors: the ScreenBar, ScreenBar Halo, ScreenBar Plus, and the ScreenBar Pro. I’ve examined the unique ScreenBar and the Professional—the Halo affords a backlight that pushes mild behind the monitor if you would like mild in your desktop and the wall behind your laptop display. The Plus is similar as the usual ScreenBar, however it has a separate dial attachment to manage the sunshine’s settings relatively than the contact controls on prime of the lamp.
You may configure these lamps to your preferences by altering the colour temperature and brightness and even toggling on an auto-brightness operate in order that it matches the ambient mild within the room. However what units the most recent ScreenBar Professional other than its siblings is the movement sensor. Now, a couple of minutes after I go away my desk, the ScreenBar Professional turns off. After I come again, it lights up my desktop—it is as if it is booting up my battle station. Rad.
These ScreenBar lights are designed to have minimal bleed in order that these LEDs do not blast your eyes, although you may need to be sure your monitor is at eye degree to keep away from them. There’s additionally not a ton of sunshine bleeding on the monitor display. That stated, the one time I’ve seen a glare on the display is once I’m watching something with darkish content material, like a moody online game or a film. That is once I flip off the ScreenBar to get pleasure from my OLED monitor’s wealthy blacks and deep distinction.
I’ve not had any points utilizing these on all types of displays both, together with my present curved Alienware AW322QF 32-inch curved gaming monitor. One of the best half is you do not have to make use of up a valuable USB-A slot in your PC or laptop computer to maintain the lights on—I simply plug the ScreenBar instantly into my monitor’s USB port for energy. It makes the cable neat too.
So the place do you place a webcam when you have a ScreenBar on prime of a monitor? Nicely, I used to have my webcam barely off-center, however it took some finagling and software program changes to the sector of view for it to look OK. The higher answer is to simply get BenQ’s Webcam Accessory. This sticks to the highest a part of the ScreenBar and you’ll stability your webcam on prime. It does put the webcam fairly excessive, however I used to be capable of angle my MX Brio properly in order that it would not look unusual.
Depart No One Behind
The ScreenBar is pointless if you do not have a pc monitor at your workstation. However if you happen to completely work off of a laptop computer, BenQ hasn’t forgotten about you! Final yr, I examined the LaptopBar, which mounts on the again of a laptop computer display to light up the keyboard and work space for these late nights on the workplace.
There are some trade-offs on this model although. You could stick a magnetic adhesive to the again of your laptop computer, which is how the LaptopBar stays affixed. When you do not have the LaptopBar hooked up, there is a everlasting magnetic circle on the outside, which does not look nice. The LaptopBar can also be battery-powered and may final round two hours at full brightness, however you possibly can plug it into your laptop computer to maintain it working for longer (this may drain your laptop computer battery).
Nonetheless, it is a tiny little lamp on the go, excellent for anybody routinely typing up at nighttime. The lamp comes with a carrying case, might be dimmed, and affords heat or cool colour temperatures.
All of this will sound somewhat foolish—it is only a lamp! Who cares! I do know, I do know. However the unique-looking ScreenBar collection genuinely saves house on my already packed desktop. I additionally love mild—I am the one who likes to have the lights on round the home whereas my spouse prefers to sit down at nighttime (I discovered her cooking at nighttime as soon as, which is simply bonkers to me). So blasting my desktop with as a lot mild as I need makes me really feel blissful at my workstation, particularly within the months when the skies get darkish somewhat after 4 pm.
It is little, comfortable issues like this that make working from house such a pleasure. And never having to vary into work garments. Or commute. Or pack lunch. Nicely, you get it.
