These Brilliant BenQ ScreenBar Lamps Are My Favorite WFH Accessory Leave a comment
I overview numerous residence workplace gear for my job, which suggests my workstation is in flux. A brand new desk in the present day, one other workplace chair tomorrow—you get the thought. The one fixed over the past three years? The BenQ ScreenBar. You might have heard of BenQ earlier than—the Taiwanese firm makes wonderful screens and projectors—however this lamp is my primary work-from-home accent.
The ScreenBar does not take up any desk area, as a result of it hangs over your pc monitor and brilliantly illuminates the desktop. It is a easy little factor, however it brings me numerous pleasure, and the corporate has been iterating on it, with the newest model being the ScreenBar Professional. I am right here to let you know that it is best to most likely get one to your residence workplace.
Let There Be Mild
The ScreenBar is available in a number of flavors: the ScreenBar, ScreenBar Halo, ScreenBar Plus, and the ScreenBar Professional. I’ve examined the unique ScreenBar and the Professional—the Halo affords a backlight that pushes gentle behind the monitor if you would like gentle in your desktop and the wall behind your pc display. The Plus is similar as the usual ScreenBar, however it has a separate dial attachment to manage the sunshine’s settings slightly than the contact controls on prime of the lamp.
You possibly can 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 gentle within the room. However what units the newest ScreenBar Professional other than its siblings is the movement sensor. Now, a couple of minutes after I depart 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 will wish to be sure 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. That mentioned, the one time I’ve observed 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 take pleasure in my OLED monitor’s wealthy blacks and deep distinction.
I’ve not had any points utilizing these on all types of screens both, together with my present curved Alienware AW322QF 32-inch curved gaming monitor. The most effective half is you do not have to make use of up a treasured 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 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 sphere of view for it to look OK. The higher answer is to simply get BenQ’s Webcam Accent. This sticks to the highest a part of the ScreenBar and you may steadiness 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 does not look unusual.
Go away No One Behind
The ScreenBar is pointless if you do not have a pc monitor at your workstation. However in case you 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. That you must 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 may plug it into your laptop computer to maintain it operating for longer (this can drain your laptop computer battery).
Nonetheless, it is a tiny little lamp on the go, good for anybody routinely typing up at midnight. The lamp comes with a carrying case, may be dimmed, and affords heat or cool shade temperatures.
All of this will sound a bit of foolish—it is only a lamp! Who cares! I do know, I do know. However the unique-looking ScreenBar sequence genuinely saves area on my already packed desktop. I additionally love gentle—I am the one who likes to have the lights on round the home whereas my spouse prefers to sit down at midnight (I discovered her cooking at midnight 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 comfortable at my workstation, particularly within the months when the skies get darkish a bit of after 4 pm.
It is little, cozy issues like this that make working from residence such a pleasure. And never having to vary into work garments. Or commute. Or pack lunch. Nicely, you get it.
