How to Set Up a Reliable Tech Setup for Working from Home

Working from home full-time or even a few days per week requires a more deliberate tech setup than casual home computer use. Video calls, large file transfers, VPN connections, and hours of focused work all demand more from your equipment and internet connection than streaming a movie or browsing the web.

The foundation of any reliable home office setup is your internet connection. For a single person working from home — primarily doing video calls, email, and document work — you need at least 25 Mbps download speed and 5 Mbps upload speed. If you share the connection with family members who also stream video or do remote work simultaneously, aim for 50 Mbps or more download speed. If your company uses a VPN (a secure connection that routes your internet traffic through the company's servers), the VPN creates overhead that uses more of your available bandwidth — a faster plan helps.

Most people use Wi-Fi to connect their work laptop to the internet, which works well in most situations. However, if you frequently experience video calls cutting out or screen-sharing lag, consider using a wired Ethernet connection instead. An Ethernet cable plugged directly from your laptop to your router provides a much more stable and consistent connection than Wi-Fi, because it is not affected by interference, distance, or competing devices. A USB-to-Ethernet adapter ($15 to $25) works for laptops that do not have a built-in Ethernet port.

Your workspace setup affects productivity and comfort significantly. A dedicated external monitor — even a basic 24-inch 1080p screen for $100 to $150 — gives you far more screen space than a laptop alone and reduces the neck strain from looking down at a laptop display for hours. Position the monitor so the top of the screen is at or slightly below eye level.

For video calls, the most important factor is lighting. Natural light from a window in front of you (not behind you) makes a dramatic difference to how you look on camera. If you work in a room without good natural light, a basic ring light ($20 to $40) clipped to the top of your monitor works very well.

Keep your work laptop and personal computer usage separate if your employer issues a dedicated work device. Using your work laptop for personal browsing and your personal machine for work tasks creates security and productivity problems for both.