The Best Cyber Monday Deals to Spruce Up Your Home Office

As a person who works from my home office, I’ll openly admit that some of remote work’s benefits speak to my more casual side—I’m a homebody at heart, and things like being able to spend large parts of the day in my pajamas and not having to physically commute anywhere are pluses of remote work that still seem too good to be true.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is holiday shopping. For someone who treasures being under the radar in the comfort of my own home, the thought of bright lights, big boxes, and even bigger crowds is pretty much against everything I stand for. Fortunately for me—and for my fellow introverts—the physical retail tradition of Black Friday has met its virtual match with Cyber Monday. So now, instead of braving the in-person madness last Friday, I can spend today staked out in front of my computer, looking for deals on the gifts I need to order to finish my holiday haul.

If you also work from home and you find yourself throwing down the online retail gauntlet today, why not take a few moments to click on some items for yourself? As remote workers, our home offices can always using some sprucing up, and Cyber Monday is a great time to upgrade your office game, at drastically discounted prices.

And if you’re reading this and thinking that you want to make a career change into a job you can do from home, don’t forget that Skillcrush is offering our own Cyber Monday deal on the Break Into Tech Blueprint. Our three-phase program allows you to build a foundation with web design and development fundamentals, customize your own learning path with a career counselor, and teaches you how to apply your new skills in the real working world. Save $150 off the one-time payment option for the Break Into Tech Blueprint by entering the code CYBERBIT150 (expires at midnight EST), and put yourself into position to start making your money back within 90 days.

To get you started on your online haul, here’s a list of some confirmed deals on home office items happening this Cyber Monday. Supplies may vary, and be sure to keep your eyes open for other sales, as new lightning deals can strike at any time, and we’ll also be adding to this throughout the day with new deals as they crop up!

Desktop Computers and Monitors

In 2017—despite the proliferation of smartphones, tablets, laptops, and other portable devices—the brain of a home office is still the venerable desktop computer. As much as I take advantage of my devices that let me work all over the house (or outside of it), there’s nothing like sitting in front of a full-size monitor coupled with the reassuring horsepower of a desktop machine when I have a big project ahead of me. If you’ve been subsisting on a laptop-only setup, or if your trusty desktop rig is getting a bit long in the tooth, it might be time to cash in on Cyber Monday deals and score a new workstation.

Of course, desktops need a monitor to go with them, so check out these deals and say goodbye to squinting at small screens without breaking the bank:

Laptops

If your own home office array is missing a laptop—or if it’s time to get a new one—Cyber Monday offers a bevy of choices.

Smartphones

In less than a decade since the first iPhone dropped, smartphones have become the app-fueled heart of our work and social lives. While I spend more actual time working on my laptop or desktop, my smartphone is always by my side, allowing me to patch in to work issues and emails whenever they arise. But—if you’re like me and you’re not the kind of person who’s going to wait in line for the release of a new phone model—you might have neglected upgrading your trusty digital sidekick for some time. Since Cyber Monday means no lines AND big savings, there’s no time like now to move on up in the mobile world.

If iPhones are your thing, try:

And if you’d rather go Droid, check out:

Tablets

There was a time when I didn’t “get” tablets. I had a desktop/laptop tandem to handle my sitdown computing needs, and I had a smartphone when I was on the go. Tablets seemed like a clunky in-between—neither computer nor smartphone—that didn’t fit into my home office world. Then my wife bought an iPad and I saw the light. Tablets do, in fact, bridge that gap between sitting down at a desk with a computer and typing with your thumbs on the bus while using a phone. With my wife’s iPad, I’m able to break for lunch, head to the pizza place down the street, and a have a beer and a slice while continuing to work, but without lugging a laptop or squinting at a smartphone.

Home Office Audio

While the front-and-center workhorses of a home office—desktops, laptops, smartphones, and other peripherals you actively engage with—can take up a lot of your retail attention, your audio setup is an equally important part of remote work. If you’re listening to music or podcasts while working, or jumping into video meetings throughout the day, the quality of your audio environment plays a crucial part in your work life. Fortunately, deals abound this Cyber Monday season to amp up the fidelity and flexibility of your audio surroundings.

Bluetooth Speakers

Bluetooth speakers are a mainstay in my own home office setup—with sound quality that beats tinny, internal smartphone speakers.

