TL;DR: What gadgets, tools, furniture and whatnot do I need for an ideal desk setup for a tinkerer/programmer/gamer? Leave a comment and give it your all!
Image is AI generated for the lack of a better option, but I kinda like it.
New year, new everything, I guess. Yes, I know, it's June, but the last 12 months have been wild for me. I switched jobs after 10+ years, got married to my partner of 10+ years, and now we're finally moving into a larger flat after almost 10 years.
The room my wife and I have dedicated to be the "office/work/workshop" room is a bit larger than the one we currently have. More power sockets, more space, better lighting due to larger window, everything's amazing - except for my current setup.
What's there
I currently have an almost L-shaped desk with a single external monitor. On that desk I have a home-made shelf with some books, a desk lamp and all kinds of trinkets. I once added a home-made ambient light (might write about this at some point - leave a comment if you'd like to see that!) and a whiteboard foil on the desk top, a USB hub with all sorts of cables - way too many, actually - but that's it.
Across from that desk I have my little electronics/wood working workshop that's located on a countertop. An external screen for Raspberry Pis, a soldering iron and some storage space for all kinds of electronics parts and more trinkets that might come in useful at some point. Since it's a countertop, I can't put my legs underneath that, resulting in an awkward twisted position whenever I want to solder anything... Less than ideal.
Underneath the desk are stacked boxes of cables and all kinds of gadgets. Storage space is a bit of a rare commodity.
What's missing
This is where things get interesting: When I ask myself what I want and how my ideal setup should look, I don't even know where to start. When I type "Cool desk setup for programmers and gamers" on A Popular Search Engine™, I get tons of different amazing setup inspirations, with lighting that would put the Las Vegas Strip to shame, tons of angled screens, desk mats, several(!!) keyboards, you name it - But nothing really says "that's what I want".
What I do want is an actual desk for my electronics workshop with a moving arm for light and perhaps a magnifying glass, and generally more space so I can actually work.
Also, I want to move the books and cables away from my desk, ideally getting rid of the rather claustrophobic home-made shelf and moving the ambient light.
So, what is missing from my setup? I can't tell. I don't even know where to start - and that's where the DEV community comes in!
What I need
Leave a comment! What's your ideal setup as a programmer, tinkerer or gamer? What do I desperately need so I'm finally one of the cool kids? What gadgets should I avoid at all costs?
Everything goes, so go wild! Sky's the limit!
Top comments (40)
Well, a 3D printer of course! To print all the stuff for organising space under the table so that 3D printer can fit on the table!
Oooh yes, of course! Any specific model you can recommend for 3D printing beginners? I always wanted one, but never had the space (haha) to actually get started.
I've seen Bambu Lab all over YT lately, they seem pretty good to me, but the Ender company also seems to sell DIY printers, so not sure yet... Thanks for the advise!
Lemme forward this thread to my partner! I’m consuming his printing services haha
Imo, get a monitor arm, so you can clear your desk. Wireless peripherals, so you can move them out of the way, get a soldering tray, so you can move to your desk and keep your monitor (ahh see, now it makes sense) for reference. Declutter first, get cozy, then look at expanding. You do soldering and woodworking, so obviously you need tools, tools need an organizer (@valeriavg said 3d printer, defs a great idea for expanding after you clean the clutter), you can also look into modifying your desk? Add some cable organizers, an outlet for your plugging needs, so it's more usable space and you dont need to crawl anywhere. Cant go wrong with another monitor either imo, 2 is the sweet spot, cuz you can have active and static screen at the same time. Imo, ambient lighting (strip LEDs) are overrated, get a clamp light, that you can just move around and point where you need it, if you do fine work regularly, you also get ones on an arm, with a magnifying lens built in, that + a 3rd hand helps alot when soldering!
Monitor arm(s) sounds amazing! I'll might switch to a standing desk at some point anyways and use the L-shaped desk as the workshop one (yes, we have that much more space now lol), so I'm all for having everything attached to the desk itself. As for modifying the desk: Not sure yet - I was thinking about adding an attachment, kinda like a cable box that I can paint in the same color as the desk, but for the entire width of it. That could hide all the cables and double as a nice optic addition. I could even add the LEDs back into that if I wanted :P Having some USB plugs on the thing sounds awesome, too, or even a power outlet. I might hide that under the desk, too, though...
If you go the monitor arms way, the back of your desk is clear. so what you could do, is use Perspex to make a tunnel from 1 end to the other, with a hinged lid, where you run your cables through. it's enclosed and safe, so you can put whatever you like in there and an LED strip across it would give a neat effect and give you a little shelf you can put small things on (eg. I build mini-lego). Having it on the desk also lets you plug things in easier without it getting in the way
Yup, using some blurring acryllic glass was part of the plan. Scatters the light better and makes accidentally looking at the LED strip not make me go blind lol
Standing desk could work, beauty of monitor arms, they just move to the new desk. If you're not pressed on space, get yourself 1 of those old filing cabinets, paint it and get organizer boxes for inside it, so you have a tidy organizer for all the bits and bobs
Ooh, that's a great idea, actually! I was thinking about an extra bookshelf or two to have more vertical storage for cables and such, but I'd need to organize everything first and fit the boxes/cabinets/shelfs around that, I guess.
