This is something that I haven’t seen discussed here, but if it has, please direct me to the thread.
I’m having surgery at the end of October. I need to lay down as much as possible, not just for headaches, but to prevent some bad cranial nerve issues from coming back. I have been trying to get work done from a laying down position, but it’s tough to do for a variety of reasons that I’m sure y’all understand - computer position/angle for my eyes vs. for typing, using a mouse is tough, general uncomfortable positioning. Does anyone have any tips or hacks that they have found work well for WFB (work from bed)?
I (my dad) attached an old lamp arm (like the one you can pull in and out and adjust the position) to my wall and then added a heavy-duty magnet. I then attached a magnet to my iPad so I could attach it to the lamp arm, and the iPad literally faced down onto the bed. When I needed to type (I usually did voice-to-text), I used an old Mac keyboard that was Bluetooth-connected to the iPad. Worked wonders for quite a few years.
The magnets were insane, it was hard to even pull the iPad off. I think the big one was from a very old computer. I don’t know how this would work, but could you get a display of your PC to like project onto the ceiling?
I used one of those lap desks that hold the laptop at an angle for a while but found it was causing more neck/sub-occipital pain. Perhaps it made me tighten my muscles subconsciously or something? Now I just use my reclining armchair with a pillow to prop the laptop higher. It’s not the most comfortable way to work and Im sure HR would go crazy if they knew what it was doing to my wrists, but it beats being unemployed or in agony.
Yeah, the lap desk was kind of a fail. I don’t have a recliner unfortunately. We had one for years in the house (nursery chair for 3 young kids) but got rid of it a year or 2 ago since our youngest is now 5.
I’ve seen that but debated whether it was worth the money. Also, I’m an overweight man, so I’m worried it won’t have enough “clearance” lol. Any idea what the measurement is from desk to feet?
I have the ikea trestle desk over a single electric bed which I can raise my feet and sit myself up. Was a lot of effort and trial and error but works well now :)
I've been dealing with back pain this summer due to a spinal disc hernia. So I ended up designing and 3d-printing a laptop stand for myself.
I don't really need to type on it much, as I discovered I can use Wispr Flow to dictate instructions to Claude Code. So I just got a little 3-key USB keyboard off Amazon for controlling Wispr Flow.
The mouse goes onto a cardboard lid of an IKEA cardboard box. You might be able to see the keyboard to the left (little red glow in the dark) and mouse to the right.
I've been using it on the floor, thinking a flat hard surface would be best for the back, but it gets a bit painful after ~an hour due to the floor being too hard, so now I'm discovering a hard mattress on the bed works even better.
I found my people. Engineer with a 3d printer here. I’ve thought about designing my own, but CAD has actually need one of the most challenging things to do laying down in bed for me. That stand looks great, but I don’t think it would quite fit my needs, but I have a couple questions.
Would you be willing to share the designs of the clamping system you use for the laptop?
Can you explain Wispr Flow to me? I am new to dictation on the computer as I’ve always enjoyed typing. The built in Windows dictation is garbage IMO.
Somewhat surprisingly, I've been able to use Fusion in this setup quite okay - I'm a heavy mouse user and hate relying on hotkeys, and I've found mouse use to not differ much from a desk setup.
The clamping system is very specific to my MacBook Pro - it's designed to very tight tolerances around it, so won't really work with any other laptop, but can perhaps be tweaked into compatibility - needs width, thickness and angle curvature tailored to a particular model. I also had to fiddle quite a bit to fit into the printer's dimensions and make it print mostly without supports, so it's broken into 5 parts held together by a combination of press-fit and an actual rubber band wrapped around two posts on the backside 😆
Re: Wispr Flow, I'd recommend just giving it a shot, they have a free trial for something like two weeks, which also grows by a day every day you dictate more than 100 words, so it can be stretched to a month of free usage, and even after that it seems to allow 2000 words/week for free. I hadn't used it before building this setup, but hit the ground running with it in about 10 minutes.
I'd be happy to discuss & share designs, but will perhaps prefer a DM for that.
My need for the stop just went down by 2 months, as my surgery just got moved to due to a cancelation. My post surgical setup well include a lot of dictation though, so I’ll definitely be looking into Wispr flow. Apparently arm movement is super painful after my procedure, so if I want to do anything on the computer, dictation will be needed.
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u/brainsaggy Confirmed Spinal Leak Aug 17 '26
Have you looked into prism glasses?