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Monitor replacement — using a projector for a home office setup

Sofia Pandelea

10 min read·<br>Jan 5, 2021

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My current home office setup using a projector<br>TLDR<br>Projector : Short-throw Optoma GT1080HDR<br>Screen : 90" Grey fixed frame hung on chains from a ceiling (about 85" x 50")<br>Mount : Projector stands at 12" height off the floor, at a 41" distance from the screen.<br>Main plus point s: Larger viewing surface; Larger distance from a screen prevents strain caused by too much close work; Indirect, reflected light is easier on the eyes than a direct, projected one.<br>Challenges : Still not sure what to do with a camera placement for Zoom calls; Color accuracy for design work is not ideal.<br>Press enter or click to view image in full size

A little while ago I shared a photo on LinkedIn of my new home office setup using a projector. I was quite surprised by how many people expressed an interest in the detailed how-to of it. I am more than happy to get into the nitty-gritty of how it happened to be, but please keep in mind that this was designed specifically for my needs and home office situation, while yours might be quite different.<br>The motivation<br>Too many customization options and the many variables that go into creating this setup — is what makes it not as trivial, or user friendly, as I would have liked going in. It is so much easier to just buy a computer monitor and plop it on a desk or use a laptop screen directly. But because too much close work is really bad for my eyes (I have a tendency to hyper-focus), I was really motivated to try this setup out. Knowing that a reflected image from a projector screen is gentler on the eyes than a projected one from a computer monitor, was also a factor making this setup appealing. Finally, I was in a process of converting my garage into an office, I had the time and the space to make this happen.<br>Too many factors to consider and way too much research<br>There are a number of factors you need to consider if you want to work off a projector. I wished there was some sort of formula where I could have plugged in the numbers and it would spit a recommendation for an optimal setup for my specific needs. But there isn’t any. I am really not a geek on technology, quite the opposite. I would even go as far as calling myself technologically challenged, or at the very least averse. My eyes glaze over reading online forums, reviews, and technical specs. Yet, I can’t buy anything without researching it to death or succumbing to analysis paralysis. The vast amount of information and black holes one can fall into researching stuff online, on pretty much any topic these days, can be quite dizzying (or maybe it just me, I don’t know…). I read so many online reviews and watched countless projector videos on YouTube (the one in the link was the most helpful, go Linus!). I even wrote to one YouTuber asking for a recommendation for my desired setup but never heard back.<br>Everyone covers home cinema, gaming, and business presentations use cases — nobody covers what I wanted to do<br>The problem with the online reviews for my office setup was that the majority of these reviews focus on three main projector use cases — home cinema, gaming, and business presentations. Any website that sells projectors will focus on these three, highlighting the specs and the features through these three unique lenses. But what I wanted was neither. I just wanted to be able to do mundane office work, on a projector. In my case that involves a lot of reading and looking at designs — Email, Slack, Figma, spreadsheets, Mural, and a lot, I mean A LOT, of Confluence.<br>At one point, I got so frustrated reading online reviews and running around my house in circles with a measuring tape that I called a home cinema service, asking for a specialist to come to my house and give me a projector recommendation. I was willing to pay $$$ for somebody to just tell me what to buy and how to mount it. In one such phone call, the person told me that a bare minimum decent projector I could consider would be at the very least around $3,000 and that anything below that would be, mildly put — garbage. Quite disheartening to say the least. Not an amount of money I was willing to spend.<br>After a lot of research, I went ahead and bought a decent-looking standard-throw projector on Amazon. It didn’t work out, but it was still a good exercise, having something concrete in my hands to play around with. It definitely helped me finetune what I needed. For one, I figured that I need to look for a short-throw projector. Another thing was that I needed something with highly adjustable levels of brightness and viewing modes. The projector I got was amazing for watching movies, but for reading text, on white paper, it was way too bright and not adjustable enough. The...