Maximizing Productivity with the Right Network Setup for Your Home Office

We're currently in the midst of the world's most significant "work from home" practice. Organizations adapted to working from home overnight, and employees had to adjust to a new work-from-home ritual.

Before this home office experiment, employees' primary motives for working from home were better focus and increased productivity. However, creating a productive work environment can be compelling when you're not in a typical office setting. And if you're working from a multipurpose area like your kitchen, living room, or bedroom, it's easy to become distracted and unfocused.

The goal of your home office setup is to create an environment where you can be your most productive, and making a dedicated home office space can help you build some work-life balance and support your productivity.

Maximizing Productivity with the Right Network Setup

Productivity is the priority for a home office, and being productive means network connectivity: having powerful, secure wired and wireless Internet connections for all devices from anywhere in your home. There are multiple approaches to this, and determining solutions that make sense depends significantly on your home and office layout. Overall connectivity, the number of devices connected, and the applications used are all key elements to consider. Find some tips on how to get the most reliable, fast, and safe home office network setup if your goal is to work.

The Importance of Network Products for Home Offices

A home office network setup is a smaller version of an enterprise-level network. The basic requirements are the same, meaning it all starts with a router. Wifi routers for home offices will provide you with a reliable internet connection and built-in security features. Here are a few basic elements to look for when shopping for a router:

• A firewall is a standard affair for routers on the market today for network security. This software will help identify and prevent any cyber attacks on your network.
• If your network supports over ten users, consider upgrading to a Unified Threat Management (UTM) device. These relatively affordable devices will offer extra protection against viruses and attacks without slowing your connection speed.
• Ability to support a Virtual Private Network (VPN). This tool provides users to securely share information over a private connection even when they are away from the office. You can safely collaborate with remotely located colleagues without sacrificing security.

Today however most home and small business office networks will use a wireless or mixed network, as most people use Smartphones and tablets that don't have Ethernet support.

These days, the wifi router is at the heart of any home office. With a good router, you can load webpages faster, send large files instantly, and make HD video calls without fear of lagging, freezing, or dropping off.

Another element of the Home Office network is computers or laptops. Your PC is your new companion, so pick the right one. Many remote employees have laptops. This allows them to work from anywhere, at any time. If you're a freelancer or setting up your office for personal use, you could add a desktop computer to your home office setup. When looking for a laptop, you should get 256GB (gigabytes) of storage space or more for all your files. Faster computers will also have an SSD (solid-state drive) and at least 16GB of RAM (random access memory). But you can swap out most computers' hard drives and remember these days.

Leaning over your laptop to see the screen can be a real pain in the neck. Consider investing in a computer monitor and place it so the top of the screen is at your eye level — this will save your posture. Ergonomically optimized monitors improve remote workers' productivity and comfort as they permanently shift to remote work. When looking for a monitor, 27 inches is considered the sweet spot. If you have a smaller desk, it might make sense to get a 24-inch monitor, but you shouldn't splurge for a 32-inch monitor unless you have a huge desk. Otherwise, it will take up too much space, especially for a dual-monitor setup.

Complete your desk setup with a keyboard and mouse. Whether using a laptop or a desktop computer, nothing will make your workspace look better than a wireless keyboard and mouse. Then you won't have to deal with extra wires cluttering your desk; you can work from anywhere in your home or when traveling.

High-speed internet is a must! You'll need a stable internet connection when video conferencing with your colleagues to prevent any audio or video hiccups.

Unless you save all your work files to the cloud, you should have at least one external hard drive in your home office. This device allows you to back up important data regularly if your computer breaks down. At the same time, you can also free up some space on your computer, which makes it run faster.

Finally, it is worth considering devices with a remote connection for maintenance when you are not at home. This will allow you to keep an eye on your network or even install the firmware, update settings, or disable your network remotely from anywhere you're connected to the internet.

Switches, wifi Routers, Tablets, Monitors, Mouses, Keyboards

In our portfolio, let's look at switches, wifi routers, tablets, mouses, and keyboards.

NETGEAR launched its new Multi-Gigabit Smart Managed Pro Switches with 10G Copper/Fiber Uplinks. Each port automatically detects which speed the connected device needs and provides adequate speed. As opposed to regular 10-Gigabit switches that will only provide 1-Gigabit connectivity to any device that requires less than 10-Gigabit, the MS510TX and MS510TXPP give the exact speed required, with no downgrade.

Juniper Networks EX3400 Ethernet Switch delivers a high-performance, flexible, cost-effective solution for today's most demanding converged data, voice, and video enterprise access environments.

https://www.networkhardwares.com/products/juniper-ex3400-48t-layer-3-switch-ex3400-48t-afi 

Cisco® 1100 Series Integrated Services Router (ISRs) with Cisco IOS® XE Software combines WAN, comprehensive security, and wired and wireless access in a single, high-performance platform.

Upgrade your home wifi and get wireless speeds with the Linksys Max-Stream AC2200 MU-MIMO Tri-Band wifi Router (MR8300). Perfect for households that thrive on remote work.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S8+ Android Tablet (SM-X800NZAAXAR) lets you work on your tablet like a PC.

Viewsonic VA951S helps to eliminate eyestrain from extended viewing periods to provide enhanced viewing comfort.

https://www.networkhardwares.com/products/viewsonic-home-and-office-monitor-va951s

Lenovo GX30N81775Wireless Combo Keyboard & Mouse compliments your desk with a simple yet elegant design.

https://www.networkhardwares.com/products/wireless-keyboard-mouse-combo-gx30n81775

Logitech MK360 Wireless Keyboard and Mouse Combo (920-003376) lets you type, scroll, search, and browse more comfortably and efficiently.

https://www.networkhardwares.com/products/wireless-combo-mk360-920-003376

By Fantom Drives (GF3BM1000UP) Hard Drive, get access to your important files and data while on the go. With USB 3.0, you get faster access to your files quickly, whether on a Mac or PC.

Maximize your productivity with the large scale of Network products by Network Hardwares! 

https://www.networkhardwares.com/collections/network-products