The perfect way to work from the couch
November 14, 2018 9:48 AM   Subscribe

Dr. Advicepig, like most physicians, brings a lot of work home with her and I'd love to create an awesome setup for working from the couch with a second display. Typically, she is seated with her feet on the couch and back against the arm of the couch with one to three cats on her legs and a laptop computer perched on the back of the couch. (cat tax, actually my legs). What can I do to make a super awesome setup as a gift?
posted by advicepig to Home & Garden (6 answers total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
Best answer: What I had ~10 years ago was a wall mounted monitor arm at 90 degrees to where I was facing, that I would pull out and suspend above my face as I lay in my recliner at near total horizontality. A side table under that gave me storage for my keyboard when it wasn't on my thighs (or on a cat on my thighs) and the PC tower was on the lower part of that table. To stand up I only had to push the monitor away so it folded up to the wall.

I have not been able to reproduce this setup in my current living room, because rental house + open floor plan means I can't attach to the wall. I've tried a few different furniture pieces with an attached monitor arm but they all tip over when I swing the arm out to full extension
posted by buildmyworld at 10:39 AM on November 14, 2018 [2 favorites]


Do you have a TV on the wall that could double as a display? Or is the wall too far away for that to work well?
posted by pinochiette at 10:40 AM on November 14, 2018


You could perch a display on a laptop table and still have room for feline companionship.
posted by googly at 11:51 AM on November 14, 2018


There is a surprising amount of stuff that can be attached to a boom-type microphone stand because both musicians and DJ's use ultra-portable setups to bring laptops and large tablets on stage. There is also a lot of stuff that seems to be sold as either a DJ stand or a couch laptop desk thingie.

I'm not sure if just a display is among the possibilities, but I found a lot of gadgets on Amazon for tablets. I believe there's one screw thread type for a microphone holder and a different one for a camera tripod, and various adaptors exist for these two 'standards' .

Lastly, lots of display holders are just a clamp that you clamp onto your sturdy desk- surely there's some way to clamp it to a couch-friendly stand/desk/table?
posted by twoplussix at 2:00 PM on November 14, 2018 [1 favorite]


Best answer: I bought this floor stand with arm for a tablet. My cousin has the same one and recommended it to me. I love it.
posted by CathyG at 10:50 AM on November 15, 2018 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: CathyG, that is exactly what I was hoping existed! Off to see if I can get one without using Amazon!
posted by advicepig at 12:37 PM on November 15, 2018


« Older capture app's network traffic in Android?   |   Is it possible to retain my 32-bit iOS apps? Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.