Why you should pay particular attention to the mounting mechanism when choosing screen bars
A screen bar is brilliant: it provides even lighting for your workspace and prevents glare on the screen. It’s just a shame when the mounting mechanism is designed in such a way that the light shines right in your face.
A few weeks ago, I bought a Screenbar. I needed it after moving house – before that, I’d always had a nicely lit workspace by the skylight during the day.
After installing it, I was absolutely delighted with my newly illuminated setup, and my eyes were grateful too. A few days later, I upgraded my monitor too. I now have a wonderful OLED from Gigabyte, the Aorus FO32U2P monitor.
Actually, everything should be perfect now, shouldn’t it? Far from it. The OLED monitor is incredibly thin, which looks cool. Unfortunately, it’s too thin for the clamp on my Screenbar. It hangs crookedly at the top of the display and keeps shining right in my face. It won’t tilt any further down.
Possible solutions
Unfortunately, Xiaomi, the manufacturer of my Screenbar, doesn’t have a solution to this problem. My colleague and Screenbar expert Lorenz suggests two alternatives: The Laptop Screenbar from BenQ. It attaches to the display using magnets. But it’s simply too small for my desk. Lorenz’s significantly more expensive BenQ Halo 2 would fit on my monitor – at least according to this Reddit post or Lorenz’s own experience. But I don’t want to have to change my lighting again after just a few weeks – and spend even more money.
Source: Lorenz Keller
My colleague Richie also has a new OLED monitor. He’s familiar with the problem from his webcam. His solution: he simply wedges a piece of cardboard in between. It looks a bit rubbish, but the camera stays in place.
My solution
I’ve decided on a slightly neater option than Richie’s. I quickly design a block in CAD, which I slot between the monitor and the clamp. I can’t get the curvature quite right straight away, and I’m missing filament in the right colour, but it’ll do for now.
The moral of the story? When buying the Screenbar, pay attention to seemingly unimportant details such as the thickness of your monitor. Unfortunately, many manufacturers don’t provide details regarding the mounting mechanism. You’ll have to rely on information from others.
With the advent of OLED and Mini-LED monitors, which are thinner than «conventional», my problem is likely to become more common. Let’s hope that manufacturers adapt their mounting systems – after all, not everyone Karton has a 3D printer to hand.
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