Embracing VR and treadmills: turning my desk work into a (very eccentric) workout

💡 Remember you can get free copies of my books here.

This article is about how I ended up looking like a satirical caricature nerd:

My home office: standing desk, treadmill, split keyboard, and a VR headset hanging on the side.

About 10 years ago I picked a small object off of a table, and my back spasmed. For a few days, walking was hard. For as few weeks walking hurt. I went to my doctor, I went to a physiotherapist, and nothing really helped. And so the experimentation began.

After a few years I learned what works for me:

• stretch every day (I did a Gymnastics Strength Training program for a year, and now do 10-15 minutes a day)

• I go to a massage therapist once a week¹

• In my home/office environment I stand/walk 90% of the time while working

That last sentence is what this article is about.

Step into my office

Here is a little video from the perspective of me wearing a VR headset. What you are seeing is approximately what I see when I work:

In case you’re wondering: from the perspective of the VR headset wearer everything feels more stable than how it looks on the video. A bit like how filming from inside a car looks very shaky, even if to the people in the car everything feels pretty smooth.

The reasons for this setup that I’ll cover below:

• Improved posture

• Reduced eye strain

• Many steps a day with little to no effort

For those wondering, I spend most of my professional time as a programmer. A notoriously screen+keyboard heavy job (fellow nerds, find me on Github).

VR headset improves posture and neck rotation

I work wearing a Meta Quest 3 VR headset, paired with Meta Horizon Workrooms software².

A Meta Quest 3, the resolution of the screens you see in VR is like a big medium-quality beamer/projector

The reason I love it is that it projects three big screens at a height I can set. This does 2 things:

1. it allows me to sit/stand up straight no matter the height of the desk I am at

2. it forces me to rotate my head to look at the left/right screens

I started doing this during the COVID lockdowns, and it made my home office a lot more pleasant. The virtual office environment even allowed for some work/life separation, plus the headset was portable so I could take it to work remotely when visiting family broad.

Combining this with a standing desk completes the spine posture.While sitting with the VR headset is quite nice, combining it with a standing desk works really well for me. It also lends itself to my way of working, where I shift my weight around a lot and like to move around.

VR headset reduces eye strain

While it seems intuitive that a VR headset causes eye strain because the headset is so close to your face, the reality is different. When you eyes focus on something, two things happen:

• vergence: how cross-eyed you are. When you put a hand in front of your face your eyes will point inwards. When you look at the clouds they are pretty parallel.

• accommodation: how hard the lens in your eye has to focus. This is what makes the background blurry when you look at an object close to your face

In VR you have a weird effect where:

• vergence moves: your eyes need to move to focus on close/far things

• accommodation is static: the screens do not actually move, neither do the lenses in the headset change their focus

In VR the vergence is closer than the brain expects it relative to the accommodation focus distance. Image source.

The accommodation distance of VR headsets is usually between 1.3-2 meters. Which if we’re honest is further away than most people have their laptop/phone screen when using it.

The reason this accommodation distance is so far has to do with the physics of light and lenses. I recommend reading this page if you want to dive deep on it.

On the left you see how a screen appears to an eye (unable to properly see). On the right you see how putting a lens in between the screen and the eye, the physical distance of the screen does not change, but the distance at which your eyes will perceive the image is much farther away than the screen is. Image source.

I noticed that this fact meant that I experience far less eye strain when working in VR compared to a laptop screen. It probably also helps that the screens that I see in VR appear very big to me (like beamer screens), so the letters are big and I don’t need to focus my eyes that hard to able to read small letters.

If this all feels very unintuitive to you, consider this metaphor: when you are wearing earbuds while watching a video on your phone, the speakers inside the earbuds are very close to your ears. Your perception of the sound however can still perceive distance in the sound. The analogy is completely incorrect from a physics angle, but helps to intuitively grasp the principle of this effect.

Treadmill adds kilometers of walking every day

The treadmill under the desk can be folded in half, and can be stored on it’s side. The top has 2 wheels so you can easily move it around.

Putting a treadmill under my desk had been on my wishlist for a long time. But I was deterred because a) I assumed they cost over $1000 and b) it seemed silly.

The reality is that I am silly. And that treadmills go on Amazon for about $150³.

