Useful Remote Setup Equipment

Working remotely causes some challenges, especially on a hardware level. To increase the quality of video calls I levelled up my computer setup. Here are some of the equipment I bought.

Disclaimer

The following list of items is in no way conclusive or the right fit for everybody. Also, it's not the most sophisticated setup you can get. For example, using a DSLR or DSLM combined with a high-quality HDMI video converter would improve the video quality by a lot.

I took a few shortcuts to get where I wanted to get and only bought stuff I was sure I could need and what seemed appropriate for the intended usage regarding the price.

Although there are links to Amazon and other e-commerce pages I do not have any affiliate relation or otherwise to these suppliers.

The Items

What did I need?

1. A better microphone
2. A better camera
3. Some lighting options
4. Monitor mount
5. Mic mount
6. Few more minor things
   
   

Microphone

First, in my experience sound matters. There are a ton of good Mics out there so I will name a few:

Undoubtedly and proven by many YouTubers, podcasters and so on the Blue Yeti is one hell of a mic. Here's the catch: If you're not going into being pro it's probably a bit too much and definitely not on a budget.

So I opted for the thomann .tbone SC 420. It's half the price, fewer features but still of good quality.

Camera

We're talking about a pandemic so the high-end webcams were (not so much anymore) just totally overpriced.

So I went with the Aukey webcam you could get at Amazon for a fair price.

Although the Logitech C920 (and others) definitely is better, the Aukey webcam still improved the video quality by a lot compared to the Laptop's built-in camera.

Lighting

To further improve the lighting and create higher quality camera takes I also bought some lighting equipment when it was available with a special offer.

It's good for video lighting when it's dark although for the webcam the monitor light seems mostly sufficient.

Monitor mount

To have a space-efficient desk I also got some Monitor and Laptop 2 in 1 desk mount.

It can hold as much as 10kg so even my 34" Monitor could be used with it.

Besides creating more space on the desk and looking a bit more stylish this enabled me to also add a mic mount in the mount setup for more efficiency.

Mic Mount

There are tons of mic mounts out there so I just picked one that matched my needs:

1. being flexible
2. having a shock mount
3. being compatible with the existing mic

So here we go.

Few minor things

For adding the lights to the desk: a desk mount only adapter and some converters/adapters.