Technology to Step Up Your Home Office

SAVANNAH, Ga. (WTOC) - Working from home can prove challenging for many people who are used to an office setting.

There can often be a technology gap between your typical workspace and your living room. Nicholas De Leon, a senior reporter with “Consumer Reports” says if you’re on a tight budget, a laptop and router are two pieces of technology that can make a big difference without breaking the bank.

“You don’t need to spend a ton of money on a laptop to be totally honest. And your router, depending on IHP, and that’s a little more location dependent, but a good wireless router can save you like a million headaches from you know bad wifi, the connection slowing down, and especially nowadays when people are all cooped up, and they’ve got kids running around and streaming Netfli,x and everyone’s playing video games," De Leon said. "But whatever your ISP gives you is probably not very good in our tests. So literally just walking into a Walmart or a Best Buy and buying almost anything off the shelf will be a dramatic improvement over what the standard equipment that you get is.”

De Leon says that with a few simple changes, you can also make working at home more comfortable.

“What might not be a bad investment either would be a separate keyboard, because laptops inherently are just kind of not the most ergonomic devices out there. You’re kind of like crunched over the screen and if you’re doing that you know eight, nine hours a day like a lot of folks, it’s really not comfortable. Especially when you’re working from home and you’re probably working from a kitchen table. These are not like environments designed for work," De Leon said. “Those, you could get for like 20, 30 dollars. And a mouse as well, just because you don’t want your hands crunched over the keyboard all day every day.”

You can also make some simple, free upgrades with objects you have laying around your home.

“I would imagine that a lot of folks are just kind of working at kitchen tables and things like that, and those are fine but they’re not designed for work." "If you don’t want to buy a new chair, just to put like a cushion or a mattress or like a pillow on the chair to raise yourself a little bit, so the angle that you’re at is a little more conducive to long stretches of typing.”

Establishing some helpful habits will also ease the transition to working from home. We’ve shared that advice here.

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