Once I let those two sink in and I found ones that can fold for easy storage, the decision was made. And I now walk most of the time when I am working.

The math is pretty simple, but still mind blowing when you think about it:

• I set my treadmill at 3 km/h

• I work for 2-6 hours at my home office

• That’s 6-18 kilometers of walking per day

And I barely notice I’m doing it because I’m focused on my work 🤯.

Random note: some treadmills charge you with electrostatic charge, like rubbing a balloon against your hair. I bought a cheap anti-static writs strap like this one, and hooked it to the ground pin of my macbook charger⁴. I end up putting it in my pants at the side of my hip because I don’t like the feeling of a bracelet.

Split keyboard opens up the chest

A ZHA Moonlander split keyboard

The last step on my journey of “I don’t care how silly it is I want my body to feel nice” was getting a split keyboard. I ended up getting a ZSA Moonlander which is an expensive option, but very nerd friendly⁵.

This last one is harder to recommend, as it has quite a steep learning curve. If you are up for that however, it allows you to type without closing your chest area. So instead of forcing your torso into a hunched/closed posture because your keyboard is in front of you, you just move the two ends of the keyboard so your hands are as wide as your shoulders.

It looks completely overkill. I love it.

What I recommend

If you want to explore any of the above for your (home) office, I recommend that you try things keeping in mind what is normal/weird and what is easy/hard.Most people can get behind the normal stuff. And if you try something that is easy to reverse, you can just undo it:

• Standing desk (normal/hard): a standing desk isn’t that uncommon anymore, but returning it if you don’t like it is annoying. My view is that worst case, you end up using it in the sitting configuration. Just get one you like.

• VR headset (weird/easy): while it is considered weird by most, if you don’t like it you can just return the purchase within the return window of your merchant. I recommend you also try gaming on it.

• Treadmill (weird/hard): putting a treadmill under your desk is definitely weirdo territory. And if you want to return the device you can, but it is more of a hassle because it it big and heavy.

• Split keyboard: (weird/hard): even your fellow nerds will be like “what in the dvorak are you doing”. The ZSA company is really cool, but really small. If you want to return the keyboard you need to send it to the facilities in Taiwan. Though I’m sure there are cheaper boards available on Amazon.

FAQ

You look silly

That’s not a question and I’m ok with that.

Isn’t this expensive?

Some of it, yes. But while a $500 VR headset sounds expensive, a nerd like me would have spent something like that on a screen anyway. As for the standing desks, IKEA has very cheap ones (which I have) and the keyboard has cheap options available.

Have you considered other headsets?

Yes. I will probably buy a Viture this black friday. I considered the Apple vision pro but they weren’t selling it in the Netherlands for some reason.

Can you type while walking?

Yes. Your hands are resting on the desk and are actually perfectly stable. The downside of that is that your fitness tracker will not register the steps you take.

Can you focus while walking?

Personally, yes. The people I know who also have treadmills (yes yes I have friends like that) vary on how many hours a day they use it. Some of them alternate between sitting, standing, and walking depending on how long their day is.

Do you have VR hot takes?

Yes. VR is good for gaming and solitary work. I wish Meta would stop making fetch VR meetings happen, and instead spend good money on making the solitary work options excellent. Things like custom offices, USB C connection out of the box, or even just basic stability. The current software is OK, but in 10-20% of cases I need to close and reopen the workspace app because it won’t connect to my laptop.

💡 Remember you can get free copies of my books here.

1. Those of you that have been reading my stuff for longer know that I believe a weekly massage is a true form of wealth. More so than expensive objects.

2. I used to work using Immersed VR (another piece of software that pairs with the Quest), but it was very unstable and they kept deleting my bug reports on Discord. I hope they get their stuff together because the idea of their product is epic. They just seem to suffer under bad leadership.

3. Here is an example of a cheap one. Here is the specific one I have.

4. I recommend doing this if your laptop behaves weirdly when you are on a treadmill, I noticed after half an hour of working my laptop sometimes typed keys I didn’t press. That issue completely went away with the electrostatic bracelet.

5. They have a webapp that can flash the firmware of the keyboard straight from the browser. Allowing you to map buttons and macros to your heart’s delight.