Another heatwave is upon us, and it’s time to reinstate your portable air conditioner in its prime position and ensure you’ve got a handheld fan whenever you leave the house. When it comes to working, I’d recommend moving your office outside into the garden or onto your balcony and patio – consider this your ultimate guide to WFO (working from outside).
There really is nothing worse than having to sit indoors and work on a beautiful summer’s day. But the realities of working outside, with the sun shining on your face, glare hitting the screen, and your laptop constantly overheating might make it less of an enjoyable experience than you first thought.
If you want to work smart this summer when you’re outdoors in the garden, I’ve rounded up a survival kit of gadgets to help ensure you’re just as productive outside as you are when working inside.
How I tested
I’ve found a product for every possible working outdoor annoyance, and then put that product through rigorous testing on my north London balcony and in my parents’ garden to ensure it successfully fixes that problem.
With this set-up, you won’t need access to many (if any) plug sockets, so you can work well without having to thread an extension lead out of the window. I’ve thought about sun glare, noise, persistent and fast access to the internet, your laptop overheating, and, of course, you overheating.
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Asus zenscreen MB17AHG 17.3in portable monitor
Best: Portable monitor
Why we love it
- Works with your phone
- Lengthy battery life
- Good size
Take note
- Glare can still get in the way
If you’ve gotten used to using an external monitor over the years and think you’ll miss the extra screen real estate while working outdoors, you’re going to want to get yourself a portable monitor. My top pick is the Asus zenscreen MB17AHG, a super-thin, sleek-looking portable monitor. It’s intended for gamers, so it’s incredibly high-spec, giving you a 144 Hz maximum refresh rate and a buttery smooth, tear-free experience. Maybe a little overkill, but it has one of the largest displays I’ve seen (17.3in) on a screen for the purposes of portability.
It’s not cheap, so I’d only recommend this if you intend to use the monitor on other occasions – it can plug into smartphones via the USB-C and micro-HDMI port, for instance, so it might be a good investment if you also plan on playing some PUBG on a bigger screen. Plus, it comes with an L-shape folio-style case, so you can prop it up in different configurations.
To use it, all you do is plug the monitor using the included USB-C cable into your laptop and off you go, no mains power socket needed. There’s a pretty decent battery, which gives you up to 3.5 hours of use at 144 Hz. An hour of charge will give you an extra two hours of use.
While the matte-finish display does get incredibly bright, you will want to set the brightness to maximum if you want to be able to see the display outdoors. Even then, the glare still does get in the way when the sun hits it directly, so I’d recommend buying a sunshade or an extra screen protector, reviewed below.
Buy now £349.00, Amazon.co.uk
Base12 laptop shade
Best: Laptop sun shade
Why we love it
- Nice openings for cables
- Pockets for your belongings
- Lightweight
Take note
- Hard to fold back up
One of the biggest annoyances you’ll face when working outdoors is not physically being able to see your screen because of sun glare. There are a couple of different ways you can get around this, and one of them involves the use of a laptop or monitor sunshade.
There aren’t many (good) options here, but Base12’s laptop shade does a really great job. OK, it’s basically a tent for your laptop, but it really does work well for making your laptop screen visible, even if it is a bit overkill. It’s quite tall, so you pretty much block out any sun from hitting your face-on, potentially negating the reason why you hopped outside. There are neat openings on either side of the shade for your cables to be easily threaded through, as well as pockets for you to put any of your belongings.
It’s pretty lightweight, which is both a bad and good thing. Your 15in or smaller laptop will need to be heavy enough to weigh it down, or it might go flying, but it’s light enough to carry around. The only issue is that it’s pretty difficult to get it folded back up into its original compressed shape, so much so that you might end up just securing it flat with a rubber band.
Buy now £64.99, Amazon.co.uk
ViaScreens matte laptop screen protector for Apple MacBook pro
Best: Screen protector for sun glare
Why we love it
- Cuts out a lot of sun glare when working outdoors
- Fits loads of different laptops
If you want something a little less bulky and more discreet, then you’re going to want to get yourself a screen protector – specifically one that fends off sun glare. It’s not completely effective at limiting all glare – you’ll need a literal shade for that – but it does stop most of it, making working outdoors a much more comfortable experience. If you want to put a figure on it, then ViaScreens says that its matte screen protectors block out 80 per cent of screen glare.
The sun barely got in the way at all when I applied this one to my laptop. It comes with an applicator, dust removers and alignment tabs to ensure you get the best fit. It’s a little fiddly, as all screen protectors are, but there’s a helpful video to show you how to get it on perfectly.
