I overview numerous residence workplace gear for my job, which implies my workstation is in flux. A brand new desk at the moment, one other workplace chair tomorrow—you get the concept. The one fixed over the past three years? The BenQ ScreenBar. You might have heard of BenQ earlier than—the Taiwanese firm makes wonderful displays 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’s a easy little factor, nevertheless it brings me numerous pleasure, and the corporate has been iterating on it, with the most recent model being the ScreenBar Pro. I’m right here to let you know that it’s best to most likely get one in your residence workplace.
Let There Be Light
The ScreenBar is available in just a few flavors: the ScreenBar, ScreenBar Halo, ScreenBar Plus, and the ScreenBar Pro. I’ve examined the unique ScreenBar and the Pro—the Halo gives a backlight that pushes gentle behind the monitor if you’d like gentle in your desktop and the wall behind your laptop display screen. The Plus is identical as the usual ScreenBar, nevertheless it has a separate dial attachment to manage the sunshine’s settings slightly than the contact controls on high of the lamp.
You can configure these lamps to your preferences by altering the colour temperature and brightness and even toggling on an auto-brightness perform in order that it matches the ambient gentle within the room. But what units the most recent ScreenBar Pro aside from its siblings is the movement sensor. Now, a couple of minutes after I go away my desk, the ScreenBar Pro turns off. When 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 will wish to be certain that your monitor is at eye stage to keep away from them. There’s additionally not a ton of sunshine bleeding on the monitor display screen. That stated, the one time I’ve seen a glare on the display screen is when I’m watching something with darkish content material, like a moody online game or a film. That’s once I flip off the ScreenBar to take pleasure in my OLED monitor’s wealthy blacks and deep distinction.
I’ve not had any points utilizing these on every kind of displays both, together with my present curved Alienware AW322QF 32-inch curved gaming monitor. The better part 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 immediately into my monitor’s USB port for energy. It makes the cable neat too.
So the place do you place a webcam in case you have a ScreenBar on high of a monitor? Well, I used to have my webcam barely off-center, nevertheless it took some finagling and software program changes to the sector of view for it to look OK. The higher answer is to only get BenQ’s Webcam Accessory. This sticks to the highest a part of the ScreenBar and you’ll steadiness your webcam on high. 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.
Leave No One Behind
The ScreenBar is pointless if you do not have a pc monitor at your workstation. But in the event you completely work off of a laptop computer, BenQ hasn’t forgotten about you! Last yr, I examined the LaptopBar, which mounts on the again of a laptop computer display screen 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 want to stay a magnetic adhesive to the again of your laptop computer, which is how the LaptopBar stays affixed. When you do not have the LaptopBar connected, there is a everlasting magnetic circle on the outside, which does not look nice. The LaptopBar can also be battery-powered and might final round two hours at full brightness, however you’ll be able to plug it into your laptop computer to maintain it operating for longer (this can drain your laptop computer battery).
Still, it is a tiny little lamp on the go, excellent for anybody routinely typing up at the hours of darkness. The lamp comes with a carrying case, will be dimmed, and gives heat or cool shade temperatures.
All of this could sound a bit of foolish—it is only a lamp! Who cares! I do know, I do know. But the unique-looking ScreenBar collection genuinely saves house on my already packed desktop. I additionally love gentle—I’m the one who likes to have the lights on round the home whereas my spouse prefers to sit down at the hours of darkness (I discovered her cooking at the hours of darkness as soon as, which is simply bonkers to me). So blasting my desktop with as a lot gentle as I need makes me really feel blissful at my workstation, particularly within the months when the skies get darkish a bit of after 4 pm.
It’s little, comfortable issues like this that make working from residence such a pleasure. And not having to vary into work garments. Or commute. Or pack lunch. Well, you get it.