Imo, start off with shelves at the top corners of the wall and work down, not up. Step 1: Clear your desk. Step 2: Clear your floor. Once those 2 are done, you have unlimited functional space. From there on you can experiment, eg. attach your pc to your desk on a mount and put wheels on your desk, so you can move it around (dont do, unless your desk is 100% SOLID) as an example. Functional space, means having the ability to do with the space what you need, easily, to make it usable for whatever use-case you have. A clear desk, means if you need to work with a reference, you have the monitor on an arm and you have good lighting where you work comfortably, regardless of what you're doing. Because a big desk is great, till it's cluttered, then it might aswell be a little nook you work in. The filing cabinet takes up floor space, but it does so in the most efficient way, by being solid enough that you know you can put a 50kg weight in the top shelf, pull it out entirely and it wont fall over. Other than that, you can look at making things portable (self contained), if you need to paint the wall (stupid example), or put up shelves, how easily can you move your workbench or desk? If it's a few hour's work to get it mobile, then your space is limited and it'll prevent you from doing certain things, because it's too time consuming to just prep to do what you meant to do.
I love your iterative approach and not carving things in stone! That's actually right up my alley as a dev. I think I should treat thus project a little more like a software project in terms of organisation lol
Will definitely get a cabinet! We might even have a soare one I could potentially use, or I'll build my own ;)
(Also, putting a standing desk on wheels sounds like the most flexible desk ever lol)
Idk if you're using a UPS, but that would be a logical next step for portability (not necessarily for keeping the pc running, but for cable management). You can take a make connector and splice it onto a power strip, then plug it into the UPS, so you have an adapter for your rolling desk and keep all cables self-contained to the desk, with just a single plug in and out, everything else is mobile with the desk, for easy moving?
Once you get the cabinet, you have a place for all your heavy things. If you're staying there permanently (i.e. you're buying the house and wont be moving anytime in the next 10 years), consider putting up adjustable shelving brackets, so you can add shelves (without fixing it in place, I absolutely love them!), then you have a fixed cabinet for heavy things and adjustable shelves you can move around, or add to, it's honestly the best move you can make for a dedicated workspace.
Now you have a mobile desk + adaptable storage. So logically, next step would be workspace optimization. You need dynamic lighting (eg. clamp lights that are battery operated, usb powered). That way you have the ability to get clear lighting wherever you work.
Portability, storage, lighting, next you'd need organization. If you have shelves and cabinets, desk and workstation, you need to organize your stuff, so it doesnt turn into clutter shelves (keep a clutter box though, you will need it). You can opt for clear plastic organizer boxes with labels, or you can go for those old cardboard boxes used for file archiving if you wanna save a buck.
Now you have a dynamic workspace you can keep clean, well lit and organized. Anything past that is purely niche things like adding a 3d printer on a shelf, or running ambient lighting, etc.
I was thinking about having a single power strip for everything anyways. Once I add the light-shelf-thingie-majingy, that's the perfect spot to hide all the cables.
So, to summarize: New desk with single power cord into a full-width wooden box with light, hidden cable management, all the peripherals attached to a Lightning 3 USB hub, two external monitors held by monitor arms, cabinet nearby for all the bits and bobs, storage boxes inside that cabinet for cleaner management of things, adjustable shelves for flexible storage next to the cabinet, old desk for workshop with everything installed, movable light on an extra arm + little electronics storage for smallest parts readily available.
Whew, sounds like a lot, but it'll be so clean afterwards! I'm so looking forward to building this! Thank you so so much for all the inputs!
Dont forget 2 magnetic parts trays. If you do alot of soldering work, you can look at Gamers Nexus's ModMats they're really good quality and work well for soldering work (think mousepad, but for your work bench). If you experiment alot with the raspberry pi, you can also look into getting a few breadboards and 10-30cm length cables in various colors, gator clips, etc. so you can set up DIY things easier (no more taping wires onto batteries). Lets see, you can also get a soldering stand that mounts onto the workbench and if you have 1 (or want 1), a dremel tool stand, both will be out of the way, but lets you take your live-tool and just hook it up, so it's out of the way, easily accessible, without needing to switch off or damage a surface (pro tip, you probably know, if you have a spare tile lying around, works great for soldering too). But for workbench, definitely dont forget the 'third hands', those little weighted, adjustable clips are life-changing when you're working and lets you walk away for a bit, without risking things changing. Also goes without saying, but make sure you have a medium sized bin next to your desk, not a tiny one. OH also, get a mini-vac, ali-express/amazon, less than $100 and is usb chargeable, so you can quickly clean up any messes, that + a stack of microfiber cloths (I know it's tempting not to, but please make sure you use 1 per job type. You dont wanna clean a coffee spill with your dedicated monitor cleaning cloth, else you'll spread chemicals that can damage surfaces). With those, you should be about set, unless you feel anything out that you'll need beyond that.
Dont diy if its for your own place, try zigbee or Xiaomi IoT products, can also integrate with alexa, google etc so everything is centralized and controlled by one phone/computer.
