Ask HN: What are your outside friendly remote work ideas?

Additional router or Wi-Fi extender so you aren’t limited to right next to your house/cottage.

Plastic bag to toss your computer in if it suddenly starts raining.

The important things about umbrellas is that if they are portable they are developed for rain, if they are primarily for shading they are big and not portable.

I’m unsure what the solution is but neither appear to be a great fit for sitting in a park.

Northern Ontario would probably belong to Tahoe; folks with long-term setups in the backyard of a second home.

A Recreational Vehicle with a retractable shade might be big and portable-ish, however RV ownership/maintenance is complicated by the current circumstance.

Are you thinking more Dolores Park, though? Or the big parks?

> Northern Ontario would most likely be akin to Tahoe; folks with long-term setups in the yard of a 2nd home.

Ya, this is me setting up a perch for a 2-3 weeks in my grandparents backyard. Far too much work for a park.

There are portable umbrellas constructed for safeguarding against the sun, for example when treking in deserts.

Search for “uv umbrella” to discover them.

There are some tips in the efficiency post from Stephen Wolfram who in some cases walks outdoors while working: https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2019/02/ seeking-the-prod …

From my personal experience, it’s typically a bit annoying. Macbooks have screens brilliant enough to work outside, but then you’re burning through the battery quite quickly.
When near beaches, grains of sand can get anywhere. When being in the shade of trees, little beads of something sticky fall down. Insect all over …

The wolfram example is in fact precisely what I wanted in regards to utilizing a device to allow you to work and walk.

Although I’m not sure where to discover one.

I worked for 3 months outside in Thailand. The location I was remaining had an area of roofing open on three sides simply outside the front door. There was a big table setup there, nearly like an outdoor dining-room really and I ‘d work every day from about 7: 30 -3 in the afternoon.

I do not believe I’ve ever been so productive in my life, it was outdoors but shaded all right that there was no concern seeing the screen.

Sounds really great

I’m checking out whether there are relatively inexpensive temporary walls I can install on a garage rooftop I have access.

For working with a generic laptop computer that has completely too much glare:

If you can, being in total shade. Against the wall of a structure with the sun on the other side of it for instance. Brilliant environments is practically as bad as being directly in the sun, it’s still going to make the laptop computer screen appear to dim. Early morning/evening works best.

If you can’t get complete shade, wear black, sit at a 90 degree angle to the sun. Your goal is to minimize both light reflecting off of you onto the screen, and to reduce light hitting the screen/laptop.

if you’ve got a patio door and can set your desk up near it however not in fact outside, that’s 99%of the advantage of working outside with 1%of the inconvenience.

working outdoors is among those things that sounds nice, and it is nice when everything is ideal, however it’s really not worth the effort the majority of the time.

Or a porch with a roof.

What an idyllic time.

So I’m attempting to figure out what would work for me that does not require a big picnic table/umbrella financial investment considering that I can’t keep it in the area permanently.

Yeah I swim outdoors every early morning, work with the door out to my deck open if it’s sunny and will sit outside for breaks and to do meetings, checked out, research study or make notes but for real development do it indoors.

I’m a huge fan of working from parks in the summer season. I’ve spent several days by the river in my local city. Finding someplace that’s both quite calm and has some form of facilities is a good mix, albeit not possible everywhere.

Battery life on your laptop is one of the more important things, as chances are your screen brightness is going to be maxed. Personally I simply sit on the grass/a rock under partial shade with the laptop on my legs (and a Bluetooth keyboard over the trackpad for better ergonomics) and invest a couple of hours like that, then retire elsewhere. Have not found somewhere brand-new to do it where I now live, need to get out this summer and find a great area.

Nice sounds pretty good.

Are there portable battery chargers readily available for laptops that you use and believe are great?

Also what do you do for an internet connection?

I’ve got a portable battery charger that will do my Nintendo Change but not one that will do my laptop.

For web I have a 20 GB data strategy for ₤15 a month on Vodafone, who have the finest coverage and information rate for me around Cardiff.

I work in Ruby and prevent any Docker or Node.js rubbish when I’m tethering so I have actually never run into difficulty with my data limits:D

Thumbs up! There is something about working from nature, park, tree, turf it assist concentration far better.

Position your chair so you will stay in the shade for the duration of your nap.

Nah, this is why I can’t work outdoors. It’s hopeless.

Solution: add chickens. They’ll periodically leap up onto the arm of your chair to see what you’re doing, therefore stunning you awake from your nap and advising you to do some work before you doze off once again.