• Bose is offering factory-renewed Soundlink Mini Series I Bluetooth Speakers for $99.95 through Ebay—50 percent off their retail price of $199.95. (Bose factory renewed products come with the same warranty as new products, are sealed in Bose factory packaging, and are thoroughly inspected to meet strict performance standards.)
• Limited amounts of refurbished Harman Kardon Onyx Studio 2 Bluetooth Speakers are also available from Ebay for $69.99—53 percent off their list price of $149.99.
• If you’re looking to add a little visual flash to your portable audio—Amazon Prime is selling the UrPower Hi-Fi Wireless Speaker (with seven pulsating visual LED display modes that accompany your audio) for $19.99, down from its original price of $54.99.

Multimedia Speaker Systems

Still, as great—and essential—as portable audio is, speakers can’t replace the enveloping field of a dedicated audio system in your home office. The internal or default speakers that came with your desktop or laptop computer might make noise, but if you haven’t upgraded to external speakers, you’ll shed a tear when you hear the detail and nuances you’ve been missing out on.

• WalMart is offering the Logitech Z313 Multimedia Speaker System for $24.99—$25 off its original price. The Logitech Z313 system consists of two speakers and a subwoofer (adding more dimension to your home office sound), is small enough to fit into any office configuration, and can connect to any device (desktop, laptop, tablet, smartphone, etc.) through its 3.5mm (headphone) jack.
• Best Buy slashed the price of the LG 2.1 Channel Soundbar System from $279.99 to $119.99 (a $160 savings). The LG 2.1 is a stereo soundbar unit with a wireless subwoofer, bringing home theater stereo sound to your home office. The LG 2.1 can be connected to your devices via HDMI ports, 3.5mm headphone jack, and wirelessly.

Headphones

When you want—or need—to be the only person listening to your home office audio (or you want to block out external noise), Cyber Monday is bringing discounts to the in and over-ear audio sphere as well:

Printers and Scanners

We’re living in a digital world, and print is dead—except for those inevitable times when you need a hard copy of a form, a document, or a mailing label and you realize you don’t have a working printer anymore, because print is dead. Instead of slamming your head against your desk every time this happens—and then immediately forgetting to add a new printer to your shopping list— pull the trigger on this surprisingly necessary piece of office equipment.

Office Furniture

Furniture is a fundamental—but easy to overlook—part of a home office. On the surface, desks and chairs aren’t as exciting as computers and smartphones, but if you’re still sitting in that desk chair that’s been following you around since college—decades ago for some of us—your back might appreciate an upgrade.

If chairs are what you need, Staples has more varieties on sale than you can shake a stapler at.

As for desks, check out:

Automated Assistants/Smart Speakers

Does having an automated assistant to answer your Internet queries, keep you up to date on the weather, and curate your music collection sound like just the thing your home office needs to move into the 21st century? Both Amazon and Google have been rolling out home automation suites than can do just that—and today’s a perfect time to get in on this brave new automated world.

Amazon’s Echo Dot—a hands-free, voice-activated unit that controls smart home devices, makes calls, sends and receives messages, and more—is on sale today for $29.99—a 40 percent discount from the $49.99 list price. If you’re really into listening to music while working, you can add the Dot’s bigger sibling, the Amazon Echo (a device that works like the Dot, but also features a Dolby-powered speaker designed for music playback) for $79.99—a 20 percent savings off the list price of $99. And finally, the mother of all Echoes, the Echo Plus (similar to the Echo but with an improved, higher performance speaker) has been marked down 27 percent to $119.99—$44.99 off the original price of $164.98.

Google has its own flight of futuristic home devices, and they’re also deeply discounted today. Similar to Amazon’s Echo family, Google’s Home line of devices can control music playback, receive and announce news updates, perform voice-activated Google searches, give meeting reminders, and more. Home comes in three models, two of which are on sale. Google’s starter model—the Home Mini—is available from the Google Store for $29 vs. its list price of $49, and the original, mid-range model—the Google Home—is discounted to $79 from $129. Meanwhile, if you’d like to upgrade your home office WiFi network with Google security and network technology, you can throw in a Google WiFi device for $99—$50 off its $129 list price.