Thanks for the advice! Anything specific you can recommend? I'm a DIY-er at heart - I love the process of building things often-times more than the result itself, but I'll definitely look into the home automation stuff you mentioned, especially Zigbee always looked interesting to me :)
Well if you insist on inventing things overall, arduino UNO or later is great for home automation / IoT.
Also raspberry pi has a ton of built-in OS specific for home automation projects.
Examples are: leak sensors on roof thermometers with smart thermostat that auto-starts the air condition when the room gets too hot, remote-controlled servo-motor blind curtains, the list goes on...and on if you are creative enough.
Try thinking first Bill-of Materials and cost-benefits because of the large amount of hardware/batteries thermistors etc. If you insist on doing this manually/DIY as you mentioned it is going to take a lot of soldering work and a breadboard also for testing the circuits.
Get a decent solder and start soldering :)
PS: Also Node-RED and MQTT are great for IoT hub-notifiers and workflow based home-automation.
Also check out instructables, filled with such projects.
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Raspberry Pi -based home automation
Other Rpi information
Thank you so much! I've been reinventing the wheel with Raepberry Pis and ESP32 before, but mostly on a small scale. I really need to read into MQTT more, and and I necer heard of Node-RED, both go on the reading list :)
Good to hear, Node-RED /MQTT or RabbitMQ are good overall for workflow + auto-notifiers for Iot devices that use SDKs. EG: you can get temperature readings per hour and have Node-RED set its notifiers (or message queue) to send push notifications on your android device. You can do interesting stuff with that combination if you are doing custom IoT alone.
Good luck on your IoT projects, have a nice summer holiday.
Thank you so much! My first experience with MQTT was a Dyson fan a few weeks back, mostly as an adapter between my Raspberry Pi hub and the fan. I want my stuff to be smarter overall, so Node-RED seems like what I'm looking for. Any tutorials you can recommend?
I don't think there's a lot on Node-RED as its one of relatively new tech-stacks out there. The official 'website tutorials are a good starting point though, so clear explanatory videos are good to make you understand how it works. Never really looked it up in-depth though.
I’d focus less on gadgets and more on flow.
A monitor arm and solid cable management will already transform the space more than most “cool setup” items. Then separate a simple “work mode” and “tinker mode” with a quick setup tray for tools and a proper task light.
The real goal isn’t a flashy desk, it’s being able to sit down and start working in seconds, without clearing space first.
You're absolutely right! The thing is, for me, it goes both ways. I usually adapt my setup to my workflow and vice versa. I haven't had the opportunity to start on a clean slate for ages now, so I'm not even sure what I missed out on in terms of possibilities.
I'll keep the advise "sit down and be able to work instantly" as a credo, otherwise I'll likely start to pile up stuff again lol
Congrats on the move, Pascal!
🏡 As a fellow tinkerer who's moved with boxes of cables, dev boards, and random electronics, I know the chaos firsthand.
One thing that saved my sanity was MoveMate app — it's a moving planner that gives you checklists with auto-deadlines (e.g., Germany Anmeldung in 14 days ✅) and lets you sync with your partner. My wife and I used it to split tasks so nothing fell through the cracks. No subscription either — just $2.99 one-time.
For the ultimate setup, I'd add:
Have fun building the new space! 🚀
Awesome, thank you for the MoveMate hint, will look into that ASAP!
Monitor arm has been mentioned quite often, actually, so I take this as an absolute must-have by now. Cable management will be harder, though, especially with the amount of peripherals I already have. Would need to declutter that first lol
A cat, a laptop, a book, a cup of coffee or tea — and most importantly, a partner who actually listens to each other.😁
Aww, that's so wholesome! Coffee for me, tea for the wife, usually, and yes, we were thinking about adopting a cat ;D
Late to the convo but, get one of those monitor light bars. I use the Quntis monitor light bar and it's wonderful. Although it's not the best for gaming, it's very versatile for coding, studying, reading, etc.
Uuuh, they look amazing, and they're quite affordable, too! Thank you, will definitely think about this, perhaps there's other use cases for those around the house, too :D
After major life changes, redesigning your workspace is more than an upgrade, it's an opportunity to build an environment that supports how you work, create, and recharge. For programmers, tinkerers, and gamers alike, the best setup isn't the most expensive one; it's the one that reduces friction, improves comfort, and makes you excited to sit down and build something every day.
Oh absolutely! That's what I thought as well. Most things in my space grew organically over the past decade, so I'm now taking the opportunity to build it from the ground up, which is why I activated the swarm intelligence that is the DEV community! Many people here have learned their lessons already and I want to learn from them :)
I agree on the price tag, what I'm after is tips and opinions - I want inspiration, and reducing friction is one of the inspirations I was looking for! Thank you for your insights!
ur ps5 (if u have one lol)
My shopping list has grown a lot thanks to everyone here in the comments, let's see if I can afford a PS5 after all of this ;D
But: Will go on the the list anyways!
yeah i strongly recommend it does
... but only if it doesn't chase people and shoot them with the laser, Half-Life 2 style, the wife wouldn't appreciate an autonomous seek-and-destroy machine in the new place lol