In all severity, in the 9.5 years I’ve worked from home, I’ve invested 99%of that time inside your home, even on incredibly nice days. The issue? Neighbors. From the kids playing in a yard to the neighbor mowing their lawn, then edge trimming, then leaf blowing, I’ve found the QRM (man-made sound) to be annoying enough that the majority of days I do not bother. And you can count Thursdays right out; that’s when the trash truck remains in the area.

It’s the primary reason I’m on the hunt for property outside of town …

I used to do a lot of this with an iPad and bluetooth keyboard. I discovered you can work practically anywhere (in the park, against a tree, in a hammock) for an hour approximately but after that you have to proceed.

The discomfort points after an hour are discovering shade, a comfortable sitting position and an excellent place to rest your keyboard at the best height. So, a room with a desk and chair.

I did have excellent experiences mixing outdoors with coffee shops and house working!

Have you checked out represent iPad to position it perfectly relative to your sitting position?

I mean, a stand you can attach to a chair or fix into the ground – tripod design.

Anyone have any luck with unique ‘direct-sun’ laptop computer screen movies? My T490 can crank the screen brightness just hardly high enough, however requires that I angle the screen oddly in order to get sufficient contrast to check out easily.

I have actually not used such movie however did one better– I had actually custom polarized sunglasses made with the polarizers matched to the specific angle of my screen’s polarizer. I brought in my laptop, and worked with the real professional to set the lens blanks up correctly in the lens cutting maker.

Batch your low strength operations for devoted outdoor time, as they’ll be less sensitive to glare and laptop computer temperature level factors to consider.

For more devoted time, I ‘d recommend a treking hammock, as they can be placed to shade your laptop screen a bit.

An excellent commercial umbrella with a concrete or iron stand will do wonders except for the brightest part of the day. I worked outside many mornings on a balcony in Mexico for a very long time. Know unexpected showers if you reside in a location vulnerable to unforeseen weather. Know mosquitoes when the sun is not out. I discovered an excellent non-toxic insect repellant however it does not work for all.

I have dubious places in my lawn on east and west sides of my home. I sit where there is the least sunlight in a comfortable chair and a really light weight lap desk. Fresh air is good.

– Attempt to shift your work so that when you work outside you can do things that are much easier on your eyes, do not need a lot of typing, excellent internet connection, etc. Read documentation, do some concept work, and so on

– If your family is close by, make sure clear expectations before you start.

I’ve attempted this a few times however the glare makes it unpleasant. I ‘d state established looking out of a window if you can, open it approximately let air in and take regular breaks is more practical!

I ‘d hesitantly concur with this. I often tried working outdoors in parks, but I wasn’t really as efficient as I must be. Working inside with huge open windows & great deals of sunlight has been better, and if you’re really productive you can maximize more dedicated outside exercise time.

The very best happy medium I discovered was working from a park bench in the corner of a hardly ever utilized bushland hiking path. I had to pick particular times when the sun wasn’t too intense, and complete up before it got so dark enough for mosquitos to begin. Even then, ants would often become irritating.

If you can find a picnic table with a shade roofing system at a park (or sometimes near tennis courts), that can likewise work well for a while.

I work on my roof in the East Bay all the time. Mt. Tam is very inspirational. I discover the following helpful: Matte/ antiglare screen or screen protector; current laptops have brighter screens (2017 MacBook better than 2013); light on dark UIs; and open sided tent or umbrella to keep my computer system from getting too hot (can’t put sunscreen on a computer); Prosumer or much better wifi (I have actually had all the best with Ubiquiti)

Do you have a picture?

I primarily work in my yard these days. My # 1 pointer: Get a huge sun hat!

If you don’t tan well you may want extra protective sun equipment. Devices get a bit dustier/dirtier so be prepared for that.

It ‘d be great to not need to charge inside but even with my late 2013 Macbook, I still get a couple of hours of work done before needing a recharge.

Ensure your screen is actually tidy and you’ll marvel how much less glare you’ll experience

I used to work routinely outside in parks, a good information prepare helps and finding a comfy spot on some bench is also good. Probably I ‘d also choose lean tooling (Terminal, vim) that doesn’t utilize much battery, is well functional with the keyboard and little screens

I have a MacBook Pro, which hasn’t been offered with a matte screen for ages. I ordered a generic matte screen protector. If you wear a black t-shirt and being in the shade, it’s completely possible to work outside.

Battery life can be greatly extended with decently sized external USB-C batteries.

And for pre USB-C Macs, HyperJuice made 100 W batteries with some strange cable television hacks to work with MagSafe Mac gadgets.

Likewise think about an external battery for your phone when utilizing WiFi Hotspot when outdoors.