Lumina Desk – digital desk for health and productivity (getlumina.com)
Last January, we founded Lumina with the mission of building the next-generation workspace.
We started off by launching a product called the Lumina Webcam, essentially a modern webcam that uses software to make you look good.
Building hardware is hard, and it’s been no different for us. We ran an Indiegogo campaign in September that raised ~$700k, scrambled to figure out hardware production (encountering every obstacle you can imagine - customs, supplier issues, parts incompatibilities), and chewed through enough glass in order to start shipping in December. But between then and now, we’ve scaled up production and have gotten some great customer feedback.
Next: we’re building the desk. We set out to rethink this centuries-old product and figure out how to make it into a more useful, productivity enhancing tool.
To start, we’re viewing the desk as a digital device, not just a mechanical one. Your desk could be an extension of your digital workspace; a complement to your phone and computer.
So we’re designing the Lumina Desk to have an embedded display. The thought is: from your desk, you’ll be able to check your calendar, receive call and chat notifications, and more. Or you can install (or build your own) apps to further customize it.
Think of the browser tabs that you keep open to occasionally glance at – the ones with dashboards or calendars or news feeds. These can now be in your desk, playing a role similar to a paper calendar or newspaper, but now in a seamlessly digital format.
With a digital desk, it can also play an active role in your health. Like a way to schedule times to sit or stand, or sensors that detect ergonomic input, or an in-desk dashboard that shows you your health stats.
Finally, we surveyed all the desks on the market and were surprised that few of them had the core fundamentals people want. How many desks have enough cable storage to hide all your cables? Enough usb and 110v sockets to power your workstation? Enough wireless charging space to charge all your wireless devices? These features should be tablestakes for any professional desk.
We’re in the early days of the desk, and there’s still room to shape the development of the product. If you have ideas on how we make the ultimate workspace, reach out and let us know. If you might be interested in building apps, we’d love to talk to you about building our first few apps.
Thanks so much for reading this. There’s a ton of work to be done, and your early support means a lot to us.
85 comments
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 147 ms ] threadI hope it finds a market of folks who do need that kind of glance-able info, though. Very cool!
https://lumina-desktop.org/
its a mess, even my Qi wireless charger HAS A CABLE.
honestly this might save my marriage.
"if you can read this you are bending your neck too much"
Without specific dimensions for the display its hard to figure out how big, and where the display actually sits. There's not much room between the legs of my monitor stand, and the top of my keyboard, and even less so with a desk mat.
Also I couldn't quite tell if the desk's display can be touched or not, though I imagine it would make no sense to make it a touch screen.
we want users to build their own "daily dashboards" using desk widgets
stuff you normally keep open, or glance at (chat msgs, calendar events, weather, email) but don't actively stare at (medium, code)
The display concept... As someone in physical therapy for neck strain, I have my doubts about putting a bunch of information in the plane of the desk itself. Also, I put stuff on my desk.
One thing that might make me excited is if the desk were to have a handwriting system that rivaled paper. Just dreaming here but if it could easily be trained to recognize my handwriting so that all my handwritten notes became searchable.... well that would be futuristic indeed.
P.S. definitely going to purchase the webcam!
Personally, I'm surprised that showing more information is frequently correlated with an _increase_ in productivity. I see many 'inspiration' setups with multiple screens, often taken up by a single app like Twitter or Spotify, and they feel like distractions, not productivity boosts.
It seems like this would be used as a more embedded version of a second screen, which I gave up on because its main purpose was to take my attention away from what was on my main screen (I recognize there are times when side-by-side screens are helpful, just not that often for me).
[1] https://desk.haus/products/apex-pro-2?variant=39436448366741
I have the Fully "extended range" model, maybe 6" from the top height.
The Lumina team could consider this modification to add stability if that is an issue in their product’s usability.
Raise your desk way up and give it a nudge - watch the monitor jiggle
Are there actually people who manage to keep their desk empty enough for these screens to be visible? Mine's got an ever-shifting pile of reference books, notebooks and keepsakes right where those are sitting. If I clean it off this stuff will accumulate again rapidly.
Not having even a rough price is rather annoying, though. I'd rather not give up my contact information and reserve a desk just to find out it's like $40,000 or something.
Good luck!!
What's the developer platform for the desk going to look like? Seems it works for both Mac and PC, but what OS is the desk itself running? Or is it just acting as an external monitor? If so, whats the developer interface look like?
Also, having worked in the space, it seems like you're missing some key features of enterprise workstations - chief among them is supporting monitor arms for external monitors.
I really do hate to seem so negative about something that does seem quite cool, but I feel that in general, there's a kind of addictive, porny aspect to productivity and workspace hacking type stuff, whereby people spend an inordinate amount of time and energy trying to optimize things that really are the least in need of optimization. Weather? Available at a glance on all my devices which I'm always near. Stocks? Don't wanna see 'em, but if I did, also available at a glance. Ditto for tasks as I mentioned above.
In fact, it seems to me that my desk is one of the few, physical, tactile pieces of "equipment" in my workspace that is free from any digital interference and I'd much prefer to keep it that way.
It's just very hard for me to imagine how I don't _lose_ rather than gain focus or productivity by sticking more information in my face while I'm working.
Am I missing something?
Still, congrats on a very sharp looking product launch (is it launched?)!
I don't get it either but I can at least see the appeal.
My todo lists are always pen/paper because digital ones do not work for me. I get that there are people that use digital task lists and work well with them. I like having a desktop I can write on or not worry about spilling drinks on too.
I just got a sit/stand desk and have been watching various youtube videos on desk accessories and there is a whole category of what I would call desk porn - amazing looking, beautiful setups, tidy wires, special lighting, etc. that are just impractical from a daily need to do work perspective. They seem staged for the sole purpose of taking fancy pictures of them. This desk looks geared for people that want to mimic those desk setups. I'll stick to my post-it notes here and there, notebooks, real books, toys, etc. littered across my desk.
Yeah, exactly. And well said. It's like, I'll look at such products and think "wow!", but simultaneously I'm thinking "this is the exact opposite of the type of setup that someone who is serious about focusing on their work would want."
examples: * if you in ops or management, and are in comm mode daily, need calls / messages with your team, this keeps you hooked up to everything going on. * if you are in engineering or research, and want to go into deep focus, you can use the widgets for things like code, logs, a lofi playlist, etc. * if you're a degen trader, you can also load up 5 twitter widgets and a stonk chart.
sure if the engineer used a degen trader dashboard, it would be counter productive. Google can't stop me from opening reddit / youtube on my browser, I don't blame them for making me less productive.
One problem I've noticed is that with my adjustable desk (Jarvis) I found that following guides on "proper pose" the correct height of my desk is 26 inches when sitting down (and I'm not short), while this has a minimum height of 30 inches.
Are you planning to add an extended range option?
It's a cool idea, but huge swaths of the population won't find this ergonomic as it is currently.