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Ask HN: Recommended Products for Home Office? – Dec 2017

23 points by PaulMest ↗ HN
My business had a good year and I have some extra budget I'd like to spend to upgrade my home office and to help reduce taxes. Any suggestions on what to spend it on?

1) Sit-to-stand desk?

2) Monitors for MacBook Pros? Boom arms?

3) Shared storage solution (e.g. a NAS with RAID 5)? What types of hard drives should I put into it?

4) ~55"-65" that I can easily use as a projector for metrics? Should I get an Apple TV? ChromeCast? Something else?

5) What are some other great gadgets to improve a home office?

8 comments

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PaulMest
Currently these are my choices...

1) Fully Jarvis sit-to-stand desk with rolling casters

2) LG 27UD88-W - 27" 4k Monitor https://www.amazon.com/LG-Electronics-27UD88-W-LED-Lit-Monit...

I was thinking about getting the LG UltraFine 5k, but it seems like there are mixed reviews on it. Hopefully Apple will come out with a better monitor in 2018 that will also charge my 15" MacBook Pro.

3) Synology 1517+ with 8GB of RAM https://www.amazon.com/Synology-DS1517-8GB-Disk-Station/dp/B... Haven't determined which hard disks yet. Will check the latest Backblaze report. https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-failure-rates-q3-2...

4) Haven't looked into a TV yet

5) Already upgraded my router and modem...

Wireless router: https://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-Nighthawk-X4S-R7800-100NAS-Co...

Cable modem: https://www.amazon.com/Next-Generation-ARRIS-SURFboard-SB820...

Blue Yeti microphone: https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Yeti-USB-Microphone-Blackout/dp/...

Considering getting a drone, too... but haven't researched that yet.

matt_the_bass
+1 for the desk. I generally stand all the time but gettin the right height is critical. The adjustable allows for that.
mcrider
The HP Envy is another great 4k monitor with USB-C and much cheaper the LG models. Getting it working with a macbook can be extremely frustrating but once you got it configured you can plug/unplug at will.
Random_Person
Drone: Get a DJI Mavic. Amazing pro-sumer drone that packs easily.
tedmiston
Philips Hue bulbs. Being able to finely control lighting and reduce glare was big for me.
hkmurakami
Big fan of monitor arms. Get separate arms rather a dual arm setup if you use multiple monitors. More range of angles available.
usaphp
I recently got this monitor arm by VIVO from amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01NH0HTM5/

It is just $29 and the quality is decent and it holds my 32 inch 4K lg monitor with no problem. There is a weight limit so check your monitor weight before you purchase, but do NOT spend more than that on a monitor stand, most of them are identical.