ViaScreens sells matte screen protectors for almost every single laptop model. I’ve tested it on my MacBook pro, but you can pick one up for your laptop, monitor or tablet, and they all have different price tags.
Buy now £17.95, Viascreens.com
Klim glacier cooling laptop stand
Best: Laptop cooling stand
Why we love it
- Spare port for other devices
- Six powerful fans
- Handy elevation stand
Overheating can have a really big detriment to your laptop’s performance, and when you’re working outdoors, the risk of it overheating increases. To resolve it, you’ll want to get yourself a laptop cooling pad.
My pick here is the Klim glacier laptop cooler. It has six powerful fans that meant my laptop stayed icy cool while working outdoors. It plugs into your laptop with a USB cable, so you don’t need to plug it into a wall outlet, and it has a spare USB slot on the cooler itself, meaning you won’t lose any of your precious ports. You can control the speed of the fans from the bottom of the cooler, with a maximum of 1,200 revolutions per minute for each fan. Because it’s a cooling pad intended for gamers, you will get some flashy RGB lights on the side, which you can make look less embarrassing by hitting a button and changing it to a static colour.
There’s also an in-built elevation stand behind the cooler, allowing you to angle your laptop up. It works with laptops up to 17.3in in size, coincidentally the same size as the portable Asus monitor above, and there are little feet on the bottom to stop your laptop from sliding down.
Buy now £44.97, Amazon.co.uk
TP-Link RE705X AX3000 wifi range extender
Best: Outdoor wifi extender
Why we love it
- Very fast connections
- Connects to the Tether app
If you struggle to get wifi outdoors in the garden and find yourself hotspotting from your mobile phone’s data plan, you’re going to want to buy a wifi extender that boosts the wifi signal far enough for you to connect to it in the garden. The TP-Link RE705X AX3000 isn’t the best-looking thing in the world, but it does the trick.
While it takes a little while to set up, the Tether app makes it really simple to connect your router to the extender. It uses dual-band 2.4 GHz and over 5GHz connections, meaning you should get top speeds when working outdoors and dialling in to Zoom calls. It plugs directly into any power socket, so you can get it as close to your garden as possible.
My speeds were high when I connected to the extender from a couple of metres away from the house, so there was nothing lost there in terms of loading bars.
Buy now £51.90, Amazon.co.uk
Sony WH-1000XM5 wireless headphones
Best: Noise-cancelling headphones
Why we love it
- Drowns out external sound really well
- Great musical clarity
Working outdoors can get unexpectedly loud and there’s no better way of shutting out the noise than with a pair of noise-cancelling wireless headphones. I adore the Sony WH-1000XM5, which deliver incredible noise cancellation and are super comfy to boot. I couldn’t hear the rumble of the freight trains even when working outdoors, so most of the low-frequency sound gets drowned out.
They’re not too warm on your ears either, so my head never got too hot with the sun beating down on us. The touch controls are seamless and snappy, making it a doddle to skip back and forward and adjust the volume, and it helped that they sound really good. My songs sounded rich, full and buoyant, with sparkling highs and moody lows.
Buy now £244.00, Amazon.co.uk
Anker 521 powerhouse portable power station
Best: Portable power station
Why we love it
- Will power any tech for outdoor use
- Loads of ports
Take note
- Quite heavy
So, you want to use a big monitor outdoors, but you’ve got nothing to plug it into? You need to get yourself a portable power station. My pick here is Anker’s portable power station. Anker is one of my favourite brands for anything charging-related.
First off, this thing might look small, but it’s extremely heavy. There’s a good reason for that, though, and it’s because it has a huge 256Wh battery inside. You’ll find two USB-A ports, an AC port, a USB-C port and a car outlet. There’s even an LED light that acts as a torch to light up the dark.
The digital screen tells you how much battery you’ve got left, so you won’t be caught unawares. It takes about five hours to recharge the power station, so you might need to do it a few times during a working week if you’re continuously powering an external monitor.
Buy now £149.00, Amazon.co.uk
The verdict: Gadgets for working outdoors
Working on your laptop outdoors sounds fun in theory, but it’s a lot more difficult in practice. The sun might be your skin’s friend, but it’s a total enemy to your gadgets. Your first port of call has to be a sunshade, which will stop glare from shining on your screen. I’d definitely recommend getting a wifi extender if your work outdoors setup is far from your house, and if you’re used to working on a bigger screen, you can’t really go wrong with Asus’ portable monitor.
For more working from home tips, why not invest in one of the best standing desks
