Tour of Cali’s and John’s UpDesks!

What’s the perfect way to set up an office work area? We’ll show you how we do it – Geek House style!

Cali’s Office

The one common factor of both our offices is the Geek Beat Edition UpDesk! We have these throughout our building and everyone loves them. We both have the UpWrite desktop, which allows writing on the desktop with a dry-erase marker. Great for jotting a quick note where you can’t miss it! I’ve also found the cup holders very useful, and of course the large grommet holes for cable management are great. There’s even an option for a little power brick that can go in a cable management hole in the back.

I like to keep things tidy, but I have a few things on display. To the right of my desk I’ve got my robot collection (of course!) as well as my action figure, the bobble head we recently had made, bacon goodies, books from our friend Gary Shapiro (“Ninja Innovation” and “The Comeback”), and my Sonos Play:3 speaker. The Dyson Hot+Cool heater, that keeps me warm when the building’s cold, is in the corner.

You’ve seen my MacBook Air and my Cinema Display monitor before, and I have the display mounted on an Ergotron LX arm. Off to one side, I’ve got an AOC USB monitor and I get sound from my KEF X300A wireless speakers. Plugged into the power port in the desk is my Tylt Vu wireless charger and my Wagan Tech USB hub. And of course there’s my Rebel Desk Treadmill, so I can walk while I’m working at my desk.

John’s Office

John’s doing a few different things in his office from what I am. Sometimes he sits at his desk and sometimes he stands. To make standing easier he’s testing out a padded floor mat from Uline. For his chair, he’s using a Safco Metro Extended Height Chair, which gives a good variety of heights.

He’s also playing around with putting funny sounds into the iRig PADS we recently opened on the live show. For keeping his iDevices charged and synced he’s got a Gravitas dock from Henge Docks. Hidden back behind his monitor (where he thinks I won’t find it) is the Monster Superstar speaker. We use both that and the awesome pro-grade Voicestation 500 from Polycom for conference calls.

For his monitor mounts, John is using the dual arm version of the Ergotron LX arm mount. Rather than use an Apple Cinema Display, John is using the 27″ Monoprice IPS Monitor which he finds just as good as the ones from Apple at half the price. For his other big monitor he’s using the 24″ AOC Android All-in-One. This is a monitor with its own Android operating system, and a touch screen, so it can be used like a really big tablet if you want to. The Meshwe Bluefin connects his keyboard to his trackpad to make them one unit. We’re both using the new Samsung Galaxy Note 4 and for better sound on calls he’s got the Samsung Meteor Mic handy.

Another feature we wanted to see included in the Geek Beat UpDesk was an under the desk holder for our favorite UPS battery of choice from Cyberpower. Keeping our Ethernet cables under control and out of the way is the Deskpatch One.

So those are our desks! Share your favorite desk setups with us below and on social media!